What Can I Do?
Here are some things you can to at home to help your child gain essential beginning literacy skills:
- Practice naming upper case and lower case letters
- Practice letter sounds and naming letter sounds fluently (quickly and automatically)
- Practice beginning sounds: Ask your child to name the sound (not the letter) at the beginning of any word. For example, “What sound does pig begin with?” /p/
- Practice naming all of the sounds in a word (stretch out the word). For example, “What are the sounds in pig?” /p/-/i/-/g/
- Practice writing letters with the proper letter formation
Here are some additional things you can try at home to foster a life-long love for reading:
- Read aloud to your child as much as possible! Research shows that reading aloud to children substantially improves their reading and comprehension skills, as well as their written, oral, and auditory skills. In addition, children that are read aloud to have an increased positive attitude towards reading. (Plus, you can mix in some practice without your child even knowing! Ask your child to identify the letters in the title. Ask your child if they can find some of the sight words they are working on in school in the story…..)
- Students in Kindergarten will be given access to www.raz-kids.com. This is by far the easiest way to practice leveled reading at home. Stayed tuned for more information about this. Other good websites are www.pbskids.org and www.starfall.com.
- Apps: Reading Friends, Jungle A-Z, Bugsy Kindergarten Reading School, Alphabytes, ABC Gurus, Letters A-Z, Bob Book Reading Magic Sight Words, Touch and Write Phonics, Starfall, and Raz-Kids (also available as an app)
- Encourage a love of words by playing rhyming and word games, singing silly songs, or writing poems and stories together. Make mini books by stapling half or quarter sheets of paper together. Fill these books with made- up or real stories. Have your child write or draw the pictures.