Strategies for Reading Longer Words

As readers move from reading beginning readers to hard texts, they need to develop strategies for reading longer words. Some readers can make this move almost naturally, while other readers {like my oldest son} do not.

Today, I’m sharing some simple strategies for reading longer words resources you can download for free! {The free printable can be found towards the END of this post. Click on the teal download button.}

*This post contains affiliate links.
**The free printable can be found towards the END of this post. Click on the teal download button.

 

As my is moving into harder and longer texts (2nd grade), he has begun to really struggle with reading longer words; words like national or unfrozen. This has really affected his motivation to read. So I put my “teacher hat” on and devised a plan for him. He needed some concrete strategies for reading longer words.

 

Strategies for Reading Longer Words

Now, we are in the middle of working these strategies, one at a time. How long is it taking us? As long as it takes him to “get it”. The strategies included are meant to go in this order* as he “attacks” the word.

 

• Look for parts you know at the BEGINNING of the word (prefixes). I have listed some very common prefixes in the box. If your child wants to add more on the organizer, maybe ones that are tricky for him, let him do it.
• Look for parts you know at the END of the word (suffixes). Again, I listed some common suffixes that I noticed over and over in my son’s reading.
• Look for VOWEL PATTERNS that you know in the base word. Although vowel patterns and sounds can change when moving from single syllable words to longer words, a lot of them stay the same. Helping kids see the connection between the vowel patterns they already know and applying that knowledge to longer words is a good thing.
• Divide the word into SYLLABLES. If your child does not know how to do this, All About Reading (Level 3) is a great place to start. Words Their Way also does quite of bit of syllable sorting in their Syllable and Affix Spellers supplement book.
• Now, make your BEST GUESS. You always want your child to think, “Does this make sense?” The guess should be a real word and should make sense in the sentence. After all, comprehension is the end goal of reading.

*While working through the strategies to read a longer word in a text, a word many not contain a certain feature (for example, a prefix). Ask your child to check for it first. If it does not have one, acknowledge that and move on to the next step.

 

 

Model Reading Longer Words

To explicitly teach each strategy, we work on words out of context. While we have time for reading together, I spend 5-7 minutes of looking at words apart from a book. For each strategy, I list words from his reading that fit. For example, when studying prefixes, I pulled words like misspell, dislike, and unhappy.

I write them on (my nice, clean-ha!) dry erase board and together we “dissect” the words with different colored dry erase markers so he can visually see the word parts. We talk a bit about word meanings as well, so he’s getting a bonus vocabulary lesson!

We are not finished with learning these strategies. We will probably work through them for the next year or so, as I help him apply these strategies to longer words in his reading. But I am praying that by making the task of reading longer words more concrete for him, with specific strategies for attacking the words, his motivation will come back.

 

Not sure where to start? Grab our Upper Grade Phonics Assessment!

 

Strategies for Reading Longer Words Wall Set

Also included in the free printable pack, thanks to a reader’s request, is a classroom wall set of these strategies (see below).

Like the 1-page strategy page, these can be downloaded in color and black/white. I love the little “poster topper” boy that can be added to them!

 

 

Enjoy!
~Becky

 

Find more Multisyllable Word Printables!