Do kindergarteners read

Kindergarten reading Reading | GreatSchools.org

If learning to read is like building a skyscraper, then kindergarten is the year to construct the most solid foundation possible. As part of that foundation, kindergartners will be working on the five pillars of kindergarten reading: understanding the relationship between sounds and words (phonetics), reading fluently, understanding what they read, expanding vocabulary, and building knowledge.

All about the alphabet

This year, your kindergartner will be expected to recognize all 26 lowercase and uppercase letters — as well as their sounds. They should be able to identify which letters are different in similar words (e.g. map, lap, tap). They should also know that spoken words represent a sequence of letters.

Left to right, up to down, front to back

Kindergartners need to learn the reading rules: that you start at the top of the page and going downwards, you read from left to right, and page by page. By the end of the year, students also need to become familiar with parts of a book, such as the front cover, the back cover, and the title page.

Related: Learn one simple way to boost your child’s reading skills.

Word sense and rhymes

Word play helps kindergartners understand how words are broken into individual syllables and how words with similar endings rhyme. The more exposure kindergartners get to how syllables and words work together, the more they’ll build their word knowledge.

All year long, kindergartners are working on what’s known as “decoding” skills — deciphering the meanings of words and phrases within the context of what they’re reading. And when your child asks you to read their favorite book over and over (and over) again? Take heart! Your clever kindergartner is practicing decoding without even knowing it!

Related: Watch our Milestone video Does your kindergartner “decode” like this?

Finally, with the help of adults, kindergartners are learning to make connections between words and their nuances, so they can sort them into categories (e. g. shapes and colors) and figure out antonyms, a fancy way of saying opposites (e.g. open/close, hot/cold). This year, they’ll even be deciphering shades of meaning between words. Tip: Have your child act out similar words. What does it look like to march, strut, walk, and stroll? What does it look like to cry, sob, and howl?

Mastering common words

According to the Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists, about half of all reading texts are made up of the same 100 words! Here’s something even more remarkable about these wonder words: most kindergartners will know all of them by the end of the year. To that end, many kindergarten teachers will send their students home with lists of these high-frequency words (e.g. at, be, of, and to). Your child will also need to learn sight words — words that can’t be easily sounded out or illustrated with a text (e.g. good, out). When it comes to sight words, memorization is key, since using phonics or decoding skills don’t often work for these short, common, but often oddly spelled words. (How does one sound out “the” anyway?) Tip: Word lists are perfect for the refrigerator, where you can playfully quiz your kindergartner before dinnertime.

Exploring fiction and nonfiction

While reading with your child, start asking: is this real or imaginary? The goal is for kindergartners to split their time between stories and information (think: dinosaurs, trees, and starfish) while learning the differences between the two types of text. By the end of kindergarten, your child should be able to recognize stories and poems and find the name of a book’s author and illustrator with the understanding that the author wrote the words and the illustrator drew the pictures — whether the book is a true story or a truly fantastic tale.

Related: Check out our lists of classic childhood favorites and history books for kindergartners.

Building a knowledge bank

Kindergartners need to grow their understanding of the world by integrating new information into what they already know. Think of it as your kindergartner opening a knowledge bank account and filling it with accumulated information.

Related: Watch our Milestones video Does your kindergartner read to learn like this?

Key skills that will help your kindergartner build knowledge include being able to retell familiar stories; identify characters, setting, and major events in a story; and compare and contrast characters and events in different stories.

What does this sound like? It’s your 5-year-old explaining that Harold in Harold and the Purple Crayon had an amazing adventure because of what he imagined. It’s your T-rex lover understanding dinosaurs were real, but now don’t exist. The key is getting kindergartners understanding and thinking about the big ideas they learn when they read — and taking that information with them as they grow.

Show me the evidence!

In kindergarten, this really just means finding — and literally pointing to — answers to questions. Your child could show evidence by flipping through the pages and finding the words — or the picture of the scene you asked about.

Related: Watch our Milestones video Does your kindergartner show understanding like this?

Your child’s teacher will emphasize evidence in different ways this year, but the main skills are:

Asking and answering questions about details in books and showing exactly where those answers show up in the text or illustrations.
Being able to discern a book’s main point and using the text or images to show how the author makes this point.
Connect a book’s illustrations to the exact words they illustrate.

Teaching children to read isn’t easy. How do kids actually learn to read?

A student in a Mississippi elementary school reads a book in class. Research shows young children need explicit, systematic phonics instruction to learn how to read fluently. Credit: Terrell Clark for The Hechinger Report

Teaching kids to read isn’t easy; educators often feel strongly about what they think is the “right” way to teach this essential skill. Though teachers’ approaches may differ, the research is pretty clear on how best to help kids learn to read. Here’s what parents should look for in their children’s classroom.

How do kids actually learn how to read?

Research shows kids learn to read when they are able to identify letters or combinations of letters and connect those letters to sounds. There’s more to it, of course, like attaching meaning to words and phrases, but phonemic awareness (understanding sounds in spoken words) and an understanding of phonics (knowing that letters in print correspond to sounds) are the most basic first steps to becoming a reader.

If children can’t master phonics, they are more likely to struggle to read. That’s why researchers say explicit, systematic instruction in phonics is important: Teachers must lead students step by step through a specific sequence of letters and sounds. Kids who learn how to decode words can then apply that skill to more challenging words and ultimately read with fluency. Some kids may not need much help with phonics, especially as they get older, but experts say phonics instruction can be essential for young children and struggling readers “We don’t know how much phonics each kid needs,” said Anders Rasmussen, principal of Wood Road Elementary School in Ballston Spa, New York, who recently led the transformation of his schools’ reading program to a research-based, structured approach. “But we know no kid is hurt by getting too much of it.”

How should your child’s school teach reading?

Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an expert on reading instruction, said phonics are important in kindergarten through second grade and phonemic awareness should be explicitly taught in kindergarten and first grade. This view has been underscored by experts in recent years as the debate over reading instruction has intensified. But teaching kids how to read should include more than phonics, said Shanahan. They should also be exposed to oral reading, reading comprehension and writing.

The wars over how to teach reading are back. Here’s the four things you need to know.

Wiley Blevins, an author and expert on phonics, said a good test parents can use to determine whether a child is receiving research-based reading instruction is to ask their child’s teacher how reading is taught. “They should be able to tell you something more than ‘by reading lots of books’ and ‘developing a love of reading.’ ” Blevins said. Along with time dedicated to teaching phonics, Blevins said children should participate in read-alouds with their teacher to build vocabulary and content knowledge. “These read-alouds must involve interactive conversations to engage students in thinking about the content and using the vocabulary,” he said. “Too often, when time is limited, the daily read-alouds are the first thing left out of the reading time. We undervalue its impact on reading growth and must change that. ”

Rasmussen’s school uses a structured approach: Children receive lessons in phonemic awareness, phonics, pre-writing and writing, vocabulary and repeated readings. Research shows this type of “systematic and intensive” approach in several aspects of literacy can turn children who struggle to read into average or above-average readers.

What should schools avoid when teaching reading?

Educators and experts say kids should be encouraged to sound out words, instead of guessing. “We really want to make sure that no kid is guessing,” Rasmussen said. “You really want … your own kid sounding out words and blending words from the earliest level on.” That means children are not told to guess an unfamiliar word by looking at a picture in the book, for example. As children encounter more challenging texts in later grades, avoiding reliance on visual cues also supports fluent reading. “When they get to ninth grade and they have to read “Of Mice and Men,” there are no picture cues,” Rasmussen said.

Related: Teacher Voice: We need phonics, along with other supports, for reading

Blevins and Shanahan caution against organizing books by different reading levels and keeping students at one level until they read with enough fluency to move up to the next level. Although many people may think keeping students at one level will help prevent them from getting frustrated and discouraged by difficult texts, research shows that students actually learn more when they are challenged by reading materials.

Blevins said reliance on “leveled books” can contribute to “a bad habit in readers.” Because students can’t sound out many of the words, they rely on memorizing repeated words and sentence patterns, or on using picture clues to guess words. Rasmussen said making kids stick with one reading level — and, especially, consistently giving some kids texts that are below grade level, rather than giving them supports to bring them to grade level — can also lead to larger gaps in reading ability.

How do I know if a reading curriculum is effective?

Some reading curricula cover more aspects of literacy than others. While almost all programs have some research-based components, the structure of a program can make a big difference, said Rasmussen. Watching children read is the best way to tell if they are receiving proper instruction — explicit, systematic instruction in phonics to establish a foundation for reading, coupled with the use of grade-level texts, offered to all kids.

Parents who are curious about what’s included in the curriculum in their child’s classroom can find sources online, like a chart included in an article by Readingrockets.org which summarizes the various aspects of literacy, including phonics, writing and comprehension strategies, in some of the most popular reading curricula.

Blevins also suggested some questions parents can ask their child’s teacher:

What is your phonics scope and sequence?

“If research-based, the curriculum must have a clearly defined phonics scope and sequence that serves as the spine of the instruction. ” Blevins said.

Do you have decodable readers (short books with words composed of the letters and sounds students are learning) to practice phonics?

“If no decodable or phonics readers are used, students are unlikely to get the amount of practice and application to get to mastery so they can then transfer these skills to all reading and writing experiences,” Blevins said. “If teachers say they are using leveled books, ask how many words can students sound out based on the phonics skills (teachers) have taught … Can these words be fully sounded out based on the phonics skills you taught or are children only using pieces of the word? They should be fully sounding out the words — not using just the first or first and last letters and guessing at the rest.”

What are you doing to build students’ vocabulary and background knowledge? How frequent is this instruction? How much time is spent each day doing this?

“It should be a lot,” Blevins said, “and much of it happens during read-alouds, especially informational texts, and science and social studies lessons. ”

Is the research used to support your reading curriculum just about the actual materials, or does it draw from a larger body of research on how children learn to read? How does it connect to the science of reading?

Teachers should be able to answer these questions, said Blevins.

What should I do if my child isn’t progressing in reading?

When a child isn’t progressing, Blevins said, the key is to find out why. “Is it a learning challenge or is your child a curriculum casualty? This is a tough one.” Blevins suggested that parents of kindergarteners and first graders ask their child’s school to test the child’s phonemic awareness, phonics and fluency.

Parents of older children should ask for a test of vocabulary. “These tests will locate some underlying issues as to why your child is struggling reading and understanding what they read,” Blevins said. “Once underlying issues are found, they can be systematically addressed. ”

“We don’t know how much phonics each kid needs. But we know no kid is hurt by getting too much of it.”
Anders Rasmussen, principal of Wood Road Elementary School in Ballston Spa, New York

Rasmussen recommended parents work with their school if they are concerned about their children’s progress. By sitting and reading with their children, parents can see the kind of literacy instruction the kids are receiving. If children are trying to guess based on pictures, parents can talk to teachers about increasing phonics instruction.

“Teachers aren’t there doing necessarily bad things or disadvantaging kids purposefully or willfully,” Rasmussen said. “You have many great reading teachers using some effective strategies and some ineffective strategies.”

What can parents do at home to help their children learn to read?

Parents want to help their kids learn how to read but don’t want to push them to the point where they hate reading. “Parents at home can fall into the trap of thinking this is about drilling their kid,” said Cindy Jiban, a former educator and current principal academic lead at NWEA, a research-based non-profit focused on assessments and professional learning opportunities. “This is unfortunate,” Jiban said. “It sets up a parent-child interaction that makes it, ‘Ugh, there’s this thing that’s not fun.’” Instead, Jiban advises making decoding playful. Here are some ideas:

Challenge kids to find everything in the house that starts with a specific sound.
Stretch out one word in a sentence. Ask your child to “pass the salt” but say the individual sounds in the word “salt” instead of the word itself.
Ask your child to figure out what every family member’s name would be if it started with a “b” sound.
Sing that annoying “Banana fana fo fanna song.” Jiban said that kind of playful activity can actually help a kid think about the sounds that correspond with letters even if they’re not looking at a letter right in front of them.
Read your child’s favorite book over and over again. For books that children know well, Jiban suggests that children use their finger to follow along as each word is read. Parents can do the same, or come up with another strategy to help kids follow which words they’re reading on a page.

Giving a child diverse experiences that seem to have nothing to do with reading can also help a child’s reading ability. By having a variety of experiences, Rasmussen said, children will be able to apply their own knowledge to better comprehend texts about various topics.

This story about teaching children to read was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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November 18, 9:54 Views: 3,891 Tags: Diocese Kindergarten Printable version

Pupils of the kindergarten "Swallow" visited the department of education and the study of Christianity of the Vyksa diocese. The

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