Teaching kids to read and helping those who struggle

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Reading Rockets offers a wealth of reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. Our reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in helping struggling readers build fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.

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Difficulties With Comprehension

Some children encounter obstacles in learning to read because they do not derive meaning from the material that they read.

From 1st grade onward, children benefit from almost daily opportunities to organize, transcribe, and edit their thoughts in writing.

A variety of writing assignments appropriate to their abilities is desirable, including production of narratives and exposition.

While they are building the skills of letter formation, spelling, and sentence generation, children also should be taught to compose in stages: generating and organizing ideas, initially with a group or partner; producing a draft; sharing ideas with others for the purpose of gaining feedback; and revising, editing, proofreading, and publishing.

To teach writing well, teachers themselves should model writing and the writing process for their students. Professional development in this area often combines instruction in the organization and management of a writing program with opportunities for teachers themselves to write.