Reading Help in 5 Minutes

Parents and teachers keep their eyes open for ways to give their children reading help.  Karen Acres from The DesMoinesRegister.com just reported in the Urbandale Schools section what Lisa Langan’s third, fourth, and fifth graders are doing to improve their reading skills. This simple technique is used as early as first grade for reading help. This same Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills is also used by adults that want to improve their reading skills.

“Lisa Langan’s third-, fourth- and fifth-graders are using a new reading strategy from the book “Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills” by Bonnie Terry. They practice the strategy at least twice a week. The reading materials include word lists starting with lists of three-letter short vowel words to long vowel words, vowel pairs in words, consonant combinations, two-syllable words, and common prefixes and suffixes. Each drill builds gradually on the previous drills. The first four minutes are an oral pre-read practice of the drill page, and the final minute is a one-minute oral reading of the same list. Each drill page has four sets of words. The first three word sets have extra spaces between the letters, whereas the final list has no spaces between the word letters. The spacing helps students review the specific phonic rules as well as providing visual support. Word list mastery depends on the grade level. Langan’s students graph their scores, which keeps the students motivated about  their reading progress.”

Reading Help in 5 Minutes Really Works

University or Florida’s researcher Cecil Mercer published his results from his study Effects of Fluency Intervention for Middle Schoolers with Specific Learning Disabilities in (2000) stating daily practice can be for as little as five or six minutes.

Reading Help Video: See how you can improve reading fluency in just 5 minutes a day.

Reading Fluency: Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills

Substantial gains in reading fluency came from repeated oral reading of various sorts such as letters or words for five or six minutes a day. The key to the success was doing the repeated oral reading over a period of time e.g. six months to twenty-three months.

So, now view the video that shows you how you can help your children improve their reading fluency in just 5 minutes a day.

For more information on other skills that affect reading ability, be sure to go to Learning Reading Help: 3 Reasons for Reading Struggles.

When do you start giving your kids reading help? When do you teach them reading readiness?

You would be amazed at the number of children I’ve seen over the years that have needed reading help that didn’t have a solid foundation of reading readiness skills.  This goes for children that are in kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and even 4th grade. So, when I received the following question from Karen, I thought it would be a good idea to shed some light on reading help and reading readiness.

I just received a letter from Karen regarding activities for teaching her triplets.

Karen writes:

“My triplets are 5 yrs. old and in kindergarten this year.  One is a special needs child.  I could use ideas for teaching multiples.  There is no older sibling to model.  Also, trying to work with our special needs daughter and the others creates many challenges.”

Hi Karen,

I know what you mean about challenges – working with 3 kids at the same time and one of them being a special needs child can be difficult.

Here are some tips for working with  kids at the same time – whether they are in kindergarten or any of the primary grades.

I would pick a time to work with each of the kids individually – for 10 to 15 minutes so they get some individual time with you. While working with one of them the other two can be doing something like coloring or listening to a book on tape.

In fact, you can even read their favorite books into a tape – at a speed that is comfortable for them to listen to and then they can listen to you reading to them – following along with your voice – while you are doing some individual work/activity with the others. Then you are still being ‘present’ to the one/s you aren’t working with.

You might even set up a special spot with their stuffed animals and a large pillow where they get to listen to the books. So it winds up being the ‘special place’ where they get to listen to stories.

Also, I would do things like playing Simon Says, bean- bag toss, hop-scotch, or red light green light – games that are relatively easy to do with all 3 that would also work on listening skills and following directions.

You are at the perfect time for doing reading readiness activities with your kids. Remember, all kids need the following readiness skills in order to do well with school tasks. These specific readiness skills  are critical to being a successful learner. Reading help is lessened when these readiness skills are in place.

Readiness skills can be categorized into the following areas:

1. Matching – objects and or sounds
2. Size – small-medium-large; big-little; long-short; fat-thin
3. Shape – circles, squares, and triangles
4. Action – start – stop; slow-fast
5. Position – top – bottom; under-over; forward-backward; up-down; inside-outside
6. Relationships – same-different; parts-whole
7. Configurations – patterns & sequencing
8. Classifications – sorting objects into categories or arrange them into groups – by size, shape, or color
9. Combination Concepts and Time – positions & shapes or positions and matching and time
10. Listening & following directions (These skills are utilized in all of the above activities.)

Hope this helps.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET

P.S. Be sure to ask your questions by clicking on the Ask Me a Question Button.