READING

Post 203

Reading is the most important skill your child will learn in the primary grades. It’s the key to future academic success so it is front and center. In Kindergarten, students are constantly being read to and have guided reading and phonics lessons. But that’s not all. Even in other subjects, such as science and math, reading is brought in, just as it is in the upper grades.

Children starting Kindergarten come in reading at all different levels. This runs the gamut from students who don’t know the difference between a number and a letter to those who can read full sentences. Quite a range!

So how do teachers manage to help individual children progress with so many varying abilities in one classroom? Most schools have a program that “meets each student where they are.” My district uses one called Fundations. It is phonics based and teaches letter names and sounds using a puppet and letter cards. The students memorize the letter name, sound and a key word that starts with that sound. That way when they are trying to figure out a word they can “think of the card” and recall the letter sounds. This is taught in a very fun way during a whole class lesson. It is a first exposure for beginning readers and helps cement the letters and sounds for more advanced ones. So everyone benefits. 😀 High frequency words are also taught in a whole group setting. These are common words such as the, see, you, etc. (I call them “popcorn”words since they “pop up” all the time.)

Children are put together by ability for small group instruction. Beginning groups do letter name/sound games while more advanced ones read in leveled readers. (More about those later.) These groups have 3 – 5 children in them so each can get individualized instruction with the teacher.

Frequently reading programs have a penmanship component in which students are taught the correct way to form letters. That includes everything from how to hold a pencil to staying above or below the lines to what mark to make first.

There is also another whole writing component to all this but I’ll cover that in a later post. And, as I mentioned before, reading is brought into most lessons in a lot of different ways, one of which is theme books. So reading is taught in a fun way with puppets, music, and enticing lessons. That way students want to learn rather than having them look at it as drudgery. Keep on encouraging and praising your little student as they move along in their reading journey. I think you will be amazed at how quickly they progress in the next few months. It’s a wonderful thing to see!

Take Care. 🙂