A Little Reading Magic … Becoming a Reading Detective:

Yesterday, I introduced one of my favourite strategies for building reading confidence to one of my learners.

So often, children feel overwhelmed when they look at a whole page of text. But detectives don’t read every word… they scan for clues. And that’s exactly what we practised.

🔍 Clue 1: Names
Detectives look for capital letters — they usually mean someone’s name. We used an orange highlighter to make them pop out.

🏠 Clue 2: Places & Things
Next, we searched for places or important nouns. We used green to spot where the action was happening.

⚡ Clue 3: Action Words
Finally, we hunted for verbs — the doing words. These were highlighted in yellow.

And to make it all work smoothly, we used finger sweeping: a quick left to right scan with the finger, stopping only when something ‘pops out’. This simple movement helps children stay focused, track text more easily, and feel in control of the page.

The best part? My learner looked up at me afterwards and said, “That made reading so much less stressful, I could see it.”

Moments like that are why I love what I do.

If you’d like to try this at home, all you need is:
• Three highlighters
• A short piece of text
• …and a detective mindset

Happy reading, detectives. 🕵️‍♀️📚

★★★★★