Challenge Words: 

• Some common words we need to read that are not yet decodable - words like 'the', 'is' and 'was'.  These are called high-frequency words. If these words have been taught to your child ahead of time, the reader may be able to read them independently. If not, it is best not to let the child guess the word, so please just tell the word if it is unknown to them.

• Words with a consonant cluster (examples - sp, sn, sm, st - sometimes called consonant blends) may require some support. Consonant clusters are often challenging and need to be supported at this emergent level.  Please share these words with the reader ahead of time, and help as needed when the reader is reading these words within the text.

• At times, some of these CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words have the letter s on the end of the word (hop > hops). Please ensure to support young readers with this additional complexity as needed as well.

• Text does not need to be 100 % decodable. There will be letters and words that your child may not know yet. Please just tell the sound or the word to your child, and carry on.