Students have recently learned an important strategy called Making It Smooth. This is a helpful technique which strengthens comprehension and improves fluency. After figuring out a tricky word, a reader should reread the sentence to make the words sound smooth. At this point of the year, students are bravely stretching and looking for chunks, in order to decode unknown words in their stories. However, readers can get so bogged down with stretching that the thread of the story is lost. Making It Smooth encourages readers to reread the sentence, fitting in those newly discovered words and allowing the story to unfold. As you read with your child and he/she successfully figures out a tricky word, nudge him/her to also Make It Smooth.

Happy reading! 🙂