Kindergartners can read and understand : emergent reading strategies at work

The need for kindergarten educators to be effective in teaching both word solving and comprehension strategies is paramount. Educators are challenged to teach even the most emergent readers to use strategies to help them read and understand what they have read. The explicit teaching of both word solving and comprehension strategies in kindergarten builds a strong foundation for literacy learning throughout a student\u27s school career and beyond. Fostering a love of literature and an attitude of lifelong literacy learning can be achieved for all students with the proper supports in place. This paper defines each word solving and comprehension strategy taught in an average kindergarten classroom and details the process of teaching these strategies explicitly. Additionally presented are the benefits these strategies provide for students when they are introduced and reinforced in a variety of groupings allowing students to use them with increasing independence as their reading level advances from emergent to proficient