Category Archives: beginning readers

Two games make phonics fun for beginning readers

Posted on August 22, 2022 | Leave a comment

With young students, games are the easiest way to maintain interest and learn at the same time. I’d like to suggest two games to teach beginning reading (CVC words). Neither game is new, but both attract youngsters, from my experience.

One game is BLAH BLAH BLAH Word Game, Level 1000. This game consists of three sets of playing cards, color coded according to level. Each card consists of one word printed in the middle, and individual letters of that word printed in the corners. A player needs to match one letter on a card in his hand to one letter on the face-up word in the middle of the table (hat and tug, for example).

This game has three levels: CVC words; CVC words with blends; and words with long vowels (oa, ai, ee, oo, etc.). It does not include words ending with silent e at the 1000 level. When a player matches a letter, he must place his card over the face-up word already played and read the word aloud. The next player must match one of the letters on the just matched card. However, other cards (skip a turn, take four cards, change order) allow a player without a match to play. The first player to play all his cards wins.

I have played this game with an about-to-start kindergartener, who sounds out each word as he plays. He uses the “joker” cards strategically to stop a player from winning or to enact revenge on a player who interferes with his goals. But it could be used with a child learning his letters but not yet able to read words.

The only drawback I have found is the size of the cards. For little hands, regular-sized playing cards are too big to fan. Too bad the deck isn’t smaller-sized.

The other game my almost kindergartener and I like is Zingo! Each player receives a BINGO-like card with six words printed on it. However, one of the letters of each word is missing as in “_ig” or “c_t.” A player must take letter tiles distributed from a machine-like device and use them, one at a time, to create words by covering the blank spaces on his card. Consonants are black and vowels are red. The first player to cover his card wins.

This game offers two levels, one on each side of the BINGO card: CVC words and CVC words with blends. The machine-like device which distributes the tiles is attractive to little hands, and can easily distract a youngster from the purpose of the game. This game is harder than the previous game since it requires the child to read several incomplete words at each turn and to try to figure out where placing a tile makes sense. For beginner readers, this requires help.

I like to use games like this at the end of a lesson to extend the lesson time. Little kids have short attention spans, so ending a lesson with games like these continues the learning.

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Posted in beginning readers, blends, consonants, CVC words, double vowel words, letter tiles, methods of teaching reading, methods of teaching spelling, phonics, practice reading skills, silent "e" words, Spelling

Check your child’s prereading skills before teaching her to read

Posted on October 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

The place to start teaching reading is by assessing her prereading skills. This is easy. Hand your child a picture book upside down with the back cover facing up. Watch what happens.

Does the child turn the book over so the cover is right side up?

Does the child open the book with the bulk of the pages near her right hand?

When the child turns the pages, does she turn them from front to back?

Ask the child to point which way the words are read. Does she point top to bottom? Left to right?

Ask the child where the cover and back page are. Where is the title?

If your child can answer these questions correctly, she knows basic pre-reading skills for the English language. If she cannot answer these questions correctly, teach her.

How? Read often to your child and point out these basics. You could also play games by holding the book upside down, or by beginning to read from the last page, or by looking at the back cover and saying, “Is this where we begin?” If your child corrects you, she has absorbed these pre-reading skills.

If you read to your child in two languages such as Chinese and English, or Arabic and English, make sure your child understands these skills as they apply to English. Some languages do not follow the English language pattern. You might want to stop lessons in the other language for a few months until the English pattern is established.

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Posted in beginning readers, prereading skills, reading readiness.

Four stages in learning to read

Posted on January 24, 2021 | Leave a comment

The saying goes, in kindergarten through third grade, a child learns to read (think phonics); in third and later grades, a child reads to learn (think comprehension).*

But practically, what does this mean?

Child with arms stretched out at his sides, forming the letter T.

By the end of kindergarten:

Students can recognize almost all letters, upper and lower case.
Some students can state the sound represented by an individual consonant letter, and they can recognize closed (short) vowel sounds.
Some students can read consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words.
Most students cannot yet read open (long) vowel patterns such as oa and ight.
Many students rely on first and last letters in words to sound words out.
Students rely on pictures to help figure out words.

By the end of first grade:

Students can decode one-syllable CVC words, including those with blends.
Students can decode one-syllable words ending in a silent e.
Students can read one-syllable open (long) vowel words like he and my.
Students can read one-syllable r-controlled words like star and dirt.
Students can read some one-syllable words with two-vowels like bee and boot.
Many students need to sound out common one-syllable words rather than recognizing them as sight words.
Students depend less on pictures and context clues to decipher words.

By the end of second grade:

Increasingly, students are able to decode two- and three-syllable words if those words follow rules of phonics.
Students can decode words by separating familiar suffixes and prefixes to find root words and then reassembling the parts.
Students recognize common letter patterns.

By the end of third grade:

Students have mastered decoding of words using phonics, including many multi-syllabic words.
Students recognize most common words by sight.
Students recognize word families and can use that knowledge to decipher new words.

This breakdown covers word recognition. But there is another part of learning to read, namely, language comprehension. We will discuss that in the next blog.

*Researcher Jeanne Chall (1983) first coined this idea.

See researchers Linnea Ehri (1991, 2005) and Spear-Swerling (2015) for more indepth discussion of reading stages.

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Posted in beginning readers, CVC words, letter sounds, phonics, readiness for the next grade, reading readiness., silent "e" words

Techniques for teaching a young beginning reader

Posted on October 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

I learned to read when I was in first grade, when I was six years old going on seven. But so many of the beginning readers I teach today are much younger. Right now I am working with a five-year-old kindergartener, one of the youngest boys in his class. Although he is bright and ready to learn to read, he is also fidgety and inattentive.

Maybe you are working at home during the pandemic with such a kindergartener? How do you teach such a child without both you and he becoming frustrated?

The answer is to have multiple ways of teaching the same concept, so when attention wanes, you can try different approaches.

Suppose you are teaching blends at the beginning of short-vowel one-syllable words. For such a child, I would schedule either multiple ten-minute lessons, or a thirty-minute lesson divided into three parts. What could those parts include?

Review using lists for five minutes. Reading lists of words is a good way to begin. Reading lists is boring, so move on quickly. If the words are printed in large type with lots of white space, that helps the words to look “friendly.”
Using flash cards make great reviews too. They also can become boring quickly.
Making words of letter tiles covers a lot of words in a short amount of time.
Reading words on BINGO-like cards of words turns learning into fun. Nine words per card (three words across by three words down) is few enough not to overwhelm the child. Ask the student to cover a word when you pronounce it. Then ask the child to pronounce the word and you cover it. Pennies or tiny candies used as markers offer incentive to play this game.
Reading cartoons in workbooks can be fun. The drawings attract the child, but sometimes they offer clues to words which the child does not sound out, so be careful.
Working on appropriate workbook pages from a supplementary series is another approach.
Having the child handwrite words reinforces them and improves printing skills.
“Writing” words in a dish of sand or sugar can seem more like fun than learning. I would use this type lesson at the end of the time period because other approaches might seem boring in comparison.
The same goes for online learning. Often it is more attractive than “analog” methods. But old-fashioned methods can target the child’s specific needs quicker.

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Posted in beginning readers, how to make learning fun, methods of teaching reading, practice reading skills, printed handwriting, reading strategies, reading tips, teaching tips

Ah ha!

Posted on September 23, 2020 | Leave a comment

My first grade grandson had an “Ah ha!” moment while reading to me this week.

He was reading a short chapter book especially meant for beginning readers. Almost all the words were short-vowel, one-syllable words. Many of them were repeated for reinforcement. Most pages contained only four or five short sentences. Every page had line drawings to give extra meaning.

Usually when he reads, he sounds out every word and then says the complete word. But this time—except for unfamiliar words—he said aloud just the word, not the phonics within the word.

“Gramma,” he said, his eyes bright. “I read fast! I didn’t have to say all the letter sounds. Did you hear?”

“You read great!” I said, and we high-fived.

My grandson didn’t know it, but he made a transition that all good readers eventually make. Instead of reading individual letters, he read individual words and in a couple of cases, individual phrases.

When children are learning to read, we tell children to sound out words, not to memorize the look of words. But in fact, when we encounter a word often enough, we no longer need to sound it out. We recognize it from its appearance.

Elite athletes go through a similar phase. A great diver doesn’t need to think about which way his palms are facing or which leg to lead his spring with or how to tuck his body or whether his feet are pointed at the same angle. He has done the individual parts of the dive hundreds—thousands—of times and he has developed muscle memory.

As adults, that’s what you and I do whenever we read. Unless we encounter an unfamiliar word, we recognize words and phrases and no longer need to read individual letters or even individual words. We read chunks.

Test this idea on yourself. As you are reading these words, are you pausing over each word? Or are you reading chunks of words? For example, in the second sentence, didn’t you read, “As you are reading—these words—are you pausing—over each word?”

I am so proud of my grandson’s progress in reading. From the day kindergarten ended abruptly in March, he has continued to learn to read using a phonics approach. How wonderful for him to recognize his own progress. And how lucky for me to be sitting by his side when he did.

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Posted in beginning readers, early chapter books, letter sounds, phonics, reading in kindergarten

“How do I teach my grandson to read remotely?”

Posted on August 16, 2020 | 1 comment

“How do I teach my grandson to read remotely?” asked a grandmother. She plans to use Zoom, Facetime, and ready-to-go reading materials for an hour daily. After testing the boy informally, she believes she needs to start from scratch to fill in any gaps in basic phonics.

Here is what I advised her:

First, buy two copies of “Why Johnny Can’t Read” by Rudolph Flesch. Send one to your grandson and you keep one. Go to the back where there are lists of words. Start on page one, asking the boy to pronounce the sound of each letter shown. When he can do that, move on to the page of short a words. Have the boy read the short a words, or a portion of them.

Reading lists of words is tiring, so do maybe ten minutes of such work and ask the boy’s parents to do another ten minutes at night. Or read from the list at the beginning of the lesson, then do something else, and then come back to the list. Move through the lists at whatever pace indicates that the boy is mastering the words.

Why use “Why Johnny Can’t Read” a 65-year-old resource? The simple answer is because I know it works. I have used this phonics-based resource for almost 35 years with native born children and with immigrant children. All of them hated it, true, but all of them learned to read quickly. There are other reading primers, but for me this is a tried and true resource. It’s available in bookstores and online.

Second, buy two copies of “Explode the Code” workbooks 1, 1 ½, 2 and 2 ½. (Eventually, buy the next sets in this series, but for starts, these workbooks are enough.) This series teaches reading using a phonics-based approach. Kids like it because of the silly illustrations. Have the child start reading while you follow along on your copy, noting and correcting mistakes. Eventually, the child might do some of the pages for homework or with his parents.

“Explode the Code” reinforces the harder work of reading lists of words. It does not follow the exact sequencing of skills in “Why Johnny Can’t Read,” but you can adapt one to the other easily.

Why “Explode the Code”? I have used this series with dozens of children, and all have liked the silliness of the drawings. For children whose vocabulary is limited, the drawings and distractor words offer opportunities to develop new vocabulary. There are other workbook series, but because of the humor and sequence of phonics development in “Explode the Code,” I like it.

Third, buy a set of letter tiles. You can use the tiles from a Scrabble game or from Bananagrams. Or use a keyboard. What you want to do is to introduce, teach and review new concepts. using tiles or computer words. If you are teaching short a, for example, manipulate the tiles so the child can see them to form “cat” and then “hat” and then “fat,” etc. Changing the first letter while keeping the ending vowel and consonant is easier for beginning readers to decode. Using tiles or computer-generated words enables you to go quickly. Later, you can move from “mat” to “mate” or from “mick” to “mike” and back and forth quickly to show differences in spellings and sounds.

Fourth, recommend to the child’s parents that the child watch the Netflix series “Alphablocks,” an animated series using silly letter characters to teach phonics. This British series offers tiny segments of three or four minutes to teach particular phonics skills. Even three-year-olds will learn to recognize letters from watching this series. Older children will be able to read words as they pop up on the screen.

All of these materials are readily available, allowing you to start teaching immediately. Young children need variety, so move from one resource to another every 10 or 15 minutes. The younger or more distractible the child, the more necessary it is to have a variety of approaches—as well as learning materials the child can manipulate, like the tiles.

Reading lists and reading tile-made words or computer-screen words does not require the fine motor coordination some beginning readers lack. When I use “Explode the Code,” for some children I allow drawing lines from words to drawings rather than writing words. Keep in mind you are teaching reading, and even though it would be nice for the child to print the letters, or to spell correctly, that is not necessary to read. For particularly uncoordinated children, I will write or draw or encircle providing they do the reading. Anything to keep them reading!

Start each lesson with a quick—two or three minute—review of past work, slowing down if the concepts haven’t been learned. Then introduce new work or repeat old work if that is needed. At the end of the lesson, review the new work of the lesson. Review, teach new, review again.

Finally, FYI, I am not being paid to suggest these particular products. I am suggesting them because I know they work, they are available and they are affordable.

Please share your experiences teaching reading online. That is the kind of information we are all wanting right now.

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Posted in beginning readers, consonants, learning, letter sounds, methods of teaching reading, methods of teaching vocabulary, phonics, practice reading skills, reading readiness., reading strategies, reading tips

5 ways to keep beginning readers engaged

Posted on September 23, 2019 | Leave a comment

The younger the reading student, the more activities a teacher needs to keep the student engaged during a lesson. For four- and five-year-olds, I come prepared with a bagful of reading activities such as

A stack of pictures showing CVC words (flag, map, dog, cat, and pen) which the student sorts into two piles: those that have the desired vowel or consonant sound, and those that don’t.
Letter tiles which I use to form words, phrases and sentences for the student to read. Sentences using the student’s own name attract the youngest readers. Letting the student create some of the words. also keeps the student engaged.
Stories written with the simplest CVC vocabulary which the student and I read together, and then which she reads independently.
Twelve pictures of rhyming words on index cards .

Another kind of reading assignment that my youngest reading students like is reading and answering silly questions like the following:

Can an ant wink to a cat? Yes No
Can a bug land on a lip? Yes No
Will a duck swim in a mug? Yes No
Can a big cat fit in a bag? Yes No
Will a dog dig with a pen? Yes No

The questions consist of whatever examples of the reading concept we are studying at the time such as CVC words, blends, or two-syllable short-vowel words. Almost all the questions are ridiculous and the more ridiculous the better. Having colored pencils or markers to use intensifies the fun.

I find that the more hands-on the activity, the better. Early readers sometimes cannot print letters, but they can make ovals around words or draw matching lines. They can hold a small stack of pictures and sort them into piles. They can move around letter tiles.

The more busy their bodies are, the more likely they are to stay engaged.

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Posted in beginning readers, CVC words, letter sounds, printed handwriting, reading tips, teaching tips

How the “Not Yet, Baby” book came to be

Posted on September 16, 2019 | Leave a comment

I have been asked where the ideas for the beginning reading books came from. Are they real stories? Did we make them up? The truth is somewhere in between, as Mrs. A, the illustrator explains below about the book, Not Yet, Baby:

The idea came to me as I was traveling through national parks in Utah and Arizona a few years ago. Occasionally I would get a text or a picture from my son, Tom, the dad of two little boys. The younger one was walking and following his three-year-old brother everywhere. Whatever the older boy had, the baby wanted. Whatever the older boy was doing, the baby was underfoot.

I reminded Tom that he too, had been a younger brother and had been a pain in the neck to his big brother, Lou. Lou would build elaborate corrals with wooden blocks, enclosing a dinosaur in each compartment. Tom would totter across the rug, destroying the entire habitat. On the tour bus in the Rockies, as I remembered spending hours restraining the rambunctious Tom, the ideas flowed, and within a few days I had a book full of sketches!

Not Yet, Baby is the story of a big brother and the family baby. The little one wants to do whatever the big brother does.

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If big brother swims, baby wants to swim. If big brother eats a hot dog, baby wants to eat a hot dog. If big brother kick-boxes, baby wants to kick box. Often in danger, the baby is dragged away just in time.

Not Yet, Baby illustrates typical yet humorous situations that a four, five, or six-year old would understand. The book uses mostly one syllable, short vowel words appropriate for beginning readers. Interactive activity pages follow—word searches, matching rhyming words, filling in the correct vowel and completing a crossword puzzle.

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As you read Not Yet, Baby, you may remember being the older child trying to understand the limitations of a younger one.

Or maybe you can relate to a baby trying to keep up, or the adult who works tirelessly to keep one child safe and another one happy. Maybe the story will lead to talks with your child about your childhood or his. There’s so much to talk about in Not Yet, Baby. You can find Not Yet, Baby at Amazon.com.

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Posted in beginning readers, books for beginning readers, CVC words, early childhood education, how to make learning fun, illustrated books, phonics, reading in kindergarten

Tagged early reader books

Six questions to test your beginning reader knowledge

Posted on September 4, 2019 | Leave a comment

What is the best method for learning to read, based on research?

primarily using phonics
figuring out words from their context or from pictures
memorizing words (sight words, whole language)

Two fists with thumbs up and knuckles touching make letter "b" and "d" with a BeD visualized between the two thumbs. What two printed letters are the hardest for children to distinguish?

p and q
q and g
b and d
m and n

Which two short vowel sounds are hardest for children to distinguish?

a and e
e and i
o and u
a and o

In order to learn to read, do children need to recite and/or recognize the ABC’s in alphabetical order?

Which comes first?

recognizing a letter
recognizing a sound?

How many letter sounds does a child need to hear and speak in order to speak standard American English?

Answers

Three children with signs around their necks that read: Meniruze words, Phonics, Whole Language Primarily using phonics is the best method for learning to read. The US government did a comprehensive study of hundreds of research studies on how children learn to read and discovered that using a phonics-based approach produces the best results.

Lower case “b” and “d” are the hardest letter shapes for children to distinguish. Most children are confused at first. Sometimes this confusion lasts into third grade, but with time, all children figure it out.

Short “e” and “i” are the hardest letter sounds to distinguish. Most reading series start by teaching short “a” followed by short “o” because these two sounds are the easiest to distinguish. Expect lots of errors when “e” and “i” words are learned, and expect learning them will take more time. Short “u” is harder than “a” and “o,” but since there are far fewer such words, learning “u” is not so hard as learning “e” and “i.

Beginning readers do not need to know their ABC’s in order. Alphabetic order is a second or third grade skill, so it doesn’t need to be learned immediately.

Recognizing a sound is more important than recognizing a letter at first. Beginning readers need to be able to hear sounds and to pronounce them aloud. They do not need an alphabet in front of them to do that. Toddlers can learn to recognize sounds long before they are ready to read letters.

Child looking at flash cards of two and three letter words.

American standard English has 42 sounds. Some of the 26 letters duplicate sounds such as “c” and “k,” “c” and “s,” “s” and “z,” and “qu” and “kw.” Many vowel sounds can be written multiple ways (ugly, Hannah, other). Some sounds take two letters to make (th, ch, sh). Regional dialects can add or subtract a sound or two, but in general there are 42 separate sounds in American English.

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Posted in ABC's, beginning readers, distinguishing b from d, letter sounds, methods of teaching reading, mixing up letters, phonics, Quiz, reading research, sight words, sounds of English, teaching tips

Worth reading: The Settled Science of Teaching Reading*

Posted on August 27, 2019 | Leave a comment

I thought the time for discussion was over, that the correct way to teach reading had been established by research almost twenty years ago.

Apparently not. On social media the discussion continues. Is it better to focus on teaching phonics and how letter sounds form words or to focus on whole language (memorizing words and discovering meaning).

After a study of hundreds of research reports of how children learn to read, the US government reported in 2000 that the best way to teach English reading is to focus on phonemes and phonics first. Children need instruction on how sounds correspond to letters, and how combining those letters forms words. New readers also need to memorize high frequency words that don’t necessarily follow the rules of phonics (words like “was, ” “do,” and “the”).

According to the 2000 National Reading Panel, students need to learn five concepts relating to reading:

Phonics (combining letters to form words)
Phonological awareness (how sounds correspond to letters)
Fluency (reading in phrases with appropriate stops and starts and with voice inflection)
Vocabulary
Comprehension (understanding what is read)

Decoding the language comes from studying phonics, phonological awareness and fluency. Combine that with vocabulary and you achieve the desired result of reading comprehension.

Yet research also shows that even today not all reading teachers know, or even if they know, apply the correct approaches to teaching reading.

If your kindergarten child comes home with lists of words to memorize, beware. If those words are sight words, okay. But the main focus of his or her learning should be how sounds correspond to letters, and how combining those letters forms words, and how combining those words forms sentences with meaning.

*https://www.collaborativeclassroom.org/blog/the-settled-science-of-teaching-reading-part-1/?_hsmi=76082821