Reading Longer Words

Speaker 1: Welcome to the New World's Reading Initiative. In this video, we will highlight reading strategies that will help your child learn to read words that are more challenging so that reading becomes more fluent. With practice, children can learn to read words automatically.

As readers build their ability to quickly and easily read and spell words and word parts, their success and confidence in reading increases. This skill is important because around third grade, the texts that children read begin to get more difficult. This means that sentences get more complicated and text has longer words.

These big words might not appear often, but they carry a lot of meaning. If children are unable to read these words, it's likely they'll have trouble with comprehension or understanding what they've read.

One strategy your child can use to read more challenging words is to break them apart into syllables. To do this, your child must know that syllables are words or parts of words with only one vowel sound, such as "cap." When reading bigger words, recognizing chunks they've learned in single-syllable words helps them with decoding.

For example, "cap" appears in the words "capital" and "captivate." After breaking a word apart into chunks and reading each part, they can combine the parts to read the whole word.

A simple way your child can remember these steps for breaking apart long words is by using the B.E.S.T. strategy. Break the word apart into syllables or recognizable chunks. Examine each part. Say each part. Try reading the whole word.

Watch the following video to see how the child is supported in reading a difficult word.

Speaker 2: All right, boo, you opened it. You actually opened my book. I've been waiting for ages, and now I can't open it.

Speaker 3: Oh, wow, that's a long word. How about we use the best strategy on this bookmark? Best stands for B-E-S-T. So first, B stands for break the words into parts. E, examine the parts. S, say each part. And then T, try reading the whole word. So go ahead.

Speaker 2: OK, youngling, OK, so--

Speaker 3: Now try to read the whole word.

Speaker 2: Youngling?

Speaker 3: Yeah, good job.

Speaker 2: All right. And now human youngling is finally reading the beginning of my story. It was a good day. It was ter-- ter--

Speaker 3: Oh, let's use the best strategy again. All right, so first break it down into parts.

Speaker 2: So ter--iffic. Terrific.

Speaker 3: Yeah, good job.

Speaker 2: It was terrific. One of the greatest, but-- one of the greatest. But this is even greater. I love humans. And I bet you're really tremendous.

Speaker 3: Yeah, good job. You got it.

Speaker 2: Tremendous one. You'll find the story of my life so far with my brand new family. And it's a hum--

Speaker 3: Yeah, let's use the bookmark again.

Speaker 2: So hum--

Speaker 3: Break it down.

Speaker 2: Hum----dinger. Humdinger?

Speaker 3: Yeah, good job. That's perfect.

Speaker 1: Did you notice how the child broke apart a longer word into chunks or parts they recognized? They said each part and then combined them to read the whole word. Keep practicing this skill with your child to help them feel more confident in reading challenging words. Over time, reading big words will become automatic. Happy reading.