Primary Grade 1 : Reading Strategies

Grade 1 LOVE to read stories aloud and discuss them. We share our favorite parts of stories and practise giving reasons for our choices. We are learning about the differences between fiction and informational text. During Guided Reading, students work in small groups using a text at their instructional level to practise the reading strategies we have been exploring.

This semester, Grade 1 continue to explore strategies to develop our reading comprehension, accuracy, fluency and vocabulary. We are focusing on the following strategies; decoding, asking questions, making connections and making inferences and deduction.

Decoding: We use the following strategies when trying to decode unknown words: • Use the picture • Look at the first letter of the word • Look for a word in the word • Skip the word and think about what makes sense We will continue to practice these decoding strategies as well as add new ones to our repertoire throughout the year.

Asking Questions: Students are learning to ask questions of themselves, the author, and the text, before, during, and after reading. Grade 1 have been doing a great job with practising this with their class response partners and their Grade 4 reading buddies. Here are some reading response prompts for your child: I wonder how… I wonder why… I wonder where… I wonder when… I wonder who… I wonder what…

Making Connections: which can include: text to text, text to self and text to world. Text-to-self connections are made when students are able to connect something that happens in a story to something that has happened in their own lives. Students make text-to-text connections when they make connections between two books, songs or poems that they’ve read or heard. Students make text-to-world connections when they relate something that they read in a book to a bigger issue that is going on in the world.

Inference & Deduction: We have been learning to make inferences while reading. This means that we put together clues from the story, and what they already know, to figure out something that the author does not tell the reader. Looking at illustrations and using our prior knowledge, we are learning to figure out how a character is feeling or why a character may have acted a certain way. We have really enjoyed exploring this strategy through Lucy Cousin’s Maisy series.

All Grade 1 children are encouraged to read each night. We encourage parents/caregivers to take part in the joy of sharing a book with their child.