Resources
Enhance or refresh your skills as a Reading Mentor to maximize the time spent with your student. If you’re a new Reading Mentor, please begin with our orientation materials.
Reading Strategy Videos
“A beautiful moment I remember from one of the reading sessions was when my reading buddy intentionally chose a bilingual book because she knew I speak Spanish, and she wanted to learn some new words! It was very sweet of her to do that!”
Reading & Mentoring Tips
The Science of Reading and General Tips
At our Practical Reading Mentoring Tips Lunch & Learn, Lead to Read KC’s staff of experts — with more than 100 years of combined educational experience — shared information on the science of reading — and tips for working with beginning readers, advancing readers...
Make the Most of Each Reading Session
Here are a few tips and tools to help you make the most of each reading and mentoring session: Take a few minutes to chat and connect with your student: Talk about your hobbies or job, and what you like to read. Ask your student to tell you about their day. For...
Getting to Know Your Student
With reading sessions resuming at most of our partner schools this month, many Reading Mentors and students will be making new connections. Are you a Reading Mentor? Modeling a good conversation by interacting with your student for a few minutes during each reading...
Connections Matter: Building Strong Relationships
Helping Reading Mentors build strong relationships with students is central to Lead to Read KC’s mission to support the social, emotional and reading skills that are foundational for student success. As a follow up to Connections Matter, our September 2021 Lunch &...
Building Connection and Understanding After COVID-19
Here are some highlights and tips from our January 2021 Lunch & Learn Presentation, Building Connection and Understanding, presented by Jefnah Kamal, LMSW, and Vladimir Sainte, LCSW. Presentation highlights: COVID 19 has profoundly impacted student learning You...
Working With Students Who Have Experienced Trauma
Did you know that 83 percent of inner-city youth report experiencing one or more traumatic events? Here are some tips from our January 2020 Lunch & Learn presentation from Susan Pinné and the team from TraumaSmart for making a reading session a safe, supportive...
Sight Words Training
What Are Sight Words? Sight Words are whole words that appear frequently in most of the texts kids read, but cannot be easily sounded out. Like you, your student runs into Sight Words over and over, and may see them in print dozens of times in a single day. So,...
Building Reading Fluency
Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately, quickly, and with expression. Fluent readers read aloud as if they are speaking. Readers who have not yet developed fluency read slowly, word by word. Fluent readers can group words quickly to help them gain meaning...
Questions to Ask Your Student
Here are a few ideas to engage your student in conversation — and tips to keep the conversation going! Questions: If you could tell me just ONE thing about you, what would you want me to know? What do you like to do for fun? What is most fun about school? What is...
Active Reading Strategies
ABCs For Active Reading These active reading strategies come from Tutor Charlotte. Try them with your student this week! Want a PDF? Click here to download the images below. A: Ask questions Who, What, Where, When, Why, How? Ask your student to make a prediction about...
Decoding Words and Tips for Working With ELL Students
Strategies for Decoding Words Chunk the word Look for a chunk you know (-ing, -and, -art) Look for a word part you know (be-,-er) Skip it! Skip the word. Read to the end of the sentence. Go back and re-read it. Stretch Out the Word Stretch the word out slowly. Put the...
Reading and Comprehension Strategies
We’ve been connecting with our teachers to get some feedback on strategies to best engage their students during our reading sessions. Below are the tips shared by a first grade teacher at Garfield. For the “animal name” strategies not all teachers use the animal names...