How to Teach Reading Strategies

If you're an elementary school teacher, reading strategies are some of the most important skills that you can teach your students. With proper guidance, they can learn how to scan for the main idea, skim to get the overall idea of the writing, read for detail and predict what will happen in the story.

Instructions

1. Show your students how to overcome obstacles. No matter what reading strategy you're teaching, you must first give your students the ability to work through any hurdles they experience. Show them how to break down long words into smaller pieces and to read and re-read sentences that may confuse them. This will come in handy later when they try to read for detail or predict an outcome.

2. Ask a lot of questions. When learning reading strategies, most children already have a grasp of the basic concepts. If you ask the right questions, they can tell you the main idea of the story and predict what will happen next. As you teach, talk with your students throughout the story and ask the right questions to help them make connections.

3. Give them a visual to look at. As you read the story together, draw a diagram outlining what happened in the story. This can help to show your students what a main idea is and guide them when they learn how to skim and scan for main ideas.

4. Teach them that practice makes perfect. The more they read and exercise various reading skills, the better readers your students will become. Every child learns at a different pace, so give the slower learners an opportunity to catch up while stimulating the faster readers as well.