What do you do when weaker readers don't take the time to use their strategies when reading? I am working with small groups of students in grades 4 and 5, who are reading well below grade level. We have been working on decoding words by looking for sounds that we know, smaller words in big words, etc... The students seem to have little or no problem decoding new, and sometimes difficult, words when they are presented one at a time out of context. However, as soon as they start reading a book, they seem to forget all the strategies that we have been practising and they just start guessing at some of the words. How can I get them to slow down and use their sounds when reading?
That is a tough one, and I've experienced the same issue. My best strategy for dealing with it is to model the strategies myself, doing the "think aloud". Seeing this again and again does seem to help.
I don't know how old your students are, but when I had kids that started reading books with multiple lines of text I used to put a yellow highlighter line on the top of an index card and have them use it to keep them focused on one line of text at a time. If you made these for them, you could pick one particular strategy that you want them to focus on using, and either write it on the index card, or draw a picture representing it on the index card. Maybe the visual cue will help them to remember to use the strategy more often. Besides that, I agree with schoolteacher- model, model, model.
Another idea is to practice by stopping at the end of a paragraph/page/chapter and tell/write how they used a particular strategy to help them. Knowing they are responsible for explaining how they used one might encourage them to make a conscious effort to use strategies, and after a while it could become second nature without you having to hold them accountable.
