Caribbean Academy for Reading Intervention and Development

  Benefits of Our Programme : Sight Words and High Frequency Words  At The Caribbean Academy for Reading Intervention and Development, we offer an Individual Reading Assistance Program that assists struggling readers to build skills in:  Sight words and high-frequency words  Sounds recognition  Reading comprehension  Letter and word recognition  Phonics and phonemic awareness  Importance of Sight Words and High-Frequency Words  High-frequency words are those that appear frequently in the reading material you give your kids. For better reading comprehension and speed, you must be able to recognize these words "by sight". High-frequency words serve as the foundation for children's reading success because they are so prevalent. Being able to quickly and automatically recognize these words is a crucial step in developing fluent reading skills. Common words that children instantly recognize without having to sound them out are known as sight words...

What Can Parents Do To Encourage Struggling Readers  In our last blog post, we spoke about struggling readers and how teachers can motivate and encourage them in the classroom. Now, let’s shift to parents and what they can do at home to encourage and motivate struggling readers.  Reading success requires effort and diligence from three parties: the teacher, the student and the parent. It is important that each party knows their role in the child’s reading journey and are able to perform the tasks specific to them. So, how can parents motivate and encourage struggling readers at home?  Be supportive and encourage them to read daily. Something as simple as encouraging them to keep reading or having them read a page a day for you serves as encouragement to keep trying. This also shows the student that you care and you are supportive of their reading journey.  Provide incentives. Reading, especially for struggling readers, can be a difficult and arduous task. Provide inc...

  What Can Teachers Do To Encourage Struggling Readers  As a struggling reader, it can often be demotivating to continue attempting to master reading. Every day at school might be filled with feelings of worry, frustration, and guilt for the students who have difficulty reading at grade level. This may be brought on by the frustration of trying to read the information in front of them and finding it difficult, or it may simply be a result of them witnessing their friends excelling at reading. In order to inspire pupils to read, it is essential to satisfy their social and emotional needs and motivate them.  So, how do we motivate and encourage our struggling readers to keep trying? What measures can be put in place? What can teachers do? Create a classroom environment that is conducive to learning. Struggling readers may already feel intimidated and demotivated in the classroom. Creating a classroom environment that encourages learning will help them to feel motivated and ...

  ‘My child has a reading problem’, this is a common yet vague complaint. Many times our children/students may be struggling readers but we’re unable to pinpoint exactly why. It is important to note that reading is made up of many components. A student can master one component and be struggling in another and this will affect their overall reading skills. The main components of reading are:  phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Now, let’s look at the scenario below.  Have you ever experienced a scenario where your child read a story or passage and you felt that their reading skills were excellent because they read fluently, but upon asking them questions about the passage, they were unable to answer? This is more common than you may think. Reading has many components and among them are fluency and comprehension. While both are important aspects of reading, they are not the same thing. You may have a child that has mastered fluency and they ...

  Repeated Reading  Have you ever read a passage once and fumbled on a lot of the words, but as you reread it the second time, you noticed that your reading was a bit better, more fluent perhaps?  What Is Repeated Reading?  Repetition of reading is a technique used in academia to improve fluency in oral reading. Students who have mastered basic word reading skills but exhibit reading fluency that is insufficient for their grade level can benefit from repeated reading. With struggling readers, it was proposed to develop decoding automaticity. In this method, students read aloud brief text passages until they achieve a predetermined level of proficiency (particular speed and accuracy goals). Repeated reading can be used with content-area texts or as part of a regular reading programme in the classroom. It can be changed to incorporate whole-group, small-group, or individual repeated-reading exercises using either unassisted or assisted techniques. The reading passages ...

  Signs Your Child May Be Struggling With Reading Comprehension  In our last blog, we dove into what Reading Comprehension is, its importance and briefly established one sign that your child may be struggling with Reading Comprehension.  There are many signs that may hint that your child is struggling with Reading Comprehension, but how can you know?  Ask A Question! - after reading a story or paragraph, ask your child a question. Start off with simple and fun questions just to test whether your child has grasped the context of the passage or not. Of course the types of questions asked will vary based on your child’s age and reading level.  For example, imagine a scenario where your child reads the short paragraph below.    ‘Jack and Jan are smiling. They are on their way to the park. Jack walks quickly and so does Jan. As they approach the park, they begin to run. Jack runs towards the slides and Jan rushes to the swing. Both children laugh as th...