Kindergarten is an exciting part of your child's life! This year will be full of new learning adventures and experiences for your family. As a parent, you may be concerned about the transition into formal school. We are here to help! The information and "do it yourself" at home games below will help you to understand a few important concepts of early reading skills in Kindergarten!
Think-alouds
Think-alouds are strategies that teachers use in the classroom to verbalize what they think while they read aloud. Students do not know that they should be thinking while they read. We need to teach this by thinking out loud. This helps children to understand what they should do before, during, and after reading. The teacher models how great readers construct meaning from the text. Parents can implement this strategy at home also!
- For example, reread a sentence to show how to reread if you are confused. Reading ahead can also help students understand. You can explain aloud, "I'm not sure why she wants to do that, let's keep reading to find out." When you come to difficult or unknown words, use clues around the word to help you discover the word's meaning.
- Stop a few times throughout the text to ask questions. Show your child how thinking about the text and asking questions can help you to understand.
- Here are some questions to use while reading: What do I know about this topic? Do I understand what I just read? What more can I do to understand this? What new information did I learn?
Early Reading Concepts
Phonological Awareness - Phonological awareness focuses only on sound. It does not address the letters for the sounds. Students are not looking at words or any print when practicing phonological awareness. They are only listening and producing sounds (example: rhyming). Ask your child things like: Do bark and bike rhyme? What is beginning sound in path?
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Phonemic Awareness - Phonemic awareness is part of phonological awareness (above). It is identifying and manipulating individual sounds within spoken words. This is key: sounds only, no written letters. When your child has phonemic awareness, they can identify the smallest sounds in a word. Children with strong phonemic awareness can put sounds together, break them apart, add sounds on, and take sounds away.
- Take Away - Practice taking one sound away from the beginning of a word or the end of a word. You can use your child's name or other objects. Ex: Say "table". If I take away the /t/, what is left? "able".
- Add a Sound - Practice adding one sound onto part of a word. Again, you can use names and objects. Ex: Say "ish". If I add "f-f-f-f" to "ish" what do I have? "Fish!"
Alphabetic Principle - The alphabetic principle is the idea that letters represent speech sounds. When letters are put together, they form words. Children need to understand that there is a relationship between speech sounds and written letters.
Phonics - People often confuse phonics with phonological and phonemic awareness (above). However, there is a very important difference. Phonics deals with letters! Children are seeing and working with the letters that make the sounds. Children should have strong phonemic awareness before they are introduced to phonics instruction. |
Click on the links below for more specific Kindergarten resources!
Reading Aloud
Children become readers in the laps of their parents. As you read with your child, they are hearing and learning valuable strategies that will help them when reading. As you read out loud, think out loud. If you are curious about something in the story, ask a question out loud. This will help your child to realize that he/she should actively listen to a story and ask questions along the way. Click the link to get more parent read aloud tips!
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Writing Tips for Beginning Kindergarteners
Writing can often be overwhelming for young students. This detailed post from a teacher blogger shares some ideas that are used in the classroom and at home!
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{Parent Friendly} Common Core
You hear the term a lot...Common Core...but you're not quite sure what it's all about. This literacy specialist breaks it down into a few main ideas. It is parent-friendly and easy to read!
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Early Reading Process
When children are learning to read, you may hear of words like phonological awareness and phonics in conferences and classroom discussions. These easy to understand definitions will help you to wrap your head around all the early reading lingo!
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Summer Before 1st Grade
How will you keep your child engaged in learning during the summer? Here are some fun tips!
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