Home Learning Hub - Reading with 5 Year Olds

Learning to read is a big event in your child's life. It is an important process to ensure we make as positive as possible in order to foster a love of reading in children. The reality is that is can also be slow going and sometimes even maddening. It can be frustrating when they have the pattern one minute and then come up with completely new words that seem unrelated to the story the next minute! A lot of deep breathing can be needed with 5 year olds at reading time.

To begin with children will simply memorise the pattern in a book- this is the first stage of reading! It's ok for them to do this and to begin with this should be encouraged. Over time, they will recognise the small and frequently used words and begin building up a bank of sight words to help them figure out parts of the story. When this combines with a growing knowledge of the alphabet and sounds, spelling patterns and picture cues, children slowly, but surely take over the process of reading.

At school we use a three pronged attack when teaching children to read

Building up alphabet and sight word knowledge
Building up decoding strategies ( how to break words apart to solve them )
Developing comprehension strategies so children understand what they are reading

You can use these 3 skills when looking at books at home.

Learning the Letters of the Alphabet and their Sounds

Make an alphabet book out of word they know from around the house, pictures in magazines, photos etc. This will give them confidence in their ability to read

Make letter shapes in the sand or in salt. Say the sound or sounds they make as you go and try to associate with common words they know.

Building up Sight Words

Building up sight words takes time, but is certainly worth the effort in the first year of reading. Instantly knowing lots of the small words in a story helps lighten the load for a child and frees them up to focus on the trickier words when reading. Before reading a book at home, a quick and easy way to help build their sight words is to flip through the sight words for the colour level they are currently reading (and even the level below to make sure they are consolidated also) . Here are the sight words for the different colour levels if you would like to make this part of your reading routine at home. Begin with Magenta and only move on to red once mastered :

1 Magenta HF WORDS Print Font.pdf

2 Red HF WORDS Print Font.pdf

3 Yellow HF WORDS Print Font.pdf

4 Blue HF WORDS Print Font.pdf

5 Green HF WORDS Print Font.pdf

Once children have reached Orange level, they have developed a bank of high frequency words and phonics/ phonological awareness skills to enable them to access many more words.

2. Building up Decoding Strategies

Decoding is the ability to apply your knowledge of letter-sound relationships, including knowledge of letter patterns, to correctly pronounce written words. Understanding these relationships gives children the ability to recognise familiar words quickly and to figure out words they haven't seen before. Although children may sometimes figure out some of these relationships on their own, most children benefit from explicit instruction in this area. Different teachers use different names for the strategies in the classroom, but many use this language. Watch your child as they 'read' and see what they already do (even if your child is not yet conventionally reading the words they may be using strategies like Eagle Eye where they are looking at the picture and letters to try to help them figure the story out. Once you know what they can do, pick the next most realistic decoding strategy and just try teaching them to use that strategy until it is secure then moving on to another one. The decoding strategies have been ordered below in a common sequence of development, though child may have higher level strategies in place before some of the lower ones- you can alter the order to suit your child.

3. Developing Comprehension Strategies

Comprehension strategies are conscious plans — sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become purposeful, active readers who are in control of their own reading comprehension. These strategies become increasingly important as children move up through the reading levels as the main purpose of reading is for understanding. In the early years some comprehension strategies are a little more important to develop than others. Here are the most relevant strategies for early readers to develop:

SM23A Making connections starter chart (2).pdf

SM1 Activating prior knowledge starter chart.pdf

SM13 Predicting starter chart (1).pdf

SM4 Self-monitoring starter chart.pdf

How it looks in action at home

Here you can see a quick little sequence you can try at home with your child to incorporate the three elements of reading highlighted on this page. In this video I ran through some known sight words, introduced a new sight word from the book we were about to read. I then quickly taught a decoding strategy - Eagle Eye and helped Archie to predict what we might find in the book. As we read I turned his attention to the pictures to reinforce Eagle Eye and brought back in our sight words where the opportunity presented itself. To follow on the next day, I would revisit sight words with new word in the mix but support with reminders that it was from yesterdays book and help him remember if forgotten, We could read the same book again if I felt it would hold his interest but this time I might ask him to tell me about a time when he found something on the beach (activating his prior knowledge) .

Reading at home

Stuck for Books?

If you are stuck for books of an appropriate level at home you can find some using the links below or even make your own by copying them if you don't have a printer. Materials for learning to read don't have to be fancy. Homemade resources do the job just as well and can become much loved treasures for kids.

Sight word books

Sight_Word_Booklet_14-_my.PDF

Sight_Word_Booklet_11-_me.PDF

Sight_Word_Booklet_Outside_-_I__see__a.pdf

Sight_Word_Booklet_Family_Fun_-_can.pdf

You can find many more of the above books at : http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/fall-sight-word-booklets#Outside