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10 mistakes to avoid when teaching reading

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Are you making these common mistakes when teaching reading in K-2?

Let’s make sure we’re avoiding these ten common mistakes!

Mistake #1 – Neglecting phonemic awareness instruction

For years I thought a “hit or miss” approach to phonological and phonemic awareness was sufficient. Throw in some songs throughout the day, clap the syllables in our names, rhyme a bit, and play beginning sound games … that should cover it, right?

For some kids, yes. This may be enough. Likely, these children come from a language-rich background and have been read to since they were babies.

But explicit phonological and phonemic awareness instruction is helpful for everyone, and (as researchers are telling us) often the MISSING LINK for kids who struggle to read … even for struggling readers who do come from a literacy-rich background with parents who read to them every day.

 

Mistake #2 – Misunderstanding phonics

I’m sorry to say it, but I misunderstood the role of phonics for years.

Until very recently, in fact.

I saw phonics as just one tool kids could use as they approached words. I believed kids should also use picture clues and “what would make sense” to solve the words in their leveled readers.

Fast forward a number of months and LOTS of study of the science of reading, and now I believe differently.

Systematic, explicit phonics instruction is KEY for early readers. Not because we want reading to be boring, but because they absolutely must learn to focus on print as they attach sounds to letters (phonemes to graphemes) and decode words.

This is what kids need to do to map words into their permanent sight word vocabulary.

(It’s called orthographic mapping, but I’ll spare you details for now!)

Mistake #3 – Waiting to teach comprehension

Now I know that those simple decodable books that we give our beginning readers don’t offer much in the way of teaching comprehension. (And even if you’re using predictable leveled books, you have to admit that they’re not very deep either.)

But we still need to teach it.

A great way to focus on comprehension is through shared reading and quality, interactive read-alouds.

Mistake #4 – We spend too much time teaching the whole group.

Whole group teaching is important. It’s when we teach on-grade level material to the whole class.

But we accelerate our students’ learning by teaching them in small, needs-based groups.

Mistake #5 – Not giving our students time to practice reading

Too often we spend most of our reading time teaching students about reading instead of giving them time to read.

Give your students lots of practice reading word lists, phrases, and connected text.

Mistake #6 – We keep our students busy instead of having them do meaningful literacy activities.

It’s important to differentiate by teaching students in small, needs-based groups and one-on-one. But what’s the rest of the class doing?

Too often?

Busy work.

Do you know why I think this is?

I think it’s because we’re exhausted. Switching out learning centers day after day, week after week, month after month, is burning both us – and our laminators – out. What we really need is authentic, meaningful literacy activities that don’t require hours and hours of prep every weekend. (You can get started with these ideas!)

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Mistake #7 – We don’t use assessment to inform our instruction.

Let’s talk traditional assessment: Read the story. Answer the questions. Take a test at the end of the unit. Get a report card grade.

Checking on understanding is important. But assessment is so much more.

I highly recommend Acadience Reading for benchmark assessment and progress monitoring.

Mistake #8 – We think we can find the perfect curriculum for teaching reading.

Teachers have been looking for the perfect reading curriculum – and publishers have been trying to create it – for decades.

But we haven’t found one because it doesn’t and won’t exist.

No matter how great your reading curriculum is, you will need to supplement. Keep your eyes open for where and when that might be.

Mistake #9 – We forget our ultimate goal.

In the past I was so overcome with the desire to help my students love reading that I was afraid to do explicit teaching. I thought it might bore them and turn them off to reading.

But as Anita Archer has said, “Success breeds motivation.”

It’s wonderful if our students learn to love reading … but our number one goal is to teach them to read.

Mistake #10 – We wear ourselves out.

I’m with you here – in fact, I can’t tell you how many late nights I spent at school (not to mention all those hours on the weekends) my first few years of teaching reading.

I knew I needed a different approach if I was going to meet the needs of all my first and second grade readers. But I felt like a hamster on a wheel – running, running, running … and getting nowhere.

Since I spent all my spare time trying to find the solution to meeting a group of diverse readers, I wore myself out. I couldn’t bring my best energy and self to the classroom because I wasn’t getting enough sleep!

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Reader Interactions

24 Comments

  1. Cheryl T.

    Thank you for the great article. What if you are not a classroom teacher but more of an AIS teacher and your students are mostly ELL students more than 2 grade levels below. I feel guilty that I rely heavily on phonics the 2 days a week I see them. For example I am still working on basic pre primer sight words and short a family words with my 2nd graders. I do have them read short a paragraphs with a few comp questions, but unfortunately with only seeing them 2x a week for 30 minutes I do not feel like we are getting anywhere.

    Reply to this comment

    • Anna G

      Hi Cheryl! I’m experiencing something similar with a group of first graders I work with before school several days a week. I have chosen to focus on phonics as well, because I know that the intense phonics work they need is not something their classroom teacher can provide. I also understand feeling like you’re not making progress! I have found it helpful to mix things up but also have a set of core activities that we keep coming back to. I use these folders a lot, and I feel they’re helping: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/fast-fluent-games-cvc-words/

      Reply to this comment

    • mavis zwane

      You simply the best. ever since I joined your blog years ago. My teaching has changed a lot and I have confident readers and happy learners. Teaching multi language and ethnicity in South Africa is not easy as most of these leaners come from different backgrounds with different languages. English either becomes their second or third language language. But I can proudly say it has been easy ever since I followed you…

      Reply to this comment

  2. Suzanne Westom

    Excellent ideas. I’d add retelling as an important skill for comprehension. Even when the story lacks Newberry/Caldicott flair, we can still assess the child’s ability to pay attention to detail. Bonus points to you for mentioning quality read aloud as the starting point for comprehension!

    Reply to this comment

  3. Karen Trott

    You are absolutely correct when you say we over work ourselves. We are constantly bringing work home and it never ends. This is my 27th year of teaching and I still enjoy everyday in the classroom. I am currently taking the online course and I recommend all teachers to do it and feel refreshed. YES! we are doing the things that have been outlined in the course, but there is always something that needs a little work. THE INDEPENDENT READING AND CONFERENCING has a whole new meaning for me. Watch out Monday!!!
    THANKS A LOT!!

    Reply to this comment

  4. Melissa

    Hi Anna, just wondering if you have a list of recommended order to teach all the different things associated with reading. We are good with letter recognition and sounds. But not sure what order to teach the rest e.g syllables, phonemes, vowels, long, short, blends. What order is best to teach these in? And then what order in each category? e.g. so with the blends do I teach cr first or sh first or does it not matter? thankyou

    Reply to this comment

    • Anna G

      Hi Sarah! I would say that a good percentage of the course (about 40%) really would not apply to homeschoolers, as it’s focused on managing a large classroom of diverse readers. That said, it is extremely helpful in teaching the fundamentals of good reading instruction as well as providing a HUGE variety of printable resources. Overall, though, I think it’s MORE than what a homeschooler would need in terms of materials, and LESS in terms of “how-to.” It is definitely written with teachers in mind.

      Reply to this comment

  7. Liz

    I love this post, Anna! Sometimes we get so caught up in the teaching details that we can forget the importance of instilling a love of reading – that’s more important than stressing kids by following a plan that says where the kids aught to be, instead of teaching from where the child actually is. Thank you!

    Reply to this comment

  8. Vanaja Sathiskumar

    I think making the kids say the story in their own words,after the story is read is a good idea to develop their vocabulary and check their comprehension.Thank you for the lovely phonics cards and just cant wait to get ti use it for my granchild,she `s only 8 months.

    Reply to this comment

  9. Marybeth Song

    I would like to see a strong emphasis placed on writing to teach reading. Actually, writing for pleasure, writing to communicate with others, writing, writing, writing. If a teacher is uncertain about her/his workload being ridiculously increased if writing is emphasized, join the National Writing Project and see how doing writing as well as reading with students to sharpen literacy works well for all learners, students and teachers alike.

    Reply to this comment

  10. Kathy Morrison

    I would add another one: Overlooking Srorytelling. It’s especially important in these days of staring at those small screens instead of interacting with each other. Children need time to read pictures and create a story on their own. Teachers need to tell stories, rather than always reading. It helps with reading comprehension and children’s writing development.

    Reply to this comment

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