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Teaching Children How to Read

7/8/2015

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Once a child has developed the ability to distinguish between letter sounds (auditory discrimination) and the ability to visually discriminate letters (visual discrimination), he may be ready to read.  First we teach the letter sounds. Teaching letter names is not necessary for a child to learn to read, and is more often than not a hindrance in the early stages of reading.
Children who have learned to focus on letter names will have a hard time re-learning that the letter "C" does not say "see" and the letter "G" does not say "j". 
Once a child has learned all of the letter sounds, we begin to put the sounds together. We start with these ladders. The children use their fingers to climb up and down the ladders, reading the sounds as they go. Learning these beginning chunks helps the children become smooth readers. Rather than sounding out each individual sound in "sss... aaa... ttt...", the child can sound the word out in two chunks "sa" and "t".  
Synthesizing is the skill required for your child to put the sounds together. We play lots of games practicing synthesizing, so that it is natural and easy when your child begins reading. I may show a child a set of pictures and ask, "Can you point to the ba...t?" 
In the beginning, the children play lots of games finding pictures that begin with the word chunks that they are learning to read. 
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When the children have become proficient at their beginning ladders, we start to build words by adding ending sounds. 
Reading is not just the act of putting sounds together. It is important to make sure that the children are comprehending the words they are reading. 


A child may read: Ca...t. Cat!
I ask: What is that?
Child: A cat. It chases mice!
We keep practicing the same thing over and over again until the child has mastered the concept. 
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If we move on before a child has mastered a concept he will have even greater trouble with the next concept. A small hole in a child's learning will compound itself with each new concept until it becomes a huge gap. For example, if a child has 75% mastery of the "short a" words and we move on the the "short e" words, the child will likely only gain 70% mastery of the "short e" words. Since 70% is usually considered a passing grade, we could move on to the "short i" words and lessen the child's understanding even further. This child would certainly begin to experience confusion and frustration.
I have very high expectations for my students, but studies link teachers with high expectations to high performance from students. (Studies also, unfortunately, link the reverse. Teachers with low expectations yield low performance results from students.)
Some teachers may argue that it's best not to stop a child to correct him while he is reading. I disagree. "Had" and "has" are very closely spelled, but they are different verb tenses and that difference is important. 
A child who is truly gaining proficiency in reading should be able to read new words, and even nonsense words, by following the phonics rules he has learned. 
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Preschool Language Arts: Visual Skills

9/1/2014

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Our goal, as preschool teachers, is to expose every child to each of the skills required for a strong foundation in reading and writing.There are five main areas into which we group our Language Arts Standards: Fine Motor Skills, Auditory Skills, Visual Skills, Thinking/Conceptual, and Language.

This blog entry will cover the Academic Standards that fall under Visual Skills.
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Visual Memory - This is the ability to remember and repeat a sequence of pictures or colors that has been presented solely through visual means. 
Visual Figure-Ground Discrimination - Visual Figure-Ground Discrimination in the ability to distinguish an object from it's background.
Design Matching
Can Determine Alike/Different
Part-to-Whole
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Design Copying
Closure - Closure is the ability to recognize an object even when a child can only see part of it. Later, this will help  the child to quickly recognize words by their general shape or arrangement of letters without having to attend to each individual letter.
Visual Skills are just one small part of preschool Language Arts. We have broken Visual Skills into seven standards:

Visual Memory
Visual Figure-Ground Discrimination
Design Matching
Can Determine Alike/Different
Part-to-Whole
Design Copying
Closure

In our classroom, each lesson, game or classroom material has been intentionally planned and placed in the room to fulfill our Academic Content Standards. 
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Preschool Language Arts: Auditory Skills

8/31/2014

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Often, people think of preschool language arts as nothing beyond letters and words. However, it is the teacher's duty to prepare each child to become a fluent reader and competent writer. This requires many skills before and beyond letter recognition. There are five main areas into which we group our Language Arts Standards: Fine Motor Skills, Auditory Skills, Visual Skills, Thinking/Conceptual, and Language.

This blog entry will cover the Academic Standards that fall under Auditory Skills.

While repeated exposure to activities/games that include these concepts is paramount to the child's understanding, it is important to understand that a young child may not "get" a particular concept until he is developmentally ready.
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Auditory Memory - This is the ability to remember and repeat a sequence of sounds or words that has been presented solely through auditory means. 
Auditory Discrimination: Rhyming
Auditory Discrimination: Phonemic Awareness - The child can distinguish different environmental sounds or letter sounds.
Auditory Figure-Ground Discrimination - The child can distinguish one sound (a bell, teacher's voice) from many background sounds.
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Auditory Discrimination: Beginning and Ending Letter Sounds
Synthesizing - Synthesizing is a skill requiring a child to put the sounds together. Given three separate sounds, /s/, /u/ and /n/, the child can combine the sounds to come up with the word "sun". 
Segmenting into Syllables
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Auditory Skills are just one small part of preschool Language Arts. We have broken Auditory Skills into seven standards:

Auditory Memory
Auditory Discrimination: Rhyming
Auditory Discrimination: Phonemic Awareness
Auditory Figure-Ground Discrimination
Auditory Discrimination: Beginning and Ending Letter Sounds
Synthesizing
Segmenting into Syllables

In our classroom, each lesson, game or classroom material has been intentionally planned and placed in the room to fulfill our Academic Content Standards. 
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Preschool Language Art Standards: Fine Motor Skills

8/30/2014

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In order for a child to become a fluent reader and writer, he must become competent at the skills in each of our Language Arts Standards. There are five main groups of Language Arts Standards: Fine Motor Skills, Auditory Skills, Visual Skills, Thinking/Conceptual, and Language.

This blog entry will cover the Academic Standards that fall under the Fine Motor Skills category.
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Eye-Hand Coordination
Tracing - Tracing should always be done left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Left-to-right progression (the way that we write) is a habit that must be formed, and it should be formed correctly from the beginning.
Pasting 
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Cutting
Hand Strength and Coordination - Zippers, buttons, locks and keys, peg boards, play dough.
Tactile Differentiation
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Lacing
Pencil Skills - Writing name, coloring and drawing.
Fine Motor Skills are just one small part of preschool language arts. We have broken Fine Motor Skills into eight standards:


Eye-Hand Coordination
Tracing
Pasting

Cutting
Hand Strength and Coordination
Tactile Differentiation

Lacing
Pencil Skills



In our classroom, each lesson, game or classroom material has been intentionally planned and placed in the room to fulfill our Academic Content Standards. 
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Auditory Discrimination Game

3/24/2014

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Auditory discrimination is the ability to recognize the difference between sounds. We often take this to mean letter sounds or rhyme, but any type of sound could be used to practice auditory discrimination.
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This game uses animal sounds. 
For this game, the cards are flipped upside down and a child chooses one card. He then makes the sound of the animal on the card.
The first child to guess the correct animal gets to hold onto the card for the rest of the game. 
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Dr Seuss's Birthday Celebration: Day One

3/3/2014

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Today in small group we read There's a Wocket in my Pocket by Dr Seuss. 
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Rhyming is a fun way for children to play with words, but it also increases their phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is a better predictor of a child's future success in reading than IQ or perceptual ability. 
We talked about how Dr Seuss used nonsense words in the story, and how that means that a "wocket" can look however we imagine it.
Then we practiced making wockets out of clay. The children did an excellent job of describing their wockets. 
"Mine has big ears and a long body."
"Mine has fluffy hair and a stubby tail."
"Mine has one leg and four hands."
"Mine has two eyes, a nose, and a smile."
"Mine has hair, two arms, two legs, and a skinny tail."
Next, they drew and colored their wockets.
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Finally, they were able to put them in their "pockets" to take home.
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1-2-3 Remember Me Freebie!

3/3/2014

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We have good news! Our first teacherspayteachers freebie is up!
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This is a great resource for parents, homeschoolers, and experienced educators because some of the research regarding the importance of auditory memory is provided within the document. Auditory memory is an important skill to practice at a young age to ensure your children become fluent readers, but it's never too late!
We've played it many times in our preschool classroom, and the children love it!
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All of the materials and instructions needed to play are contained within the document. Check it out!

To download this game, click on the button below. This will take you to our teacherspayteachers store where the game is available.


www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/joy-in-learning


Don't forget to give us a rating! We'd love to hear your thoughts!
teacherspayteachers
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More Letter Sounds!

2/26/2014

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We practice letter sounds A LOT. Here, the children are stamping the letter that makes the beginning sound from the picture (spider, list, lion fence). 

An individual activity like this works as an assessment, so that the teacher can keep a running list of what the child needs help with. 

While we do not need to conduct formal assessments every day, we must always be assessing whether or not our students are understanding the concepts we are teaching. If we move on before the children are MASTERING the concepts, we are creating frustration and confusion. 

Our goal is to practice these letter sounds until they are committed to the child's long term memory. As these activities get easier and easier, the begin to turn into 'rote' learning. Once they become 'rote',  the children can commit more of their brain to higher level thinking and problem solving. 
Mastery Learning: You don't practice until you get it right. You practice until you can't get it wrong.
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Working on the Short "A" Sound

2/22/2014

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Our preschoolers working on the short ‘a’ sound. These children are cutting out "aaaa" pictures and gluing them to a lowercase "a". We try to add a fine motor component, like cutting, to our activities every day.
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We use the lowercase letter ‘a’ because the lowercase letters are more frequently used and therefore more important for children to be able to recognize and write.
I always refer to it as ‘the aaaaa letter’ (drawing out the short ‘a’ sound, as in ‘alligator’) to prevent confusion.
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Fishing for Letter Sounds

2/16/2014

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A common misconception in Early Childhood Education is that it’s important for children to know the NAMES of letters before they begin kindergarten (or reading).
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A much more important skill is the ability for your child to be able to discriminate sounds (auditory discrimination).
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These children are fishing for pictures that begin with the ‘ssssss’, ‘mmmmmm’, or ‘ffffffff’ sound. It is not necessary for the child to know any letter names in this activity. When she catches a ‘sssssssock’ fish, she puts it in the pail with the letter that says ‘sssss’.
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There is a component of visual discrimination (remembering which letter makes which sound) to this activity, but for the children who do not remember, I will tell them what sound each letter makes. This keeps the integrity of the activity (sorting sounds).
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We take our time with these letter sounds (it is preschool, after all) and let the children really MASTER each sound before moving on. Once they learn a few letter sounds and understand the concept, they begin to learn them VERY quickly, and it’s quite fascinating.
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    Author

    Wendy Joy Yohman
    Eleven years teaching experience
     at a small private  school. 
    Current preschool supervisor.
     Bachelor's Degree in 
    Psychology with an emphasis
     on educational kinesiology 
    (how different movements 
    activate certain areas of the 
    brain). 

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