1st Grade

• Review the letters in the alphabet and the sounds those letters make. Write each letter on a small piece of paper. Put the letters in a container or bag. Have your child pick a letter out of the bag, say the name of the letter and the sound that it makes. If they don't know, tell them and put it back in the container. *Make this more challenging by adding digraphs (sh, ch, wh, ph, qu, ck, th) or consonant blends (tr, sw, st, sp, sn, sm, sl, sc, pl, gr, fl, dr, cr, cl, br, and bl).

• Say the sounds in a word slowly /k/.../a/..../t/ and have your child blend the sounds to make the word cat.

• Take Away - Say a word, such as "sun", and have your child repeat it. Then tell them to take away the sound /s/, what is left?

• Make a word ladder. Draw two parallel vertical lines with a horizontal line between them at the bottom. Write a word such as "cat" on the bottom rung. Have your child highlight or underline the rhyme "at" in the word and think of a rhyming word to write on the next rung. Keep adding more rungs as they think of more rhyming words.

• Do a consonant blend hunt around your house. Write several consonant blends on a piece of paper or notecard (tr, sw, st, sp, sn, sm, sl, sc, pl, gr, fl, dr, cr, cl, br, and bl). Put cards in a bag or container. Have your child pull out a card, help them if needed to say the blend. Have them search the house for items that have that consonant blend at the beginning of the word. *This can also be done using letters of the alphabet (easier) or digraphs (sh, ch, wh, ph, qu, ck, th).

• Look at food labels. Have your child name the letters in the names of the products and talk about the sounds that each letter or letter combination make. Work to blend the sounds together to read the word.

• Echo reading: You read a sentence/paragraph while your child is looking at the words. Then have your child read back the same text. *This works great if you have two copies of the same text but if not, have the text be in front of your child when you are reading and move your finger across the text.

• Shared reading: You read a sentence/paragraph/page of a text and then your child reads the next sentence/paragraph/page. *It is important that they are following along when you are reading.

• Recording reading: Have your child read and record themselves. This way they can listen back and reflect on their reading. They will probably want to do it again and again to see if they can improve. Voice Memos is an app that can be used on both i-phones and android phones.

• Ask questions before, during, and after reading.

Before reading: Go on a picture walk before reading the book. Look at the cover, talk about the title and the pictures. Flip through the pages and talk about what your child notices or wonders.

During reading: Ask questions about characters in the story. Who is this story about? Tell me about them. Do the characters remind you of anyone you know?

Ask questions about the setting. Where is this story happening? What time of the day is it? Do you think this story is taking place in the past, current times, or in the future? What makes you think so? Have you ever been somewhere like this?

Ask questions about the plot. What problem is the character having? What would you do to solve the problem? What do you think the character might do next?

After reading: How did the character solve their problem? Did you learn anything? What would you do if you were in that character's shoes? What was your favorite part? Why?

Get a list of sight words from your child's teacher or online. Here is the Fry list of the first 100 sight words.

• Say the word. Have your child put their finger under the word and repeat the word 3X.

• Practice saying the word in a sentence. Each time you say the word, point to it. Have your child say their own sentences with the word.

• Build the word with letter tiles, playdough, toothpicks, pebbles, alphabet pasta, anything you can find.

• Word of the Day: tape one or two words written on an index card next to the front door, as EVERYONE in the family leaves or enters the house…..ask them to touch the word and yell it out.

• Jump to Read: write the words your child is practicing in chalk outside, spend five to ten minutes a day jumping from word to word and calling them out.

• Shaving Cream: Spread shaving cream onto a plastic tray and write the words with your finger

• Sight Word Search: Hide two or three sight words around the house (written on a post it). Have your child find them (each day hide them in a new place).

• Sight Word Detective: look for focus words in your favorite story each night or in their decodable reader.

There are many strategies for helping a student when they get stuck on a word. If you feel that your child is getting frustrated, go ahead and give them the word and encourage them to keep reading. Other strategies to try:

• Skip it - have them skip the word and keep reading the rest of the sentence. Have them go back and see if they can figure out a word that would fit with the rest of the sentence and use the beginning sound/ending sound to help them.

• Sound it out - Stop and talk about the sounds that the letters or letter combinations make. Blend the sounds together to read the new word. Make sure they read on to see if it makes sense.

• Break the word into parts. Look for a familiar word inside a bigger word. Use the word parts to guess the word (make sure it makes sense).