How to Teach Students to Read Longer Words
Why Teach Students to Read Compound Words?
A free sample of the Compound Word Games resource can be downloaded at the end of this post.
Have you witnessed this in your classroom?
The text says, “This person works at a zoo. He’s an animal interpreter. Animal interpreters are like teachers.”
A student reads, “This person works at a zoo. He’s an animal investigator. Animal investigators are like teachers.”
Once students are able to read longer words, you’ll notice that some of your young readers substitute words in the text. Frequently, the substitutions will start and end similarly to the author’s words. Why does this happen? One theory is that students are not attending to the middle of longer words.
Students need to understand that our brains must focus on the whole word in order to read accurately. Working on compound words helps train our young readers to actively look at the whole word. Why? Because their goal is to figure out the two smaller words that make up the compound word. They can’t achieve that goal if they skip over the middle of the word.
In my work with struggling readers, I’ve discovered that presenting compound words in a game format is an engaging way to teach their brains to focus on whole words. So students do not become frustrated, the games I created match the phonics skills they know. In this way, you can differentiate your instruction by choosing games that match your learners’ phonics skill level.
The games move from simple to more complex phonics skills, following this sequence:
Compound words with short vowel sounds.
Compound words with the CVCe pattern.
Compound words with r-controlled vowels.
Compound words with vowel teams & ending y.
Compound words with complex vowel teams (diphthongs).
Here’s a free download of the short vowel compound word games.
If you find these games useful in training your young readers to actively look at whole words, you can find the full resource of Compound Word Games in My Shop.
