For my beginning readers, around levels A and B, I try to start out with the following teaching points or content objectives in the first few sessions:
point to all the words
get your mouth ready
use the pictures
does it make sense?
Because I have struggling readers at this level in 1st and 2nd grade, I try to infuse shared reading into our guided reading sessions by making strategy chants or songs.
I learned a cute tune for the "get your mouth ready" teaching point and reading cue. I used the same tune for "point to all the words". And I wrote a little chant to the tune of "Are you sleeping?/Dormez Vous?" for the use the pictures strategy.
First I remind students of what we learned last time, a connection, and I remind them that they should do that today too. Then I teach them the chant or song and we sing it together. Then we talk about the vocabulary and sing it again.
Then I model, the strategy: I don't know a word and I get my mouth ready and the word comes out; I point to the words and my oral words don't match the words on the page so I re-read a couple times until I'm sucessful [reading the title My New Friend as 'My New Best Friend' too many words, and 'My Friend' not enough words]; and I use the pictures to figure out words I don't know.
Before they start to read we talk about the strategy. I might say: "so what strategy can you try today to figure out tricky words." They will say sound it out first, you just need to push them for more: "that's one strategy to figure out tricky words, what else can we do."
Later, when the readers read on their "own" I listen in, if they get stuck, I give them the prompt that I think will help.
Here the other chants:
Use the pictures
Use the pictures (students repeat as they learn or all together)
To help you read
To help you read
You can figure out
You can figure out
Tricky words
Tricky words
to the tune of: Are you sleeping?
Read the words
Ask yourself a question
Does it make sense?
Does it make sense?
Some day I'll record these to give an idea of the sound. Let me know if you try it to help motivate me!
