Phonics

We spend a great amount of time exploring Phonics and Phonological Awareness in Kindergarten. We utilize Orton Gillingham Phonics instruction each day in our classroom. This amazing, kinesthetic program is designed to help students master letters and sounds, as well as learn how to read and write the most common words found while reading. These words go by a variety of names, sight words, no excuse words, high frequency words, and many others. We call them RED words because you need to stop and read them, as many of them DO NOT follow "rules" we have yet to learn. These are words like the, they, like, come and so on.

We also learn about CVC words. A CVC word is a consonant (any letter that is NOT a vowel), vowel, consonant word (cut, mat, him, Gus to name a few). After learning the names of letters and what sounds they make the magic truly begins. Blending CVC words is where children begin to put all the sounds together to learn how to read and spell.

Once the students have mastered CVC words we move on to other syllable types - closed, open, and CVCe.

One way we teach all of this is with Dr. Katie Gardener's INCREDIBLE creation - The Secret Stories. These stories are an incredible way to explain to children why certain letters make certain sounds when you see them together.

One of the stories your children will learn this year is the story of "t and h".

Everyone knows that t and h should never be together because they do not really like each other. And because they do not really like each other, they stick their tongues out at each other and make a sound (which we should never do to another person). When they make that sound it gives us words like think, thought, thumb, and with. BUT when they really get mad at each other they add a sound while they stick out their tongues and we get words like the, this, them, then, thus and so on.

These wonderful stories are taught throughout the year and are a fabulous way to help reading come alive for our Kindergarteners.