How to help a 1st grader with reading

Reading Tips for Parents of First Graders

By: Reading Rockets

Give your child lots of opportunities to read aloud. Inspire your young reader to practice every day! The tips below offer some fun ways you can help your child become a happy and confident reader. Try a new tip each week. See what works best for your child.

These tips for parents of first graders are also available to download and print:

Don’t leave home without it

Bring along a book or magazine any time your child has to wait, such as at a doctor's office. Always try to fit in reading!

Once is not enough

Encourage your child to re-read favorite books and poems. Re-reading helps kids read more quickly and accurately.

Dig deeper into the story

Ask your child questions about the story you've just read. Say something like, "Why do you think Clifford did that?"

Take control of the television

It's difficult for reading to compete with TV and video games. Encourage reading as a free-time activity.

Be patient

When your child is trying to sound out an unfamiliar word, give him or her time to do so. Remind to child to look closely at the first letter or letters of the word.

Pick books that are at the right level

Help your child pick books that are not too difficult. The aim is to give your child lots of successful reading experiences.

Play word games

Have your child sound out the word as you change it from mat to fat to sat; from sat to sag to sap; and from sap to sip.

I read to you, you read to me

Take turns reading aloud at bedtime. Kids enjoy this special time with their parents.

Gently correct your young reader

When your child makes a mistake, gently point out the letters he or she overlooked or read incorrectly. Many beginning readers will guess wildly at a word based on its first letter.

Talk, talk, talk!

Talk with your child every day about school and things going on around the house. Sprinkle some interesting words into the conversation, and build on words you've talked about in the past.

Write, write, write!

Ask your child to help you write out the grocery list, a thank you note to Grandma, or to keep a journal of special things that happen at home. When writing, encourage your child to use the letter and sound patterns he is learning at school.

Reading tips in other languages

A downloadable handout, for parents of babies, toddlers, and children in preschool to grade 3, is available in the following languages:

Reading tips for parents of…

Reading Rockets (2021)

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1st Grade Reading Activities For Struggling Readers

First grade is often where your child’s reading foundation is developed thoroughly. This is an essential grade for your child to establish their reading level and progress. However, sometimes children might struggle as they try to advance their reading skills. If you find that your child is struggling with reading, you can help them by trying these 1st grade reading activities for struggling readers.

What reading skills should my 1st grader have?

Your first grader is definitely a full-fledged reader now! They already have many reading skills that they are continuing to improve and also acquiring new reading skills.

By the end of first grade, your child will have learned 150 sight words. They also should be familiar with many one syllable words and high-frequency words.

In first grade, they should be able to understand the basic structure and features of a sentence.

By now, they are also able to talk about what they have been reading and be able to answer content questions. Your child should also be able to understand the differences between fiction and non-fiction books and texts.

If you find that your child is struggling with any of these reading skills, they might need some more practice or intervention to help them get to their appropriate reading level.

How often should my 1st grader be reading?

When it comes to practicing their reading skills, first graders on average should be reading at least 10 minutes every day .

This might not seem like a lot of time but even just 10 minutes of reading time can help make a massive improvement in their reading skills. Make the 10 minutes a daily habit for your child like brushing their teeth.

Also, while 10 minutes is a good average number for all readers, struggling readers might be overwhelmed with anything more than that.

Some children might be hesitant or resist reading every day at first, but there are ways to make reading fun and an activity they look forward to doing.

How do you make reading fun for struggling readers?

Reading can be difficult for some first graders. It is important to be patient but also encouraging with your struggling reader. Here are some activities to make reading fun for them to get them to read every day:

Read as a family – Reading as a family not only creates strong bonds, but it also helps to give your child a model for good reading habits. When they see you prioritize reading, they are more likely to value it and prioritize it as well.

You can schedule 10 minutes for everyone to read their own books together or you can choose a book as a family to read aloud.

Read on TV – Using television as a reading tool might seem counterintuitive, but it is a great way to get your child to read without even knowing it!

When your child is watching television turn on the subtitles so that they can watch and read at the same time. This is a strategy commonly used with students learning a second language to practice both reading and listening skills.

Visit a library – Get your child excited to read by going on a couple “reading field trips” such as going to a library. You can tour your local library and have your child pick out a few books to take home.
Visit a museum – Another great “reading field trip” option is to visit a museum. Museums often have a ton of great reading practice opportunities, and you can also prep your child before the visit by reading an article or story about the museum.
Talk to an author – What better way to get your child about reading a book than by talking to the person that wrote it?

While you might not be able to talk to J.K. Rowling, many children’s books authors have meet ups at local bookstores or you can ask to talk to them virtually through Zoom.

Websites like Cameo also have some authors offering to record personalized videos, so you can have an author create a video just for your child!

Create reading goals – Reading goals can help your child see the progress they are making and helps to keep them motivated. You can help them visualize and meet these goals by creating a reading goal chart or tracker and display it somewhere they will always see it.
Use a reading app – Technology is your greatest tool to help with your struggling readers. Try using reading apps such as Readability which acts like a private reading tutor for your child. They can get reading help whenever and wherever they need it!
Get them to write – Reading and writing are closely related language skills. Often, good readers make good writers, and good writers make good readers.

You can encourage your child to practice their writing and reading skills by making comic books or short stories together then read them as their daily reading material.

First grade is a critical time for young readers to improve their reading skills and build new ones. Using activities and tools such as Readability can make reading fun and interactive for struggling or reluctant readers. Encouraging your child to read every day can help them to become a better reader and actually learn to enjoy reading.

How to help a first grader who does not read well

If you explain to a child why he is doing something and show that it is interesting, then he will not have to be forced or persuaded. This method works great with reading. Our blogger Ekaterina Buneeva wrote a plan for working with the text to captivate the child and show what a pleasure it is to read.

First graders have been studying at school for four months. Do they love to read? Are they interested in reading lessons? If your child likes it, congratulations! And if not, I can guess why:

The child reads slowly, fails to keep up with the pace of the class.
It's still difficult to read on your own, so it's boring. Likes to be read aloud to him.
Reads well, so reading and listening in class is not interesting.

There may be other reasons for not liking reading, but there is only one way to help: you need the process itself to captivate the child. How to do it? Read together. An important condition: you yourself should be interested. Try to act like this.

1. Reading the title and looking at the pictures

Have the child read the name of the text. Look at the illustrations together and discuss what and who will be discussed.

“Have you already guessed who the heroes are?”
"What will it be - a story, a fairy tale, a poem? How did you understand this (a)?
"What do you want to ask the author of the text?"

Choose questions depending on the content of the text. Now you can read it and check your assumptions.

2. Reading to ourselves

It is good if for the first time the child tries to read at least a small piece to himself. Much depends on the text and the level of the child. If he is not very tall, at first it is better to take short and light texts, but let him try to read to himself. Just don't rush it in any case.

Then ask the child what he understood and felt, what he thought. Discuss together which of your assumptions were confirmed and which were not. First listen to the child, and then express your opinion.

3. Now let's read aloud

If the child is having difficulty, take turns reading. Just don't just "voice" the text. Use the techniques of so-called "slow" reading: pause where you need to comment on something, explain a word or answer a child's question, engage in a dialogue with the author of the text.

Many children ask questions while reading, and that's great! In no case do not say: “I’ll finish reading it, then you’ll ask!” or "Don't interrupt! If you don't want to listen, read it yourself!" Follow the child, his reaction, emotions and thoughts.

4. Choosing a passage

When you have seen the child's emotional reaction to the text and made sure that he understood it, offer to expressively read aloud the passage that he himself chooses.

Be sure to offer your version of expressive reading - but later. Let the child read first. “How interesting you did it! And I would read it like this ... ".

5. Let's talk about the writer

If you know some bright, interesting facts about the writer's biography, tell your child about them. Be sure to ask what kind of person the author of the text seems to him: how he relates to people, to life, what he likes and disagrees with, whether he has a sense of humor, and so on.

In general, the idea is to read together, emotionally experience the text, understand the content and share your reading discoveries. Even if the first grader is still reading slowly and uncertainly, such joint reading will show him how interesting and exciting this process is.

Using one text as an example, I will show how my granddaughter and I read together. “What is the text about? What would you like to ask?" The granddaughter asked who was going to visit the gnome, and I asked like this: “I wonder if the gnome has some kind of holiday?” Together we suggested that, most likely, yes, a holiday, but it is not yet clear which one, you need to read.

2. “Here is a picture for this story. Look: what can you guess? In the picture, the gnome puts the samovar.

3. We read the text to ourselves. When the child read, I ask: “Now have we found out what holiday the gnome has and who came to visit?”

4. Now we read aloud one by one, I comment on the text and have a dialogue with the author.

Symbols:

B - a question that the reader asked the author of the text in the course of reading;

O - reader's answer, his assumptions;

P - check if your answer matches the one given by the author of the text.

Visiting the gnome

The gnome's house is far away in the forest. The gnome has a birthday. (O: “What a holiday!”) Guests rush to him (B: “I wonder who they are and why they are in a hurry?” A: The child answers, I don’t comment in any way, read on). Here the owl flew off the branch and flew to the house. (O: “First guest!”) The mole left early and walked along the path for a long time. (O: “Here’s another guest.” Q: “Why did the mole walk for a long time, did you guess?” A: We clarify that moles live underground, they don’t see well in the light, which means the mole is walking slowly. Here it is in the picture.)

The first to jump was a deer with daisies. Then came beavers with water lilies. (O: "Of course, they are the fastest!" Q: "And daisies and water lilies - to whom?") Bees arrived with delicious honey. (P: “Guests are gathering. And everyone has a present!” We found the answer who the guests are.) The little fox carefully carried the basket with raspberries past the rosehip bushes. (Q: “Why carefully, guessed?” A: “Of course! The little fox has a beautiful fur coat, and the dogrose is prickly.”) The snail came after the mole. That's all the guests in place! (Q: “Guessed why the snail came later than everyone else?” A: The child answers.) There are sweet pies on the table, the samovar is boiling. The gnome is happy with the gifts.

5. We discuss what we have read. "How many guests are there? Let's count. Can you list everyone? Why were they in a hurry?" We decide that all the friends wanted to please the gnome on his birthday, they were afraid to be late and therefore were in a hurry. Here is a mole - he left in advance, and the snail hurried as best he could.

6. What does this text tell about the author? The child said that the author is kind, cheerful and loves gifts. I agreed.

7. Expressively read aloud. The granddaughter chose about a fox and a snail, and then she wanted to draw a festive table and gifts. It turned out beautiful!

This is how we read, and we are both interested.

In general, I will repeat my main idea: first, the child must have an interest and desire to learn to read. And then you can deal with technology and everything else.

Have fun reading together as a child!

You are in the "Blogs" section. The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.

Illustration: Shutterstock (Masyhurizal)

How to help a first grader overcome reading difficulties. | Reading Article (Grade 1):

How to help a first grader overcome reading difficulties.

The first year of schooling is not only one of the most difficult stages in a child's life, but also a kind of trial period for parents.

Firstly, it is during this period that their maximum participation in the life of the child is required.

Secondly, at the beginning of training, all their shortcomings are clearly manifested.

Thirdly, if there are good intentions, but the absence of a psychologically competent approach, parents themselves often become the culprits of school stress in children.
At the same time, it is in the 1st grade that the foundation of the child's attitude to school and learning is laid. In order for children to go through this stage of their lives most safely, their parents need to know and take into account on a daily basis the peculiarities of the mental and physiological state of children that arises with the beginning of schooling.
From the first days, the school poses a whole range of tasks for the child, requiring the mobilization of his intellectual and physical forces, which were neither at home nor in kindergarten. Many aspects of the educational process are difficult for children. It is difficult for them to sit out a lesson, it is difficult not to be distracted and follow the thought of the teacher, it is difficult to do all the time not what they want, but what is required of them, it is difficult to restrain and not express out loud their thoughts and emotions that appear in abundance. It takes time to adapt to schooling, the child gets used to new conditions and learns to meet new requirements.

In order for a child to easily endure all these trials, having worked in primary school for more than 22 years, I understand how important reading is.
Of course, no one obliges parents to teach their child to read before entering school, but you must agree: banal common sense suggests that at the age of 7 a child should already be able to do this. However, in each new set of first grade, there are a few children who can read, most of the children who cannot read or read very poorly ... The children are going to go to grade 1, I ask the question: “To whom do parents read fairy tales at night?” Raise hands 1-2. The rest of the children answer that their parents have no time. Communicating with parents, you understand that not all parents think about the future of their child, the majority say: "school will teach." After all, it was not without reason that even in tsarist Russia, family readings were promoted or practiced. Reading is the foundation of all learning, one of the conditions for success in school. The process of reading is very difficult for children - it involves memory, imagination, auditory and sound catalysts. Reading speed should approach the speed of speech. At school, it will be difficult for a child with a low reading speed to learn new material, while he will read the condition of the problem, a fast reading child will already rewrite everything in a notebook. Reading speed is an important success factor. There is the concept of "optimal reading", reading at a pace of 120-150 words per minute, it is believed that it is at this pace that the best assimilation of the material is achieved.

The main causes of slow reading in children are:

1. Low level of attention and memory (the child, reading the fourth word, no longer remembers the first and, accordingly, cannot understand the meaning of what he read). Attention is the engine of the reading process. A child who reads slowly switches his attention to extraneous thoughts, interest in the text being read disappears, reading becomes mechanical, the meaning does not reach consciousness. At home, parents should systematically work on the development of memory.

Decreased volume of the operational field of vision (the child does not cover the whole word, but two or three letters).
Small vocabulary.
Regression - recurrent eye movements. Many children, without noticing, read the word twice, as if for fidelity.
Undeveloped articulatory apparatus, in recent years there has been such a trend, 30-40% of children go to school with a general underdevelopment of speech.
Works not chosen by age.

How can you teach a child to read consciously, quickly and expressively? We can recommend the following methods and exercises to parents and novice teachers:

1. Starting from an early age, "from the cradle" daily read poems, nursery rhymes, teasers, fables to children ...

2. Teach books: read small rhymes from books with colorful illustrations for the age of 1-2 years, fairy tales with illustrations for 3 and more years.

By doing even these only 2 steps, you can help your child become familiar with reading.

3. Involve your child in reading. When reading to him, stop at an interesting moment and, citing fatigue, ask him to read a small piece of the work. Be sure to ask what he read, what words were repeated several times? Explain unknown words.

4. Reading is necessary for life. Write your child notes, postcards, lists of things that you ask him to do.

5. View filmstrips. Slow frame changes, short captions, easy to read - what you need to improve your reading technique.

6. Parallel reading. Prepare two identical texts, you read the text, and the child follows you, guiding your finger along the lines. While reading, increase the speed, but make sure that the child has time. Read both slowly and quickly. Ask the child if he noticed a change in speed?

7. Reading for a certain time. Choose a simple text, note the time, for example, a minute, count the words you read. Start reading this text again, noting the time, there will be more words read. Do this no more than three times. This task will show the child that he can read faster.

8. Reading not aloud, but silently. When reading aloud, the eyes read the text, the signal goes to the brain, the organs of speech are prepared, the text is spoken, the ears perceive. The loss of speed with such reading is obvious, whispering is the same story. When reading to oneself, the eyes run forward, the child understands the meaning of the text read.

9. Stressed games. Choose any word and put stress on all syllables in turn, so the child understands what is being said. Ask how everything is right.

10. Stumbling over consonants. Children often stumble when reading, seeing several consonants in a row. Your task is to write such words on a piece of paper and periodically let the child read them, do not be lazy to write new ones.

11. Buzzing reading. The child reads to himself and at the same time buzzes like a bee.10. The development of vigilance. Write a series of vowels (five, six pieces), insert a consonant, ask which letter is extra? Vary.

12. Write words that differ by one letter: cat - whale, cat - mouth, forest - weight. Ask how they differ.

13. Articulation gymnastics. Improves pronunciation, sets the breath, makes speech clear. Read tongue twisters in different ways: in a whisper and slowly, loudly and confidently, follow the reading of the endings of words, they should be clearly pronounced. This also includes reading proverbs and sayings.

14. Development of the visual field. Draw a table, write one letter in each cell, let the child, silently pointing at the letter with a pencil, read them all, trying to read quickly. The child needs to remember the location of successive letters or syllables. Letters or syllables can be read from top to bottom, make words out of them.

15. Anticipation (semantic guess). When reading the text, the child catches the contour of the next word with peripheral vision, based on what he read, he can guess which word will be next. Anticipation exercise: write words with missing letters or syllables, have the child complete the letters.

16. Reading with a bookmark. When reading the text, the child moves the bookmark not under the line, but closing the already read word - this eliminates repetitions and increases the pace.16. Reading words written in different scripts.

17. Building words. Write in a column on a piece of paper: Cat forest house Cat forest house Kitten copse house.

18. Reading "canon". One person begins to read the text, the other reads the same text, but three or four words late.

19. A child at maximum speed for him, reading an unfamiliar text, tightly clenching his teeth and lips. After reading, answer questions about the text. Such an exercise is carried out before reading aloud each text.

20. Reading with sound - when music is playing.

21. Rhythm tapping. The child reads an unfamiliar text and taps a previously learned rhythm with a pencil.

2. Search. The child reads the text at maximum speed and finds answers to questions, this teaches him to find the main thing in the text.

23. Daily five minutes of reading. In the buzzer reading mode, the child reads for five minutes, spend 4 lessons a day.

4. Play word and letter games with your family. Such training will help you easily navigate in the space of letters and read unfamiliar words.

25. Reading consonants. The child takes a breath and on the exhale reads 15 consonants, any set, for example: s, t, p, g, c, f, k, n, w, u, l, g, n, f.

26. . Putting two words together. Take a simple word, write it on two cards, prepare about 10 words for one lesson, ask the child to fold the cards to make a word. Change cards regularly.

27. Reading with an expression when moving to a new part of the text. The child reads a small piece of text, then reads first, but more slowly and with expression. The child reads the already read passage and begins to read further. The point is that the increased tempo developed on a familiar text does not subside at the transition to an unfamiliar part.

28. We train attention. The child reads the text, at the command "stop", takes his head off the book, closes his eyes and rests, at the command "start" the child must find the place in the book where he finished reading.

9. Queue. The child reads a small paragraph silently at maximum speed, the next paragraph begins to read aloud, then again to himself.

30. Role reading. Offer to read with different intonations: the wolf is rude, the hare is quiet.

31. Inverted text. The sheet with the text is turned over and read like this, it helps to memorize the integral standards of letters, to combine letter analysis with the semantic ending of the word. 32. A set of deformed sentences. Change the words in the sentence, for example: to - my friends came to the holiday, write: friends to the holiday came to me. Write on a sheet of ten such sentences, let the child unravel.

33. Search for a specified word. Say any word that is in the text, who will find it faster. This game will form the ability to see a holistic image of a word and develop verbal memory.

34. Schulte tables. These are randomly located numbers for quickly finding them in order, used to develop the speed of visual search movements, and expand the field of view.

Draw a square 20-25 cm, divide it into 30 cells, randomly enter numbers from 1 to 30.
You need to search for numbers by silent counting to yourself. The numbers found are indicated in pencil. Before starting the exercise, the child must fix his gaze in the center in order to see the entire table. Horizontal eye movements are prohibited. A prerequisite for improving reading technique is systematic and positive attitude.