Learning to read first grade

First grade is critical for reading skills, but some kids are way behind

AUSTIN, Texas — Most years, by the third week of first grade, Heather Miller is working with her class on writing the beginning, middle and end of simple words. This year, she had to backtrack — all the way to the letter “H.”

“Do we start at the bottom or do we start at the top?” Miller asked as she stood in front of her class at Doss Elementary.

“Top!” chorused a few voices.

“When I do an H, I do a straight line down, another straight line down and then I cross in the middle,” Miller said, demonstrating on a projector in a front corner of the classroom.

Her 25 students set to work on their own. Some got it right away. One student watched his tablemate before slowly copying down his own H’s. Another tested her own way of writing the letter: one line down, cross in the middle, then another line down. “Your paper is upside down, let’s turn it,” Miller said to a student who was trying to write letters while leaning sideways, almost out of her seat.

In classrooms across the country, the first months of school this fall have laid bare what many in education feared: Students are way behind in skills they should have mastered already.

Children in early elementary school have had their most formative first few years of education disrupted by the pandemic, years when they learn basic math and reading skills and important social-emotional skills, like how to get along with peers and follow routines in a classroom.

While experts say it’s likely these students will catch up in many skills, the stakes are especially high around literacy. Research shows if children are struggling to read at the end of first grade, they are likely to still be struggling as fourth graders. And in many states with third grade reading “gates” in place, students could be at risk of getting held back if they haven’t caught up within a few years.

40 percent — The number of first grade students “well below grade level” in reading in 2020, compared with 27 percent in 2019, according to Amplify Education Inc.

First grade in particular — “the reading year,” as Miller calls it — is pivotal for elementary students, when their literacy skills “really take off.” Kindergarten focuses on easing children from a variety of educational backgrounds — or none at all — into formal schooling. In contrast, first grade concentrates on moving students from pre-reading skills and simple math, like counting, to more complex skills, like reading and writing sentences and adding and subtracting numbers.

By the end of first grade in Texas, students are expected to be able to mentally add or subtract 10 from any given two-digit number, retell stories using key details and write narratives that sequence events. The benchmarks are similar to those used in the more than 40 states that, along with the District of Columbia, adopted the national Common Core standards a decade ago.

Teachers often see a range of literacy skills, and that could be more pronounced this year due to the pandemic

“They really grow as readers in first grade, and writers,” Miller said. “It’s where they build their confidence in their fluency.”

But about half of Miller’s class of first graders at Doss Elementary, a spacious, bright, newly built school in northwest Austin, spent kindergarten online. Some were among the tens of thousands of children who sat out kindergarten entirely last year.

More than a month into this school year, Miller found she was spending extensive time on social lessons she used to teach in kindergarten, like sharing and problem-solving.   She stopped class repeatedly to mediate disagreements. Finally, she resorted to an activity she used to use in kindergarten: role-playing social scenarios, like what to do if someone accidentally trips you.

“My kids are so spread out in their needs … there’s so much to teach, and somehow there’s not enough time.”

Heather Miller, first grade teacher

“So many kids are missing that piece from last year because they were, you know, virtual or on an iPad for most of the time, and they don’t know how to problem-solve with each other,” Miller said. “That’s just caused a lot of disruption during the school day.” 

Her students were also not as independent as they had been in previous years. Used to working on tablets or laptops for much of their day, many of these students were also behind in fine motor skills, struggling to use scissors and still working on correctly writing numbers.

Related: What parents need to know about the research on how kids learn to read

Instead of working on first grade standards, Miller was devoting time on this Friday morning in early September to forming upper- and lowercase letters, a kindergarten standard in Texas and the majority of other states. As students finished practicing the letter H, they moved on to the assignment at the bottom of the page: Draw a picture and write a word describing something that starts with an H.

“H-r-o-s” one student wrote next to a picture of a horse standing on green grass in front of a light blue sky. “H-e-a-r-s” another student wrote next to a picture of a strip of brown hair, floating in the white picture box. “You should draw a face there,” suggested his tablemate, pointing at the blank space under the hair.

Miller’s first graders are a case study in the scale, depth and unevenness of learning loss during the pandemic.  One report by Amplify Education Inc., which creates curriculum, assessment and intervention products, found children in first and second grade experienced dramatic drops in grade level reading scores compared with those in previous years.

In 2020, 40 percent of first grade students and 35 percent of second grade students  were scoring “well below grade level” on a reading assessment, compared with 27 percent and 29 percent the previous year. That means a school would need to offer “intensive intervention” to nearly 50 percent more students than before the pandemic.

Data analyzed by McKinsey & Company late last year concluded that children have lost at least one and a half months of reading. Other data show low-income, Black and Latinx students are falling further behind than their white peers, leading to worsening achievement gaps.

Experts say it’s now clear families who had time and resources to help their children with academics when schooling was disrupted had a tremendous advantage.

“Higher-income parents, higher-educated parents, are likely to have worked with their children to teach them to read and basic numbers, and some of those really basic early foundational skills that kids generally get in pre-K, kindergarten and first grade,” said Melissa Clearfield, a professor of psychology who focuses on young children and poverty at Whitman College.

“Families who were not able to, either because their parents were essential workers or children whose parents are significantly low-income or not educated, they’re going to be really far behind. ”

What Miller has observed in the first few weeks of the school year is likely taking place in classrooms nationwide, experts say. In April, researchers with the nonprofit NWEA, which develops pre-K-12 assessments, predicted how the pandemic’s disruptions would manifest among the kindergarten class of 2021: a wider range of ability levels; large class sizes with more diverse ages because some parents held children back a grade; and students unfamiliar with in-person classroom routines.

“We predicted that there would be a lot of diversity in skills,” said Brooke Mabry, strategic content design coordinator for NWEA Professional Learning. That includes skills related to academics, social-emotional learning and executive functioning, she added.

The varying experiences children had with school last year also impacted fine motor skill development, independence, ability to navigate conflicts and the “unfinished learning” teachers are now observing, she added.

Related: Remote learning a bust? Some families consider having their child repeat kindergarten

While switching to remote learning was hard on many students, younger students were generally unable to log themselves on to a computer independently and focus on virtual lessons for extended periods of time. Teachers, who usually rely on small, in-person groups for  early literacy skills, instead had to teach letters, sounds and sight words via online platforms.

Miller had the unwieldy task of teaching kids both in person and online, spending her year pivoting between students in front of her and students on her computer screen, using her projector to display books to students at home and teaching reading skills via virtual groups.

Now, with students in front of her again, Miller was finding that those online lessons weren’t as useful as many had hoped.

Miller, 30, is a calm, confident teacher who is in her eighth year of teaching and her second at Doss. She usually has students with a wide range of ability levels at the beginning of the year, although Doss is relatively affluent. Nearly 62 percent of students at the school are white, and fewer than 20 percent are economically disadvantaged, compared with the district average of nearly 53 percent. In 2019, 95 percent of Doss’ students passed the state reading assessment.

But this year, Miller saw larger gaps in reading skills than ever before. Usually, her first graders would start with reading levels ranging from mid-kindergarten to second grade. This year, the levels spanned early kindergarten up to fourth grade.

“My kids are so spread out in their needs,” Miller said. “I just feel like — and I’m sure every teacher feels like this — there’s so much to teach, and somehow there’s not enough time.”

She’s also seen higher literacy levels for kids who went to school in person last year. To her, it speaks to the immense benefits kids get from all aspects of in-person learning. “It just shows how important it is for these kids to be around their peers and just have normalcy,” she said.

Related: Summer school programs race to help students most in danger of falling behind

To catch kids up, Miller is relying on, among other things, one of the staples of the early elementary classroom: center time. For two hours a day, she works with small groups of students on the specific math and reading skills they are lacking.

On a recent October morning, Miller divided her class into five groups to rotate through various activities around her room. She gave her students a few minutes to finish a writing assignment as she pulled out several sets of small books at various reading levels; colorful plastic, hollow phones so her students could hear themselves read; and for a group of struggling readers, a matching game featuring cards showing various letters and pictures.

“I feel like I’m teaching four grades,” Miller said as she arranged the materials on her desk.

Several minutes later, seated at a table in the back of the room with five of her grade-level readers, Miller handed them each a phone, a small book and a green witch’s finger to help them point at the words in the book. “Today we’re going to talk about our reading tools,” Miller said, holding up a blue plastic phone. “These are called whisper phones. You whisper so you can hear yourself sound out the words,” she said. “Do these go on our heads?”

“No!” the students said, giggling.

“You know what these are for?” she said, holding up a rubber finger.

“Um, they’re for reading,” one student said. “’Cause I had them in kindergarten.”

“Very good. Are these for picking your nose?” Miller asked.

“No!” the students said, laughing.

She placed a book in front of each child and walked them through a series of exercises, including looking at the cover and predicting what the book would be about.

Then, they opened their books and began to read in a whisper. Miller turned from one side of the table to the other, listening as students read to themselves, pointing at each word with their green rubber fingers. She helped them sound out challenging words, like “away.” One by one, the students finished the book. A few read it several times in the minutes allotted.

Miller’s next group, all of whom were reading far below grade level, required a different activity. Rather than handing out a book, Miller pulled out a letter-matching game at the table, using materials she had from her days as a kindergarten teacher. She placed two small laminated cards on the table, one showing the letter D and a picture of a dog, and one with the letter B and a picture of a ball.

“We’re going to do your letters today,” Miller said to the group. “What letter is this?” she asked, pointing to the B.

“Ball!” one student responded.

“What letter?” Miller asked again. There was a pause.

“B!” another student responded.

“What sound does it make?”

“Buh,” a third student said.

The students ran through the activity, looking at pictures of items starting with B and D like a doll, ball, dog and dolphin, and sorting them into piles based on the starting letter.

Experts like Clearfield say finding new or different strategies to help students learn grade-level content after the last 18 months will be critical, even if that means pulling out activities typically used by lower grade levels, as Miller did with her lowest reading group.

It also may mean recruiting help from outside the classroom. Miller said Doss already had a strong team of interventionists to rely on, and several of her students receive extra reading help during the day.

Miller has also found it helpful to work with her fellow first grade teachers to solve a shared academic challenge. This fall, the first grade teachers all discovered that many of their students were behind in reading sight words. They began meeting regularly to share tips and strategies to combat this.

Despite the obvious need to catch kids up, Miller has been mindful of not coming on too strong with remediation efforts. “I don’t want to push them so hard where they get burned out,” she said on an October evening. “They’ve been through so much.”

Related:  We know how to help young children cope with the trauma of the last year— but will we do it?

Mabry, of NWEA, said while catching students up is important, society needs to view the recovery process as a multiyear effort. “In previous years, when looking at unfinished learning and finding ways to get students to accelerated growth, we never expected that we would get students who need support to meet those accelerated goals in one year. We would never approach it that way,” Mabry said. “Now, we’re so frantic. I think we’re frantic because we feel it’s this larger population.”

It’s a daunting task, but experts say there is hope.

“Kids will catch up eventually,” said Clearfield from Whitman College. But to get there, society may need to re-evaluate expectations, she added. “If most children in our community are behind by, like, a year or two, then our expectations for what is typical, it’s going to have to match where they are,” Clearfield said. “Otherwise, we are going to be constantly frustrated … we’re going to have expectations that don’t match their skills or abilities.”

By mid-autumn, Miller was heartened by what she was seeing in her classroom. Students were becoming more confident and independent. Their writing was stronger. There were fewer conflicts.

One morning, Miller stood by her desk as students effortlessly transitioned from one activity to the next during center time. They quietly buzzed around, cleaning up activities and putting their notebooks away in cubbies as she prepared to work with a new group of students at her desk.

“It kind of gives me hope that we’ll be OK,” she said. “Even after last year, we’ll be OK.”

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

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn't mean it's free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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First Grade Reading Activities, Phonics Worksheets, Videos, Games, Listening

The 1^st Grade Level 1 Reading Program features a review of all the short vowels, beginning and ending consonants. Your children will learn words with the S blends, consonant digraphs ch, sh, th, wh and ph.  They will also learn the soft C and G sounds.

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These high quality pdf worksheets are pages from our phonics activity book for preschool. Worksheets are arranged by course progression. Some of the skills the children will learn include:

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Videos

You do not need to be a professional teacher to present the skills for this level. Our highly focused phonics video tutorials will easily do the job. Some of the videos include the following:

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Games

Kiz Phonics offers a variety of reading games for all kinds of learners. These activities often combine audio, visual and clicking to learn. Each activity is short and focused.

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Listening

The listening section of our first grade level 1 phonics program is in sync with the worksheets of this level. Print a worksheet you want to use and choose the audio from the playlist.

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Featuring Worksheets for First Grade Level 1

st blend word building
Learning st blend by building words

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sn blend word building
Learning sn blend by building words

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str blend word building
Learning str blend by building words

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s blends word search 
Learning st blend by doing this puzzle

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Featuring 1st Grade Phonics Games

Digraph /sh/, Phonics game to practice the consonant digraph /sh/

When two letters come together to make one sound, it is called…

Digraph ch, Phonics Flashcards

Practice the digraph 'ch' using these interactive phonics flipcards.…

Digraph /sh/, Phonics game to practice the consonant digraph /sh/

Digraphs are formed when two letters come together to make one…

Digraph sh, Phonics flipcards

Practice the sound of the digraph sh as in ship. Click on a card…

st beginning consonant S blend, phonics game

Learn and practice the st consonant blend. Listen, then drag…

st beginning consonant S blend, phonics flashcards

Learn and practice the beginning st consonant blends using these…

Consonant Digraph ‘ph’ Phonics Activity

Learn and practice the consonant digraph ‘ph‘ using this…

Consonant Digraph ‘ph’ Phonics Flashcard

Learn and practice the consonant digraph ‘ph‘ using this…

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Featuring 1st Grade Phonics Videos

'wh' digraph Phonics Video

This is a phonics video on the 'wh' digraph. Learn to sound out,…

'th' ending digraph Phonics Video

This is a phonics video on the 'th' ending digraph. Learn to…

'th' beginning digraph Phonics Video

This is a phonics video on the 'th' beginning digraph. Learn…

'sw' blends Phonics Video

This is a phonics video on the 'sw' blends. Learn to sound out,…

'str' blends Phonics Video

This is a phonics video on the 'str' blends. Learn to sound out,…

'st' blends Phonics Video

This is a phonics video on the 'st' blends. Learn to sound out,…

'sp' blends Phonics Video

This is a phonics video on the 'sp' blends. Learn to sound out,…

Soft 'g' Phonics Video

This is a phonics video on the soft 'g'. Learn to sound out,…

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Kiz Phonics iPad Apps

Preschool Phonics App (Phonics_Prek) Lite

Preschool Phonics App (Phonics_Prek)

Kindergarten Level 1 Phonics App (Phonics Kinder 1) Lite

Kindergarten Level 1 Phonics App (Phonics Kinder 1)

Kindergarten Level 2 Phonics App (Phonics Kinder 2) Lite

Kindergarten Level 2 Phonics App (Phonics Kinder 2)

1st Grade Level 1 Phonics App (Phonics 1st Grade 1) Lite

1st Grade Level 1 Phonics App (Phonics 1st Grade 1)

1st Grade Level 2 Phonics App (Phonics 1st Grade 2) Lite

1st Grade Level 2 Phonics App (Phonics 1st Grade 2)

2nd Grade Level 1 Phonics App (Phonics 2nd Grade 1) Lite

2nd Grade Level 1 Phonics App (Phonics 2nd Grade 1)

Phonics Sentence Monkey Game Lite

Phonics Sentence Monkey Game

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Preschool Reading - Ages 3-4

Learning to read starts here. From as low as 3 years, your child needs to build the following skills that will prepare him/her for reading. Print Awareness and Phonemic Awareness are the hallmarks of this level. We provide the following types of resources:

 Kindergarten Reading 1 - Ages 4-6

The Kindergarten Level 1 Reading Program,  is suitable for kids between the ages of 4 to 6. Children will learn short vowels a & e, beginning and ending consonant sounds. The will learn how to read words, sentences and 2 short stories.

Kindergarten Reading 2 - Ages 4-6

The Kindergarten Level 2 Reading Program,  is suitable for kids between the ages of 4 to 6. Children will learn short vowels i, o & u, ending and beginning consonants & digraphs. The will learn how to read words, sentences and 2 short stories.

1st Grade Reading 1 - Ages 6-7

The 1^st Grade Level 1 Reading Program features a review of all the short vowels, beginning and ending consonants. Your children will learn words with the S blends, consonant digraphs ch, sh, th, wh and ph.  They will also learn the soft C and G sounds.

1st Grade Reading 2 - Ages 6-7

The 1^st Grade Level 2 Phonics Program features the long a & i with the silent e. Kids will learn how the silent e changes the sounds of words. This level also includes vowel digraphs ai & ay, vowel digraphs ee & ea and final y as long e.

2nd Grade Reading 1 - Ages 7-8

The 2^nd Grade Level 1 Phonics Program features the long o & u with the silent e. This level also includes vowel digraphs like oa & ow, ui & ue and final y as long i. Special vowels like aw & ew will be also be learned.

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How to teach a child to read by syllables?

First you need to understand that the child is ready for learning. This can be verified by the following indicators: - the child's speech is clear, without serious violations in pronunciation, the child does not "swallow" sounds during pronunciation; - there is the ability to see the text; there is an understanding that these are letters - not pictures, but symbols depicting sounds. It is believed that the ideal age for learning to read is 6 years old, but one must always understand that this age is determined individually. It is better to start learning to read by syllables in a playful way, getting acquainted with individual letters. It is better to do little by little, but regularly: 15 minutes daily will be enough. After getting acquainted with the letters, proceed to reading by syllables. Reading by syllables is a technique available to every adult, it does not require special training. But you can always choose lesser-known author's methods of teaching reading, carefully studying their features and reviews of other parents. Having folded the alphabet into syllables, you can proceed to compose simple words. The main thing is not to force the process: when it is measured and regular, it is doomed to success! nine0003

What is a syllable?

To successfully master the skill of reading, it is necessary to understand how to divide words into syllables. A syllable is one or more sounds uttered by one expiratory push of air. For a simple orientation, it can be taken as a rule that there are as many syllables in a word as there are vowels. Use our exercises, compiled by professional teachers, for a more effective acquaintance with this topic, so as not to confuse the concepts of "syllable division" and "word transfer". nine0003

How many words per minute should a first grader read?

The number of words read per minute, which can be used as a reference when assessing the quality of reading, is just one of the indicators. On average, the rate (or speed) of reading a first grade student is 15-25 words per minute. It is equally important to take into account qualitative indicators: how much the child understands the meaning of what is read, whether there is expressiveness when reading. To train the reading skill, it is important to be able to read not only aloud, but also silently, this is how awareness is born and further - the expressiveness of reading. nine0003

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How to teach a child to read quickly in grade 1: useful exercises

Parents are concerned about how to teach a child to read quickly in grade 1, because for many mothers this is an indicator of success. Let's figure out what for us adults to "read fast" and whether this race for medals is necessary for the child himself. How to teach a child to read: Grade 1 is a difficult period, how can we help a newly-made student. nine0329