Reading Words in Order

When you read a sentence, you read one word after another in a special order. You start at the left side of the line and read each word until you reach the right side. Then you move down to the next line and do it again. Reading words in order helps every sentence make sense.

Every sentence is made of words placed in a certain order. You read the first word on the left, then the next word, then the next, all the way to the last word on the right. If you skip a word or read words out of order, the sentence may not make sense anymore.

Try this sentence: "The cat ran fast." You read "The" first, then "cat," then "ran," then "fast." Reading the words in this order tells you exactly what happened.

When you read a page with more than one line, you use two movements together. First, your eyes move across a line from left to right. Second, once you reach the end of a line, your eyes jump back to the left side of the next line, one row lower. This jump back to the left is sometimes called a return sweep.

The picture below shows how your eyes move through three lines of a short text. The arrows across each line show reading left to right. The arrows going down and back to the left show how you move to the start of the next line.

Words in a sentence tell a story only when they are read in the right order. If you read "ran cat the fast," the words do not make sense together. But "The cat ran fast" tells you clearly what the cat did. This is why you always keep the same order: start on the left of the line, read to the right, then move down to the next line.

When you read a whole page, this order stays the same for every line. You read line one from left to right, move down and to the left for line two, read it from left to right, then move down and to the left again for line three.

Word Order: The order in which words appear in a sentence, read from left to right.

Return Sweep: The movement your eyes make from the end of one line back to the start of the next line.

Line: A row of words that you read from left to right before moving down.

Tracking: Following each word with your eyes or your finger as you read in order.

Point to each word in a short sentence with your finger, moving from left to right. When you reach the end of the line, slide your finger down and back to the left to start the next line.

Try reading a sentence with the words mixed up, like "fast ran cat the." Talk about why it sounds strange, then read the sentence in the correct order to see how it makes sense again.

Read a short book with two or three lines on a page. Point to the first word on each line before you start reading it, and check that you finish each line before moving down.

Related lessons

• Left to Right Reading Direction