Post by clairebear on Jun 20, 2022 19:42:28 GMT -5
Any favorite resources for teaching a 5 year old to read? How did you help your kid learn to read? My DD just finished kindergarten and can not read. She knows about 20 sight words and knows what each singular letter sounds like, but can not phonetically sound out words (long vowels, pairings of words like 'ch'). I got her some level one reading books out of the library, but they are painful for both of us and she just can not sound out words properly. Any resources you would suggest? She's moving schools this fall and I'm guessing that she's behind her peers in the new school with reading. I'd like to get her reading better. Any suggestions would be helpful!
Keep working on phonics including two and three letter sounds (digraphs and blends, if you want to Google).
I find Bob books a better starting point than a lot of the early reader ones. They're shorter and more repetitive. There are sets where you can do a sticker reward. But all early reading is a bit painful, imo.
That’s not abnormal for a kindergartner. We did a mix of sight-word books, the kind where each little book focuses on a specific sound (short a, long o, etc). Then we read to him a LOT. When we came across a sight word that he knew, he would read it. If the book was repetitive, we’d pick a word or phrase that repeated, teach it to him, and let him read that each time it came up (ie: in a book about lions, we’d let him read the word “lion”). Above all, we tried to keep it fun and light, and we stuck to books and subjects that he liked.
Former first grade teacher here and I was going to type out what villianv said. They’re spot on. Read a TON together. Read fiction, nonfiction, magazines, poetry, recipes. Work on writing too! Write simple postcards to family, write notes to each other, sidewalk chalk, etc. Read traffic signs, grocery store signs, drive through signs. The best way for parents to facilitate this is to make it a part of every single day.
Former first grade teacher here and I was going to type out what villianv said. They’re spot on. Read a TON together. Read fiction, nonfiction, magazines, poetry, recipes. Work on writing too! Write simple postcards to family, write notes to each other, sidewalk chalk, etc. Read traffic signs, grocery store signs, drive through signs. The best way for parents to facilitate this is to make it a part of every single day.
What is your expectation on the reading level of incoming first graders? Here, I would say half of incoming K kids were reading pretty well, and the other half not at all which seemed like a crazy range. You could definitely tell which student had a parent who used the pandemic lockdown to teach their kid to read!
My DD (6, just finishing kindergarten) is the only kid in her class reading even a little bit. We do some easy books from a series called Paul et Suzanne (think Tom, Dick and Jane type readers). But it is 100% initiated by her. I don't push it if she just wants me to read them or if she wants me to read a more complex story. She knows some sight words in English too, but I figure she'll pick up reading in English mostly by herself, since it's almost impossible to avoid.
I agree with pps that at this age the key is to make reading fun, read a lot and don't push it. In my province the kindergarten curriculum just requires kids to know the alphabet at the end of the school year, so I don't think there's any rush. It's definitely kid dependent but my experience with DD is that if I push this sort of thing she'll just push back and start hating it, so I've had to try and be zen about it.
My daughter couldn’t read at the end of Kindergarten. She’s reading above grade level now, a year later. I did nothing other than continuing to read aloud to her.
My daughter is also just finishing K, and like Loira, she’s really the only one (or one of a very few) who is reading and writing. She’s also an early birthday, which helps. My suggestion is to not stress it and read to them. For apps, we really liked Teach Your Monster How to Read. It’s cute and she was thrilled to play it. I teach older kids (Grades 5, 6, and 7). My big kids can read, obviously, but a lot don’t enjoy it and don’t read at all unless coerced. Even reading to them is met with resistance. I’d promote the fun of reading and reading environmental text (yes, that’s Pizza Hut! You noticed a Stop sign!). At least in my province, kids don’t need to leave K knowing all of their letters (not even letter sounds) to be considered meeting grade level expectations.
ETA- Bob Books were a total non-starter in our house. They are great in terms of phonics, but boring and the stories are awful. We borrowed levelled readers from the library and my school, did RAZ kids, had her read words in stories we read together, write her little notes to find and read… that was motivating. Bob books? Not at all.
Not already mentioned, does your library have a summer reading program? Sign her up for that and make it fun. And Go, Dog, Go was one of the first books both of my kids truly read.
First, reading is more a 6-7 yr old skill so I wouldn't be stressing it at this point.
My kid loves the Piggie and Elephant books from Mo Williams. They're short sentences and lots of repetition, but cute stories so it's not painful to read lol. Those were the first books my kid "read".
I do a lot of "what sound does this letter make?" Like how you do animal sounds. Lately she likes playing a game of saying words that rhyme and so we talk about those sounds and changing the first letter.
When we read books I follow with my finger. And then like everyone says just read all the time.
Former first grade teacher here and I was going to type out what villianv said. They’re spot on. Read a TON together. Read fiction, nonfiction, magazines, poetry, recipes. Work on writing too! Write simple postcards to family, write notes to each other, sidewalk chalk, etc. Read traffic signs, grocery store signs, drive through signs. The best way for parents to facilitate this is to make it a part of every single day.
What is your expectation on the reading level of incoming first graders? Here, I would say half of incoming K kids were reading pretty well, and the other half not at all which seemed like a crazy range. You could definitely tell which student had a parent who used the pandemic lockdown to teach their kid to read!
😕
This …isn’t how it works. My kid just finished K, is five, and can’t read. I could have spent all of the pandemic trying to teach her and she would still not know because she was three/four for the majority of the pandemic.
I think your expectations are too high. If only 50% of the class can read then there is your answer. Even with instruction, 50% of 5/6 year olds are reading.
I met with my daughter’s teacher at the end of the year. She said my non-reading kid will be okay in 1st. I’m not spending the summer doing anything more than what we’ve been doing: reading every night together.
Work on phonemic awareness. Google Heggerty 6 week summer program for learning at home. We use the program every day at school and it only takes about 10 mins and it’s all listening and oral practice, like rhyming.
Former first grade teacher here and I was going to type out what villianv said. They’re spot on. Read a TON together. Read fiction, nonfiction, magazines, poetry, recipes. Work on writing too! Write simple postcards to family, write notes to each other, sidewalk chalk, etc. Read traffic signs, grocery store signs, drive through signs. The best way for parents to facilitate this is to make it a part of every single day.
What is your expectation on the reading level of incoming first graders? Here, I would say half of incoming K kids were reading pretty well, and the other half not at all which seemed like a crazy range. You could definitely tell which student had a parent who used the pandemic lockdown to teach their kid to read!
The range is wild, so I can't give an expectation. Throw pandemic issues in there and it's even more unpredictable. Like you could guess, I had incoming first graders that could not write their name or read anything. I also had first graders that entered the school year reading lots. The first grade teachers will be prepared to help your child.
A thing about reading (like a lot of skills) is you can't teach it to a kid that isn't ready. Their brain has to be developed in certain ways to read. If you (any person who is not trained to teach reading) try to teach before they're really ready, it can cause a whole lot of frustrations. It's the same with teaching algebra to high school kids. One year they can't get it and they're not ready, the next year, they've developed enough and their brain has changed enough for them to really understand.
So I encourage you to not rush, take the lead of the teacher, spend this summer doing what I suggested above (read, read, read more), trust that the school will do a great job in fall.
You could definitely tell which student had a parent who used the pandemic lockdown to teach their kid to read!
Came back to disagree with this. Students have to be ready to learn to read. This should have said "you could definitely tell which students were ready to learn to read during the pandemic" and which kids have not matured in the same way yet. You can try to teach a kid that is not developmentally mature enough to read and you won't get too far (especially as a person who is not trained).
It's not all readiness, home lives where families are interacting with their kids in ways that promote literacy certainly does make a big difference (but what I mean by that is reading together, talking about words/rhyming/phonemic awareness, singing songs, writing together, not necessarily which families completed a certain reading program), but kids still have to be ready.
DS did well with Bob books. He didn’t seem excited about the stories but was really proud of his progress when he moved up from one book to the next. We didn’t start the next book until he could do the current book without much help.
ETA: I think this is also one of those things where all kids are different. He would have had a much harder time learning to read by just having me read to him and whatever they were doing at school. He really needed extra help.
You could definitely tell which student had a parent who used the pandemic lockdown to teach their kid to read!
It may come as a surprise to you that many of us didn’t have the luxury of spending more quality time with our kids during the pandemic. My husband had to continue teaching his own classes while trying to supervise our kindergartener’s remote school, and I was still going in to work (until I deployed to a different continent for 6 months). Even people who did have the luxury of working from home didn’t necessarily have extra time to devote to academic enrichment. Please stop judging those of us who didn’t emerge from the pandemic with super-star readers as lazy or somehow not caring enough about our kids.
Reading is a developmental skill. The best thing you can do is expose your child to books, read to them, and let them see you reading. When they are ready to learn they will barring something like dyslexia. That is not generally a Kindergarten concern though.
DD was generally the same. She could recognize a few sight words in Kindergarten plus sound out letters. By the end of 1st grade she could read a level 1 reader but it was painful and took forever. She didn't like doing it even a little bit because it was very hard work. It wasn't until the end of 2nd grade when something clicked and she could truly read. She didn't like doing it until 3rd grade. This is all very, very normal. No teacher was every concerned. I would definitely reframe your expectations here.
I feel defensive about this but want to say that teaching our 7yo kid to read at home and using Bob books did not destroy his love of reading. He has logged 1000+ minutes for the library summer reading program completely on his own. He asks to read all the time.
Like with any other thing we are teaching him, we encouraged it but pulled back when he got frustrated. I am just irritated at threads like these where it turns this way. School teaches kids to read. Obviously there are skills that need to be learned to be a proficient reader. It's not harmful to support those skills at home (within reason).
You could definitely tell which student had a parent who used the pandemic lockdown to teach their kid to read!
It may come as a surprise to you that many of us didn’t have the luxury of spending more quality time with our kids during the pandemic. My husband had to continue teaching his own classes while trying to supervise our kindergartener’s remote school, and I was still going in to work (until I deployed to a different continent for 6 months). Even people who did have the luxury of working from home didn’t necessarily have extra time to devote to academic enrichment. Please stop judging those of us who didn’t emerge from the pandemic with super-star readers as lazy or somehow not caring enough about our kids.
I didn't mean that sentence as judgmental at all and I'm really sorry it came across like that. I've been feeling like crap because my kid seemed behind her peers in my mom's playdate group with reading. I didn't have time to do anything educational with my kids during lockdown outside of bedtime reading. I'm grateful for the responses in this thread. We'll keep reading together but won't push anything hard.
Post by HoneySpider on Jun 21, 2022 8:42:13 GMT -5
DS1 is just finishing K and knows a decent amount of sight words but definitely can't read books yet. According to his teacher he is middle of the pack for K students at his school, which surprised me that so many were reading so well already. I kind of remember learning my letters in K, and I turned out ok (and love to read). He is stubborn and definitely does things on his timeline (he was a late talker for no other reason than he didn't want to yet) so like others have said, we are just keeping on with reading to him, having him work on words, etc. I'm not worried at this point - he has always loved books and we've done a ton of reading with him so he will get there eventually.
I feel defensive about this but want to say that teaching our 7yo kid to read at home and using Bob books did not destroy his love of reading. He has logged 1000+ minutes for the library reading program completely on his own. He asks to read all the time.
Like with any other thing we are teaching him, we encouraged it but pulled back when he got frustrated. I am just irritated at threads like these where it turns this way. School teaches kids to read. Obviously there are skills that need to be learned to be a proficient reader. It's not harmful to support those skills at home (within reason).
Sure but this is different. Your kid wants the challenge and you are providing it. Wonderful. No one said Bob books should be banned or anything. We are saying there is a wide range of normal and your kid not being ready for chapter books in kindergarten doesn’t put them behind.
Post by thebreakfastclub on Jun 21, 2022 9:17:49 GMT -5
Lol this didn't go well.
My son just finished 3rd grade. He is an above average reader when he has to read but will not ever read for fun. I would never read for fun either now so I don't push it.
All that to say, I remember he had a ring with 50 sight words that he learned. But I can't remember if he could read after K. I would just read to your kid, don't push it, and trust the teacher feedback.
I feel defensive about this but want to say that teaching our 7yo kid to read at home and using Bob books did not destroy his love of reading. He has logged 1000+ minutes for the library reading program completely on his own. He asks to read all the time.
Like with any other thing we are teaching him, we encouraged it but pulled back when he got frustrated. I am just irritated at threads like these where it turns this way. School teaches kids to read. Obviously there are skills that need to be learned to be a proficient reader. It's not harmful to support those skills at home (within reason).
Sure but this is different. Your kid wants the challenge and you are providing it. Wonderful. No one said Bob books should be banned or anything. We are saying there is a wide range of normal and your kid not being ready for chapter books in kindergarten doesn’t put them behind.
I don't think this is a correct characterization. I never said OP's kid was behind. I said in my original post that all early readers are a bit painful. There were times when we pushed reading on our son at home. But it's a balance.
I do want my kids to love reading. However, I also want them to love school and reading is a really foundational skill. A kid who is comfortable with reading will find all subjects easier. A kid who is struggling with reading is more likely to get frustrated in school and not love school. So yes, I do push my kids beyond what is "fun" at home in the hopes of making school easier. School is intense and if we can spread learning across the whole year then school will be more manageable. BUT of course I am responsive and back off when they get frustrated. It's knowing when to ease up. We have plenty of fun in the summer, too.
It may come as a surprise to you that many of us didn’t have the luxury of spending more quality time with our kids during the pandemic. My husband had to continue teaching his own classes while trying to supervise our kindergartener’s remote school, and I was still going in to work (until I deployed to a different continent for 6 months). Even people who did have the luxury of working from home didn’t necessarily have extra time to devote to academic enrichment. Please stop judging those of us who didn’t emerge from the pandemic with super-star readers as lazy or somehow not caring enough about our kids.
I didn't mean that sentence as judgmental at all and I'm really sorry it came across like that. I've been feeling like crap because my kid seemed behind her peers in my mom's playdate group with reading. I didn't have time to do anything educational with my kids during lockdown outside of bedtime reading. I'm grateful for the responses in this thread. We'll keep reading together but won't push anything hard.
I sat next to my kid every single day and hired private tutors and worked with him non stop during the pandemic. He still isn't a super reader. My eldest read with zero instruction (he just started reading at age 4 and the only thing I ever did was read to him).
Anyway, I realize that sometimes my kid dislikes reading entire books. They are just overwhelming to him. So we do a lot of reading by pointing out stress signs, or signs in stores. Random words around the house (the back of a cereal box). Its an easy way to add reading into your life without pressure IMO.
She’s not behind. Most kids learn to read between kindergarten and 2nd grades, and it’s all normal. You can’t force someone to learn to read when they aren’t t developmentally ready. Keeping reading to her. Show her how to sound out words. Hell, I’m pretty sure my older kid learned to read by watching Super Why. The worst thing you can do is making reading a chore — keep it fun!
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
This comes up on these boards a lot. Parents worried their kid is really far behind in reading. Anyway, I’ll echo what a bunch of people said up there. It’s a developmental skill. Keep reading as much as you can to your kid, keep books in your house, take your kid to the library or bookstore to pick out books to look at, to have you read to them, to try to read themselves (but the “level 1” books aren’t usually actually easy enough to do that which is dumb, phonics books or bob books are better for that, books with 1-3 repetitive words/sounds per page with a total of like 8-10 pages at most).
2/3 of my kids were “behind” in reading at the end of kindergarten, at the end of first, even into second for one and into 4th for one. Then their brains developed so they could learn it and all of a sudden they leapt ahead, like way ahead. Reading is a skill that doesn’t generally follow a linear progression, it’s more like massive growth, long plateau, massive growth, plateau, etc.
We kept them around along with harder books. One of my kids solely read these kinds of books until well into 2nd grade. Now she’s 13, going into 8th and loves reading, reads above grade level, etc etc. things I never thought would happen considering how resistant she was to reading at all until she was 7.
Post by edwardo123 on Jun 21, 2022 10:59:23 GMT -5
I would focus on phonemic awareness (auditory word play- rhymes, isolating beginning, middle, and ending sounds), read aloud together, and practice the first 50-100 sight words. Heggerty is a company that offers great instruction for phonemic awareness- a manual is around $50.
Do you know what reading curriculum your child’s school uses? My son’s school uses Lucy Calkins which is horrible and they do very little phonics / phonemic awareness. His school is 50% high ability and several rising first graders have been reading chapter books through kindergarten so the school isn’t motivated to change curriculum even though it’s shown to be a suboptimal program that can hinder many kids. After my son didn’t progress and even regressed the first half of K, I started incorporating All About Reading at home. It’s a multisensory program grounded in the science of reading. It’s like 15-20 min 4-5 days a week and enjoyable. His reading dramatically improved. Reading to your child is absolutely the most important thing, but I also wouldn’t rely on a school who only uses Calkins or similar programs to teach your child to read. My other suggestion would be to get rid of leveled readers and only use decodable books at home.