Planning the Session:
You may want to take a few minutes to plan your session before you start working with your student. To help you do this we've included a Session Planner Form in the Preparation section. If you'd like, you can print out a copy of this form to use during the session.
Each reading session has three parts:
Pre-Reading
Read Story
Post-Reading
As you plan your session, think about what you and your student would like to do in each part of the session.
- Which story would your student most enjoy reading?
- What reading strategies would you like to help your student develop?
- What strategies would help motivate your student?
- What accessibility features would help your student?
Remember: Reading sessions should be fun and productive both for your student and for you!
We encourage you to preview the story with your student before you actually start reading. To help you with this activity, we have included two pre-reading activities. You can choose to do one or both of them with your student.
Story Preview (Takes 2-3 minutes)
Here is your chance to help your student get ready to read! Before each story, we will give you a short summary of the story. Taking a few minutes to engage your student in a short discussion will help give meaning to the story ahead.
Picture Walk & Vocabulary Preview (Takes 5-10 minutes)
This activity gives you and your student a chance to look at the pictures, predict what might happen in the story, and preview some of the words that may be challenging. You'll find questions on each page to help you guide your student through this activity.
After you and your student have explored the story and made some predictions, you're ready to read! Here's how LiteracyAccess Online can help!
Icons
On each story page, you'll find a set of icons. Each icon represents a different strategy you and your student can use for help if you run into difficulty with the reading.
| Look closer: Teach your students to look at pictures, titles, headings, sub-headings, etc. Help your students learn to use visual clues to unlock the meaning of new words. | |
| Think about it: Teach your students to think about what they've said and to decide whether or not it makes sense. Help them to think about what's happening in the story. | |
| Look back: Teach your students to go back to the beginning of the sentence or the passage and try reading it again. | |
| Sound it out: Teach your students to use phonics skills to try and sound out new words. Ask them to think about the letter/s that the new word begins or ends with, to think about what those letters sound like, to see if they can find any smaller words within the words, and so on. | |
| Make a guess: Teach your students to look for clues that will help them guess the meaning of words they don't recognize. | |
| Good job!: Remember to use positive feedback and to be very specific about what it is that your students have done right! | |
| Take a break: Reading is hard work! Remember to take breaks frequently. |
Questions
You'll also find questions in the story you're reading that you and your student can use to help understand the story better.
After you and your student have completed reading a story for the first time, you can choose to try out some skill builder activities to reinforce your student's learning. You'll have a choice of six different types of activities:
Phonics
Fluency
Making Words
Vocabulary
Write to Read
Comprehension
The activity you choose, will depend on which type of skill you and your student would like to work on.
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