Practitioners need to help learners increase their automatic reading by decoding and sounding out words without breaking the flow of the reading process. The following are suggested strategies:

• Have learners read orally with the use of a tape recorder. Have them listen to the recording and then have them do silent reading or a combination of these - with the first reading to be focused on the words and then eventually focused on the meaning.
• Have two learners read together. One reads and one follows along and then the roles are reversed. This helps increase the practice time for the learners.
• Utilize a chunking strategy by using familiar text and dividing it into phrase groups of words and use a slash mark to indicate the phrases. Learners practice reading the phrases until they can read them fluently and then the slash marks are removed.³⁰

Vocabulary development

Before reading

• Pre-teach unfamiliar words from the text
• Have learners use mapping techniques, such as Semantic Mapping, to help them think about the meanings of the new words
• Help learners relate new vocabulary to their prior knowledge and experiences

During reading

• Have learners add new words and concepts to their maps
• Use content-area word walls as a resource
• Teach learners to use word parts such as prefixes and suffixes to read new words
• Teach learners how to use the context of expository text to figure out word meanings