Reading with Early Grade-Schoolers (7-8 years)
By the early grades of primary school, children understand and use many more words than in their earlier years. Depending on early conversational and reading experiences, there can be huge differences in vocabulary size among different children. By the end of third grade, children would have mastered all sound-letter correspondences and learned how to read multi-syllable words.
They should be reading fluently and with comprehension. Children are also continuing to develop their understanding of figurative language, an inadequate grasp of which can interfere with reading comprehension. They will also be encountering increasingly sophisticated vocabulary and complex grammar in the books they read. Instruction in morphemes (the smallest units of meaning in a language, e.g., word parts such as affixes) helps children at this stage to analyze and understand more words as they read.
Types of Books to Choose
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Allow your child to select books that he or she can read to you whilst you continue to select books to read aloud that are beyond your child's current reading level.
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If necessary, help your child choose appropriate books for independent reading. With the 'five finger method', if your child opens a selected book to a random page, attempts to read it, and encounters five words he or she doesn't know, an easier book would be more appropriate.
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Continue to read picture books with more advanced content and plots as well as chapter books.
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Look for well-researched non-fiction books with accompanying graphics that will broaden your child's general knowledge.
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Choose books that will expose your child to cultures other than his or her own.
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Select books with rich vocabulary that introduce your child to synonyms for more common and familiar words as well as to vivid words (e.g., a book that uses whispered, bellowed or complained instead of said, or strutted, limped or plodded instead of walked or went).
Tips for Reading
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Encourage your child to use his or her code knowledge to sound out, or identify, unfamiliar words.
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Draw your child's attention to word parts such as roots and affixes and encourage him or her to use these morphemes to understand unfamiliar words. Here are lists of the most common prefixes and suffixes in English, as well as a comprehensive bank of word roots.
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Show your child how to use context clues to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words. Such clues include antonyms or synonyms, as well as examples, definitions and glosses provided by the author (e.g., 'This sentence says "Tony's industrious nature made him impatient with his lazy brother". It sounds like Tony is the opposite of his brother, so industrious most likely means "not lazy" or "hardworking".')
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Model comprehension strategies for your child, for example, showing him or her how to make inferences, determine the main ideas of a book and connect what is being read to what you already know.
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Ask different types of comprehension questions: literal, inferential and critical. Read more about this here.
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Have meaningful discussions with your child about the books you read together. Encourage your child to talk about books in increasingly sophisticated ways; for example, by having your child support his or her evaluations of a book. (e.g., Parent: 'What was it about the book that made you like it?' Child: 'I enjoyed the book because the author writes in a way that makes me laugh.') You can model the types of responses you'd like your child to produce by explaining your own thoughts about a book.