{"id":13841,"date":"2019-08-14T19:40:06","date_gmt":"2019-08-14T11:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/?p=13841"},"modified":"2019-08-14T19:40:20","modified_gmt":"2019-08-14T11:40:20","slug":"correcting-common-reading-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/2019\/08\/correcting-common-reading-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Correcting Common Reading Mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my Love to Read<\/a> and Phonics<\/a> classes, students often make the same mistakes repeatedly when reading aloud. Children in Hong Kong can be under a lot of pressure to read from an early age, and teachers and parents can be tempted to let small mistakes slip by in order to encourage faster reading. However, I make sure to always correct the repeated mistakes I hear (in a kind and constructive way<\/a>), as this is vital for long term language success.<\/p>\n

When small mistakes are not corrected early on, children make the same errors over and over again, and these become hard habits to break. To support your child with their reading, encourage them to read aloud \u2013 this gives you lots of opportunities to listen out for any reading mistakes they make.<\/p>\n

Here are some common reading and pronunciation mistakes to watch out for and solutions to help correct them:<\/p>\n

Reading Mistakes<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Ignoring the \u2018s\u2019:<\/strong>Perhaps the most frequent mistake, the \u2018s\u2019 at the end of a word is ignored when reading, e.g. Talks > Talk<\/p>\n

Whole word errors:<\/strong>\u00a0Words are misread because they look very similar to another word the child knows, e.g. Simple > Smile Agree > Argue With > Will<\/p>\n

Guessing words:<\/strong>\u00a0Children are looking at the first few letters and are guessing the rest of the word, e.g. Surprise > Suppose<\/p>\n

Tracking errors<\/strong>: Reading the letters but not in their correct left-to-right order, e.g. No > On Was > Saw Of > For<\/p>\n

Reading too quickly<\/strong>: Words are skipped or misread as the child is not paying attention to all of the letters and words, e.g. Son > Soon Began > Begin Said > Say<\/p>\n

Solution<\/strong>: Don\u2019t correct your child straight away. Double tap on the misread or skipped word with your finger as a signal for your child to check and try again. If they struggle to identify or correct the mistake, move your finger from left to right, encouraging them to read letter by letter. If your child is making mistakes due to reading too quickly, keep your finger on the page, and track each word slowly to set the pace.<\/p>\n

Pronunciation Mistakes<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Mispronouncing \u2018ed<\/strong>\u2019: It\u2019s common to struggle to pronounce \u2018ed\u2019 correctly, as it sounds different in different words, e.g. \u2018talked\u2019 and \u2018decided\u2019.<\/p>\n

Slow reading<\/strong>: Pausing and slowing down between words and mid-word creates unnatural word-sounds that are hard to understand. This can happen when a child is unfamiliar with the words or when they aren\u2019t using phonics to help blend letters together.<\/p>\n

Confusing letters<\/strong>: Confusion surrounding letters that look similar to another such as \u2018b\u2019 and \u2018d\u2019 and \u2018p\u2019 and \u2018q\u2019 can lead to frequent reading errors, e.g. bad > dad<\/p>\n

Solution<\/strong>: For these mistakes, practise phonics and blending, focus on vowel sounds and digraphs (the sounds of different combinations of letters together like \u2018sh\u2019 and \u2018ch\u2019).<\/p>\n

There are also rules for several tricky sounds. For example, for the different sounds that \u2018ed\u2019 makes at the ends of words:
\n\u2022 If the letter before it is \u2018t\u2019 or \u2018d\u2019, \u2018ed\u2019 it is pronounced \u2018-id\u2019. Decided = Decide-id
\n\u2022 If the letter before it is either \u2018f\u2019, \u2018k\u2019, \u2018p’, ‘s’, ‘ch’ or ‘sh’ then \u2018ed\u2019 is pronounced with a \u2018-t\u2019 sound. Talked = Talk-t
\n\u2022 For most other letters, the \u2018ed\u2019 after them sounds like \u2018d\u2019. Dreamed = Dream-d<\/p>\n

Learn common sight words and exceptions like \u2018the\u2019, \u2018was\u2019 and \u2018home\u2019. These will help children read quickly and accurately.<\/p>\n

Play with letter cards to practise recognising both capital and small versions of the letters focusing on letters that are similar, like \u2018b\u2019 and \u2018d\u2019.<\/p>\n

If your child struggles with the same word repeatedly, point back to a previous page where they read it correctly.<\/p>\n

With more guided reading practice, your child will slowly overcome these small errors and become more confident readers. To improve your child\u2019s reading, consider using graded readers like i-Learner\u2019s own Bugbug\u2019s Library series<\/a>, which includes phonics and vocabulary for specific levels.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my Love to Read and Phonics classes, students often make the same mistakes repeatedly when reading aloud. Children in Hong Kong can be under a lot of pressure to read from an early age, and teachers and parents can be tempted to let small mistakes slip by in order to encourage faster reading. However, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":13842,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[788],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13841"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13843,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13841\/revisions\/13843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}