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Ok, so you carefully followed all of the directions to brew a batch of beer. Everything seemed to be going fine, until you took an original gravity (OG) reading. You missed your target by a few points. Here is what you can do:
Derek's tips on adjusting gravity in your wort:
First off, make sure to check that your hydrometer is reading right. At 60°F in pure water, it should read 1.000. If it doesn't read 1.000, note how far it's off and take that into account when taking your readings. For example, if the hydrometer reads 0.098 in water at 60 degrees, add 0.002 to all your gravity readings.
Also, if you don't have a hydrometer correction chart, a good rule-of-thumb is that gravity needs to adjusted ±0.001 for every 7°F the temperature is from 60°F. For warm liquid, you will be adding 0.001 for every 7°F above 60°F.
If your gravity is too low, you can add malt extract. I suggest always keeping a bag of light DME around for this purpose (and for yeast starters too, but that's for another discussion). In most cases, the small amount you'll be adding won't contribute significantly to the flavor of the beer, so you don't have to worry about off-tastes. Adding 1.75 oz. of light DME will raise the OG of a 5 gallon batch 1 point (0.001).
If your gravity is too high, you can make the batch size larger by adding water (boiled, please). Adding .5 quart of water to a 5 gallon batch of beer will lower the OG of the wort by 0.001.
Make sure you adjust the amount of hops you use, based on any adjustments you make (especially when making the batch size larger).
Enjoy!