Reading Longer Words?

Does your child guess at longer words? Today I'll show you how to help your child read longer words.

Watch this short video.


It is helpful to break a word into smaller parts. Phonics rules can be used and seen. The rules won't always work, but the word attempt will be close. A child who is good at guessing words will be able to try and read the word again changing the necessary sounds slightly to come up with the right word.

You can write a word with spaces between the word parts on paper, on a magna doodle, or on a white board.

You can use magnetic letters to show spaces between word parts.

You can finger frame to read one word part at a time.

Click this link to find some helpful phonics rules.
Click this link to find out what to expect from a beginning reader.

I usually kept an erasable whiteboard, magna doodle, notebook, or magnetic letters handy when my children were reading a book to me. I think learning to break words apart at sound or syllable level, using phonics rules, and knowing to slightly change vowel sounds or leave some letters silent is the best thing I taught my kids.

Another important thing I taught my children is to stop when what they read didn't sound right or make sense.
I'd let them finish a sentence and hope they would catch it themselves. If they didn't stop, I'd ask if it sounded right. Sometimes I'd repeat what they read and ask which part didn't sound right. We might look at the word and take that word apart. Check out this link for more infomation about how this is done.

Here's a video showing how to take the word promise apart while reading Just a Daydream.


Phonics Pathways has 26 pages to practice reading words taken apart at the syllable level.

Lessons from this book have helped a fourth grader I'm currently tutoring.