Easy words for kids to read


First Words For Kids

First Words For Kids

 

Phonics Sheets

 

 

 

 

Glossary of ESL terms

 

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Just click, print, and copy.

 

These tracing sheets can be used to practice spelling out easy English words. Good for both kids who speak English as a second language and English as a first language.

 

Other resources that go with these words include: First Verbs, First Colors, First Numbers, First Words Reading Lists, First Word Consonant Digraphs, First Words Long Vowels, Vowel Digraph Words, R-controlled Vowels Spelling Worksheets and  First Words CVC Words.

 

ant

ball

bat

bear

bee

book

bus

car

cat

cow

dad

day

dog

duck

egg

 fish

frog

goat

gold

go

happy

hat

lake

leaf

lion

map

mom 

moon

nest

pie

robot

sad

seal

ship

sky

 star

stop

sun

tank

tree

truck

van

worm

 

Also see: First Christmas Words, First Halloween Words, First Numbers, First Colors, and First Verbs.

If you find these teaching resources useful, you might also find the following resources useful:

The ABC flashcards: These ABC flashcards were made from clay. They can be used to teach capital letters. 

Little Letters Tracing Sheets: Learn the little letters with simple tracing sheets.

The Phonics Worksheets: Worksheets for teaching phonics. 

The Alphabet Mazes: 5 mazes to teach capital and small letters.

The Young Learner Worksheets: Simple sentences patterns and vocabulary worksheets. 

The Alphabet Trains: Practice initial sounds of words.

Connect the Dots: More ABC worksheets.

Initial Sounds Worksheets: Plenty of worksheets covering the initial sounds of words.

Vowel Combination Phonics Worksheets: Worksheets that highlight vowel combination patterns such as 'ai', 'oa', 'ay', and 'ow'.

  All materials (c) 2007 Lanternfish ESL

 

The Basic Spelling Vocabulary List

By: Steve Graham, Karen R. Harris, Connie Loynachan

This list was created to help teachers know which spelling words should be taught to kids in grades 1–5. The list contains 850 words that account for 80 percent of the words children use in their writing — the ones they need to be able to spell correctly.

This list was devised to help educators know which spelling words should be taught to children. The list contains 850 words that account for 80 percent of the words children use in their writing — the ones they need to be able to spell correctly.

Mastering this relatively small corpus of words yields a high rate of return. For example, the most common 1,000 words are used 13 times more frequently than the next most common 1,000 words. It also provides teachers flexibility in planning spelling instruction, providing an opportunity to give children the "basics" while supplementing with other spelling words germane to classroom activities.

Grade level for each word was determined based upon difficulty, pattern of occurrence in children's writing across grades, and grade placement on current vocabulary lists and spelling materials.

Words that children have difficulty spelling correctly are marked with an asterisk.

Grade 1

a
all
am*
and*
at
ball
be
bed
big
book
box
boy*
but
came*
can*
car
cat
come*
cow
dad
day*
did
do
dog*

fat
for
fun*
get*
go
good*
got*
had*
hat
he*
hen
here
him*
his*
home*
hot
I*
if
in*
into*
is
it*
its*
let

like*
look
man
may
me*
mom
my*
no*
not
of
oh
old
on*
one*
out*
pan
pet
pig
play*
ran
rat
red
ride
run

sat
see
she
sit
six
so
stop
sun
ten
the*
this
to*
top
toy
two*
up
us
was*
we*
will*
yes
you*

 

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Grade 2

about*
add
after
ago
an*
any
apple
are*
as
ask
ate
away
baby*
back
bad
bag
base
bat
bee
been*
before*
being
best
bike
bill
bird
black
blue
boat
both
bring
brother*
brown
bus
buy*
by
cake
call
candy
change
child
city
clean
club
coat
cold
coming*
corn
could
cry
cup
cut
daddy*
dear
deep
deer
doing
doll
door
down*
dress
drive
drop
dry
duck
each
eat
eating
egg
end
fall
far
farm
fast

father*
feed
feel
feet
fell*
find
fine*
fire
first*
fish
five
fix
flag
floor
fly
food
foot
four
fox
from*
full
funny
game
gas
gave
girl
give
glad
goat
goes*
going*
gold
gone
grade*
grass
green
grow
hand
happy
hard
has*
have*
hear*
help
here*
hill
hit
hold
hole
hop
hope*
horse
house*
how*
ice
inch
inside*
job
jump
just*
keep
king
know*
lake
land
last
late
lay
left
leg
light
line
little*
live

lives
long
looking
lost
lot
love
mad
made*
make*
many*
meat
men
met
mile
milk
mine
miss
moon
more
most
mother*
move
much*
must
myself*
nail
name*
need
new*
next
nice*
night
nine
north
now*
nut
off*
only
open
or*
other
our
outside*
over
page
park
part
pay
pick
plant
playing
pony
post
pull
put
rabbit
rain
read
rest
riding
road
rock
room
said*
same
sang
saw*
say
school*
sea
seat
seem
seen
send*

set
seven
sheep
ship
shoe
show*
sick
side
sing
sky
sleep
small
snow
some*
soon*
spell
start
stay
still
store*
story
take
talk
tall
teach
tell
than*
thank
that
them*
then*
there*
they*
thing
think*
three
time*
today*
told
too*
took
train*
tree
truck
try
use
very*
walk
want*
warm
wash
way
week
well*
went*
were*
wet
what
when*
while*
white
who
why
wind
wish
with*
woke
wood
work
yellow
yet
your
zoo
 

 

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Grade 3

able
above
afraid
afternoon*
again*
age
air
airplane
almost
alone
along*
already*
also
always*
animal
another*
anything*
around*
art
aunt*
balloon*
bark
barn
basket
beach
bear
because*
become
began
begin
behind
believe*
below
belt
better
birthday*
body
bones
born
bought*
bread
bright
broke
brought*
busy
cabin
cage
camp
can't*
care
carry
catch
cattle
cave
children*
class
close*
cloth
coal
color
corner
cotton
cover
dark
desert
didn't*
dinner
dishes
does
done
don't*
dragon
draw
dream
drink
early
earth
east
eight

even
ever
every*
everyone*
everything*
eyes
face
family*
feeling
felt
few
fight
fishing
flower
flying
follow
forest
forgot
form
found*
fourth
free
Friday
friend*
front
getting*
given
grandmother
great
grew
ground
guess*
hair
half
having*
head
heard*
he's*
heat
hello*
high
himself
hour
hundred
hurry
hurt*
I'd*
I'll*
I'm*
inches
isn't
it's*
I've*
kept
kids
kind
kitten
knew*
knife
lady
large
largest
later
learn
leave
let's*
letter*
life
list
living
lovely
loving*
lunch
mail
making
maybe*
mean
merry
might*

mind
money*
month
morning*
mouse
mouth
Mr. *
Mrs.*
Ms.
music
near
nearly
never
news
noise
nothing
number
o'clock*
often
oil
once*
orange
order
own
pair
paint
paper
party*
pass
past
penny
people*
person
picture
place
plan
plane
please*
pocket
point
poor
race
reach
reading
ready
real
rich
right*
river
rocket
rode
round
rule
running*
salt
says
sending
sent*
seventh
sew
shall
short
shot
should
sight
sister
sitting
sixth
sled
smoke
soap
someone*
something*
sometime*
song
sorry
sound
south
space

spelling
spent
sport
spring
stairs
stand
state
step
stick
stood
stopped*
stove
street
strong
study
such
sugar
summer*
Sunday*
supper
table
taken
taking
talking
teacher*
team
teeth
tenth
that's*
their
these*
thinking
third
those
thought*
throw
tonight*
trade
trick
trip
trying
turn
twelve
twenty
uncle
under
upon*
wagon
wait
walking
wasn't
watch
water
weather*
we're*
west
wheat
where*
which
wife
wild
win
window
winter
without
woman*
won
won't*
wool
word
working
world*
would*
write*
wrong
yard
year
yesterday
you're*

 

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Grade 4

across
against
answer*
awhile*
between
board
bottom
breakfast
broken
build
building
built
captain*
carried
caught*
charge*
chicken
circus
cities
clothes*
company
couldn't*
country
discover
doctor*
doesn't
dollar

during
eighth*
else
enjoy
enough
everybody*
example
except
excuse
field*
fifth
finish
following
good-by*
group
happened*
harden
haven't*
heavy
held
hospital*
idea
instead*
known
laugh
middle
minute

mountain
ninth
ocean
office
parent
peanut
pencil
picnic
police
pretty*
prize
quite*
radio
raise
really*
reason
remember*
return
Saturday*
scare
second
since
slowly
stories
student
sudden
suit

sure*
swimming*
though
threw*
tired
together*
tomorrow*
toward
tried*
trouble
truly*
turtle
until*
village
visit
wear
we'll
whole*
whose
women
wouldn't*
writing*
written
wrote
yell
young
 

 

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Grade 5

although
America
among
arrive
attention
beautiful*
countries
course*
cousin*
decide

different*
evening
favorite
finally*
future
happiest
happiness
important
interest
piece

planet
present
president
principal*
probably*
problem
receive*
sentence
several
special

suddenly
suppose*
surely*
surprise*
they're*
through
usually

 

 

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Graham, S. , Harris, K.R. and Loynachan, C. (1993). The Basic Spelling Vocabulary List. Journal of Educational Research 86(6) 363-368.

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20 reading texts for children aged 5-6-7-8

A child who has learned to put sounds into syllables, syllables into words, and words into sentences needs to improve his reading skills through systematic training. But reading is a rather laborious and monotonous activity, and many children lose interest in it. Therefore, we offer texts of small size , the words in them are divided into syllables.

First read the work to the child yourself, and if it is long, you can read its beginning. This will interest the child. Then invite him to read the text. After each work, questions are given that help the child to understand what they have read and comprehend the basic information that they have learned from the text. After discussing the text, suggest reading it again.

Mo-lo-dets Vo-va

Ma-ma and Vo-va gu-la-li.
In-va ran-sting and fell.
It hurts no-ha, but Vo-va does not cry.
Wow!
B. Korsunskaya

Answer questions .
1. What happened to Vova?
2. What made him sick?
3. Why is Vova doing well?


Clever Bo-beak

Co-nya and co-ba-ka Bo-beak gu-la-li.
So-nya played-ra-la with a doll.
That's why So-nya in-be-zha-la to-my, and the doll for-would-la.
Bo-beek found a doll-lu and brought it to So-ne.
B. Korsunskaya

Answer the questions.
1. Who did Sonya walk with?
2. Where did Sonya leave the doll?
3. Who brought the doll home?


The bird made a nest on a bush. De-ti our nest-up and took off on the ground.
- Look, Vasya, three birds!
In the morning, deti came, and the nest was empty. It would be a pity.
L. Tolstoy

Answer questions.
1. What did the children do with the nest?
2. Why was the nest empty in the morning?
3. Did the children do well? How would you do?
4. Do you think this work is a fairy tale, a story or a poem?


Pete and Mi-sha had a horse. They began to argue: whose horse. Did they tear each other apart.
- Give me - my horse.
- No, you give me - the horse is not yours, but mine.
Mother came, took a horse, and became nobody's horse.
L. Tolstoy

Answer the questions.
1. Why did Petya and Misha quarrel?
2. What did mother do?
3. Did the children play horse well? Why do you think so
?










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FILVORDA for the development of reading, View here.

It will be interesting for children to read selected texts, they affect the emotional world of the child, develop his moral feelings and imagination . Children will get acquainted with the works of L. Tolstoy, K. Ushinsky, A. Barto, S. Mikhalkov, E. Blaginina, V. Bianchi, E. Charushin, A. Usachyov, E. Uspensky, G. Snegiryov, G. Oster, R. Rozhdestvensky, as well as fairy tales of different nations.

It is advisable to show children the genre features of poems, stories and fairy tales using the example of these works.

Fairy tale is a genre of oral fiction containing events unusual in the everyday sense (fantastic, wonderful or worldly) and distinguished by a special compositional and stylistic construction. In fairy tales there are fairy-tale characters, talking animals, unprecedented miracles happen.

Poem is a short poetic work in verse. The verses are read smoothly and musically, they have rhythm, meter and rhyme.

Story — small literary form; a narrative work of small volume with a small number of characters and the short duration of the events depicted. The story describes a case from life, some bright event that really happened or could happen.

In order not to discourage reading, do not force him to read texts that are uninteresting and inaccessible to his understanding. It happens that a child takes a book he knows and reads it “by heart”. Mandatory every day read to your child poems, fairy tales, stories.

Daily reading enhances emotionality, develops culture, horizons and intellect, helps to cognize human experience.

Literature:
Koldina D.N. I read on my own. - M .: TC Sphere, 2011. - 32 p. (Candy).

How easy it is to teach a child 4-6 years old to read - the best methods and exercises

How to understand that it's time

To the question "When is it time for a child to be able to read?" there is no ready answer, but we want to immediately warn against two misconceptions:

  1. “You don't have to teach your child to read at home, they will teach you at school anyway. ” Yes, they will. But remember: the first year at school is the most intense in all 11 years of study. For some 4-5 months in the 1st grade, the child goes through the alphabet "from" and "to", learns to read, write, and the rest of the time he studies the basics of the Russian language. Therefore, it will be great if he has a reading skill before school. This will reduce the burden on the child.

  2. "There is no time to waste - the sooner the baby begins to read, the better." All children are different and develop at their own pace. Therefore, you should not impose teaching reading to a preschooler as soon as he is 4-5 years old, if the student himself does not yet show interest in this activity. Instead, you can begin to develop an interest in reading through bright and engaging books. A good option would also be games that involve letters.

The indicator to be guided by is not the age of the preschooler, but his speech skills.

It's time to learn to read if…

If the speech development of a preschooler proceeds without gross violations. Let's figure out what criteria will help you find out if a child is ready to learn to read:

  1. Understanding addressed speech. The kid must understand sentences, phrases, individual words that others around him turn to.

  2. Vocabulary. The more words a child knows, the better he will understand what he read. It will also help him communicate with adults and other children.

  3. Grammar. The ability to correctly build sentences, select and change words is important for children who are learning to read.

  4. Pronunciation. For learning to be effective, the child must know how to pronounce words without gross errors.

Remember: at preschool age, a child may have minor flaws in grammar and pronunciation - this is normal. Over time, these violations will be corrected, and they should not be considered an obstacle to reading. But if the baby is not yet very confident in speaking, do not rush him to read - this will not help develop speech, but only demotivate.

Practicing child psychologist Ekaterina Murashova

Free course for modern moms and dads from Ekaterina Murashova. Sign up and participate in the draw 8 lessons

How to make learning to read easier for preschoolers

  1. Praise more and never scold

    It's hard for us adults to imagine how difficult it really is for a baby to learn from scratch such a complex skill as reading. After all, being able to read means being able to correlate a sound with a letter or a combination of letters, connect sounds, understand the meanings of the words read and the meaning behind the text.

    If parents take the child's progress for granted and express dissatisfaction when the child does not understand something, this will not push the future student to development, but will only complicate the process. Therefore, it is important to praise for small victories: I learned the letter that was passed last time - great, I coped without my father's help with the word as much as two syllables - clever.

    Do not take failures as a consequence of the negligence of the little student. When a child does not understand the first time, this is an occasion to look for another explanation or give more time to practice. If you feel tired and irritated, you should stop the activity and return to it in a good mood.

  2. Exercise little but regularly

    Do not expect perseverance and a desire to spend hours figuring out unfamiliar letters from your baby. It is difficult for preschoolers to keep their attention in a lesson for more than 25 minutes, and even such small classes should be interrupted with physical education minutes and games so that the child does not get bored. This is exactly how Skysmart prepares for school: 25-minute classes with breaks for outdoor games.

    But regular practice is important - much more important than the duration of the session. And it doesn’t have to be just lessons: you can look for familiar letters on signs during a walk, on a door plate in a children’s clinic, on a package of your favorite corn flakes.

  3. Read books aloud

    In a series of studies conducted by Dr. Victoria Purcell-Gates among five-year-olds who could not yet read, those children to whom their parents read aloud regularly for two years, expressed their thoughts in more literary language, built longer phrases and used more complex syntax.

    In addition, reading aloud with adults contributed to the expansion of the children's vocabulary, as parents explained the meanings of new words that children did not encounter in everyday life.

Expert Opinion

According to neuroscientist Marianne Wolfe, book evenings with parents help develop a love of reading because the child establishes a connection between reading aloud and feelings of love and warmth.

  1. Discuss read

    The role of communication in teaching literacy cannot be overestimated. At first, it is important to ask if the future student is interested, if he is tired, what was remembered from the lesson. When a preschooler learns to read coherent texts, be sure to ask questions about their content.

    It's great if the child reads on his own and without the prompting of the parents, but even in this case, do not deprive him of the opportunity to discuss what he read with you. For example, you might ask:

    • Which of the characters do you like?

    • Do you think this character is like you? Would you like to be like her?

    • What would you do if you were a hero?

    • Why did the described event happen? How are these two events related?

    • How did what you read make you feel?

    • What do you remember most from what you read?

    • What do you think the author wanted to teach? Why did he write this? Do you agree with the author?

  2. It is important to select questions individually, based on the age of the child. With younger children, discuss everything together, ask simple questions, direct their attention to some facts. The complexity of the questions should increase in proportion to the age of the child. The older he is, the more difficult the tasks should be, and the questions can already affect the "reflection" of their feelings and experiences.

  3. Go from simple to complex

    From the correspondence between sounds and letters to syllables, from short words to longer and more complex words. It would seem that this is obvious, but no: sometimes parents are so happy with the success of the child at first that they push him to study more complex topics than he is ready to accept. Of course, the program should adapt to the future student, but you should not skip steps, even if the child is making progress.

    There are methods that offer to teach a child to read by memorizing whole words. Alas, experiments show that such techniques generally work worse. For example, a group of scientists from the United States came up with an artificial alphabet and offered subjects to learn it, and then read the words written using this alphabet. At the same time, some subjects were immediately explained the principles of correspondence between sounds and letters, while others had to derive reading rules on their own based on whole words. It turned out that the first group copes with reading new, previously unfamiliar words better than the second.

    Therefore, we advise you to choose those teaching methods that involve clear instructions about the relationship between sound and letter - and this is especially important for those children who have difficulty reading. Below we have compiled a few of these techniques that you can use to teach your preschooler at home.

Methods of teaching preschoolers to read

Warehouse reading

The method of teaching a child to read through warehouses was actually used in Rus', but for modern parents this technique is associated with the name of the philologist Nikolai Aleksandrovich Zaitsev.

Zaitsev suggests not focusing on the study of individual letters, as it can be difficult for students to understand how letters can merge into syllables and words. Teaching a child to read by syllables is also not always easy: one syllable can be quite long ( shine, ruble ), and the boundaries of syllables are not obvious ( Lun-tik or Lu-ntik ?). Therefore, in Zaitsev's methodology, a warehouse is used as the main unit.

Warehouse can be a combination of a consonant and a vowel (pa-pa, ma-ma), a single consonant or vowel (de- d , i-s -li, A -le-sha), as well as a combination of a consonant with a hard or soft sign (ma- l -chi-k, use d -yem).

In order for a preschooler to understand the differences between the recording of voiced and soft, vowels and consonants, different types of warehouses have their own cube size, color and content, thanks to which the cubes sound when they are shaken. Cubes affect several channels of perception at once, and warehouses should not just be pronounced, but sung - this way, according to the author of the methodology, learning is more interesting and effective.

One of the advantages of the technique is that children willingly play with blocks themselves, and the process of learning to read becomes active, mobile.

Syllabic reading

This technique, according to some sources, was developed by the Romans. Later, Nadezhda Sergeevna Zhukova, a Soviet and Russian speech therapist, created a primer based on it. In it, she built her own system in which sounds and letters are sequentially introduced into speech.

Due to the fact that the concept of a syllable is introduced at an early stage, it is faster and easier to teach a child to read syllables together. By the way, as in Zaitsev's technique, it is proposed to sing syllables, and not just pronounce them.

Based on the syllabic method, Zhukova developed a set of teaching aids - copybooks, copybooks and a book for reading. Benefits will help teach children to read correctly 6 and 7 years old at home.

Both techniques for teaching preschoolers to read are used in the Skysmart Ready for School course. The course consists of two stages: first, children get acquainted with letters and warehouses, which allows them to quickly start reading simple words, and then they learn what a syllable is. Gradually, we introduce more complex syllabic constructions, move on to reading phrases and sentences.

Sound analytical-synthetic teaching method

This method originated in the USSR and is still considered the main one in Russian schools and kindergartens. It was developed by the Soviet teacher and Russian language methodologist Voskresenskaya Alexandra Ilyinichna.

Same as N.S. Zhukova, Voskresenskaya proposed her own order in which children should learn letters and sounds. The principle of this sequence was that the child first learned the letters that can be combined into simple syllables, and then moved forward in the level of complexity. As a result, children learn syllables in this order:

  1. Two-letter syllables (including one consonant): am, ma, ra, etc. and simple words from them: ra-ma, ma-sha, Pa-sha, etc.

  2. Three-letter syllables with a vowel in the center: poppy, lat, etc.

  3. The combination of the first two stages into words: sa-lat, earth-la, etc.

  4. Words of three syllables and six letters: az-bu-ka, ve-se-lo, etc.

  5. Words of two syllables and six letters: question-ros, tea-nick, etc.

  6. Words with a combination of vowels at the beginning and at the end of the word: chair, March, etc.

In this way, children simultaneously prepare for more complex syllables at each stage and reinforce what they have learned earlier.

Exercises for learning to read

Learning to read usually takes place in several stages. First, the child listens to the sound, visually remembers the letters. Different games will help with this, where you need to look for letters, invent words, etc. When this stage is over, you can move on to syllables and games to work them out. And only after that it will be possible to proceed to words, and then to sentences and texts.

Letter memory exercises

The first step is to teach your child to recognize letters. To do this, you can use pictures with hidden letters. We use such exercises in the preparation for school lessons in Skysmart.

Ask your child to identify what letter a word begins with, or name as many words as possible that begin with a certain letter.

Next, we train to distinguish correctly written letters from incorrect ones. This is also important for learning to write: preschoolers often mirror letters or distort individual elements.

Exercises for vowels and consonants

To learn how to distinguish between vowels and consonants, tasks will help you determine the sound with which a word begins.

It will also help to remember the difference between vowels and consonants and search for an extra letter.

Word building exercises

When your child can read short words, ask him to make a word out of letters on his own.

Composing words from syllables is convenient if you have cubes at hand, but you can also try on paper.

Another good exercise is to fill in the missing letter in the word.


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