Beginner reading

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Permalink Reply by Michelle Breum on March 28, 2010 at 3:44pm

I'd start with phonemic awareness and matching letter sounds to letters and letter combinations. I've collected some reading resources to share on my blog. http://beginningreadinghelp.blogspot.com/p/reading-resources-to-sha...

Permalink Reply by Lorraine on May 1, 2010 at 11:59am

Hi Michelle,
I enjoyed looking through your list of reading resources. One site that I use with my first and second graders is http://www.roythezebra.com My students had the chance to try out the new 'Tricky Words' game and the 'Long Vowel Phonemes' games for the first time this week. They really enjoyed them and gave it a 'thumbs up.' The games all work well on the SMART Board. The students enjoy the music and animation. It may be a site that your students or readers would enjoy.

Permalink Reply by John Michael Tracy on March 28, 2010 at 7:45pm

Michelle Breum's reply is spot on. Knowing letters and sounds is critical, but letter of the week stuff is clunky and too slow in my opinion. Teach them all the letters and sounds at once, get the parents to help. Make it fun, learn the letters and sounds, then move on to reading, which is most fun.
It's important to see if kids can rhyme words - it's a good indicator if they are ready to read. It's important that kids are old enough - and that varies from kid to kid, but the 9 month difference between a kid turning six in September and one turning six in May is enormous. It's useful to make a birthday list. If you notice a kids is struggling, look to see when the birthday is.
It's also useful to know about birth weight, how early a kids was born, if child walked late or talked late, etc.
I think that doing Writer's workshop from day one is enormously helpful, especially using the kind of techniques that Lucy Caulkins uses, that is, that you expect kids from the get go to use their letters and sounds to write, that they tell stories about the small moments in their lives, that they learn to write independently, that they embrace poems and pattern stories and all about books and how to books. Kids who write from the very first day of school learn to read much faster, and easier.
I think it's important and very helpful to use song/melody to teach the sounds - not just the abc song. I think its important to teach the vowel sounds using pictures, so that kids learns there is a name sound and a picture sound (not short and long vowels which I think are meaningless to kids). Sight words are useful, but most especially if they are use for writing, not just for reading. When kids write them, they really learn them.
Strangely, in my experience, when kids start to read it's miraculous, and almost effortless. But reading is way more than just being able to pronounce the words and read in a fluent voice. It's also important to teach kids to think, to make associations and connections that deepen their understanding (this is tricky, because some connections actually get kids further away from understanding), that teach kids to infer, to use the sum of their knowledge, to make predictions, to really get into character and voice.
Read really good books to kids - the kind of books that you love - and they will pick up on it. Pay attention, and also read books that they love, and you may not. Let kids read, every day, for a substantial amount of time, that is, if you are teaching all day kinder and can fit it in. If you are teaching half day, there is never enough time, and all the good advice in the world is just aggravating.
My kids love the No David books; I can't stand them.
If you have the money/time, Lucy Caulkin's summer reading and writing conferences at Columbia Teacher's college in NYC are, in my opinion, state of the art conferences. I am also quite enthused with Fountas and PInell and Regie Routman. Their books will tell you loads and loads about teaching kindergartners to read.

Permalink Reply by Michelle TeGrootenhuis on April 28, 2010 at 9:15pm

I have heard SO much about the Teacher's College workshops. Can you share more info? Dates, cost, credit options, highlights? We'd love to hear a first-hand account.
Thanks!

Permalink Reply by John Michael Tracy on May 1, 2010 at 4:19pm

I'm going to the teacher's college workshop on writing this summer, so I will write at length about it when I do. Yikes. Did I just say write at length. NOT a good thing.
I won a teacher's grant so I get to go to lucy calkins AND I get to go to scbwi in L.A. as well.Yipee. So anyhoo, here's a plug for the Teacher's Grant. When I went to the dinner and met some of the other winners, I was totally blown away by the cool trips people were taking - Brasil, Paris and Rome, China. My NYC and L.A. seemed mundane in comparison - not that I'm complaining, cause I am totally not.

Permalink Reply by Mr. Alex on April 24, 2010 at 10:00am

I would use a phonological awareness based approach. (Concentrating on letter sound correspondance.)
Check out the PALS program http://kc.vanderbilt.edu/pals/teachmat/kpalsvid1.html and tell me what you think of it on my discussion post.

Permalink Reply by Michelle Breum on May 1, 2010 at 3:12pm

I think magnetic letters are a great tool for kindergarten. http://beginningreadinghelp.blogspot.com/2010/05/magnetic-letters-c...

Permalink Reply by John Michael Tracy on May 1, 2010 at 4:24pm

I also really like the letter arc method that is touted by Eisenhauer inservices. Once kids learn to write, I do a lot of
missing letter handwriting work. Right now, for example, I ask my kids to write a-z lower case, then 3 sentences for their handwriting working - ten minutes - first thing in the morning. I ask them to do lower case because I want them to overlearn this so that when they write sentences, they know that the first letter is capital, and the rest are lower case. We do this and do this, for brief periods of time, until kids absorb it and internalize it, and I'd say 18/20 of my kindergarten class can easily write sentences in which they start with a capital letter, use their finger to space between words, and end with a period, all with reasonably well written/formed lower case letters.
We do writers workshop every day, and lately we have been working on poems.
Magnetic letters ARE fun though.