The Cloze reading strategy involves removing one or more words from a sentence, requiring students to fill in the missing words based on clues from the sentence. This technique teaches students to look for contextual clues within a sentence, to determine the definition words in a normal sentence. For instance, the sentence, “I ___ to school, or I ___ my bike,” asks the student to interpret the meaning of the sentence as a whole, and to decide on the missing words. Students can select “walk” for the first word and “ride” for the second by analyzing the sentence as a whole.
Cooperative learning is a group learning process where students are placed in small learning groups in the classroom. Instructors teach as normal, but ask questions to groups of students. This technique encourages students to work together, developing answers cooperatively, while teaching each other the tools used to come up with those answers. While developing students' social skills, this technique places students in a dual role, teaching some students and learning from others as the teacher presents the lessons. As an example, give each group sentences to read -- and time to work together -- to determine the right way to say each sentence.
Decodable text strategy is a phonics-based reading technique which presents sentences using words more advanced than the students' understanding of the English language. This technique forces students to rely on their phonics skills, decoding the pronunciation of words based on the sound of each letter and the order of the letters in a word. For instance, give your first grade students the sentence “My dog plays fetch with me,” and encourage them to sound out each word as they read the sentence.
Echo reading involves assigning one reader as the primary reader for each sentence. All of your students should look at the first sentence for a moment before you begin the exercise. The primary reader begins first as the rest of your class begins reading, more quietly than the primary reader, just after she begins her reading. This technique forces all of your students to read each sentence, while hearing the primary reader pronounce the sentence just before they do. As an example, your primary reader reads the sentence “My dog plays fetch with me,” and the rest of the class reads the same sentence, but begins as your primary reader finishes saying the word “dog.”