Finding the right reading strategy in CAFE

[rteague]

I am working with a student right now who can decode and chunk his words, but just doesn't do it confidently. He understands what he reading, uses punctuation, but no expression and refuses to change his expression. He wants to come and read with me but is not confident in trying to use strategies and is very negative about many things. I am just struggling to find the rigth reading strategy for him. Any suggestions?

[srea]

Rather than suggest a specific strategy, I'll tell you about a couple of things that have helped me with students like that.

--Is he involved in the book choices? For one of my guys, when he got involved, he had more "buy-in"on reading with expression.

--Do you have him do a strong "pre-tell" or picture walk? (Not sure how old he is).

--I often have these kinds of kiddos predict what words they might see in the book after our picture walk--writing them on a white board and checking off the ones we do read, and discussing what words were there in place of others on the list not found in the book.

Maybe these ideas will help :).

Suzanne