Children should read daily at home.  When helping your child with reading at home, you can use these strategies in solving unknown words.

1. Tell the child to look at the picture. You may suggest that the word is something that can be seen in the picture.

2. Ask the child to get his/her mouth ready to say the word by shaping the mouth for the beginning letter.

3. Tell the child to look for chunks in the word, such as it in h-it, at in s-at, or and and ing in st-and-ing.

4. Ask the child if the word looks like another word she/he knows. For example, Does bed look like red?

5. Use context clues by telling your child to read to the end of the sentence. Often by reading the other words in context, the child can figure out the "unknown" word.

6. If the child says the wrong word while reading, ask questions like:

        Does that make sense?

        Does it sound right?

        Does it look right?