Category Archives: Reading

Thursday Thoughts

This is where we will collaborate on classroom issues.

“I ordered the Summer Bridge book for Gabby to help her remember what she learned in Kindergarten and help her prepare for 1st grade. What else could we do to help her improve her reading skills?”           – Brittany C.,  North Carolina

I love that you are thinking ahead!  It is so important for kids to keep their brains going doing any break from school, but especially during the long summer break. Before we delve into some ideas for keeping that brain active I want to give everyone a reminder that summer should also be fun.  You don’t need to make every moment about academic learning. There is still plenty of learning to be done while playing and engaging. With that said here are a few ideas:

1. READ. I cannot stress enough how important it is to just read with her. Ultimately you want Gabby (or any child) to read because they want to read, not because they have to.  You can encourage her reading by looking into summer reading programs through your local public library or online.  Pizza Hut is still doing the BookIt program.  Check it out here here  If you don’t want to sign up for those programs you can create your own.  Have her compete against herself each week to see if she can read more books than the week before or compete against how many books you can read in a week.
2. Play games. You can play games that are focused on reading skills like the ones I talked about here. You can also play common childhood games that practice some of the same skills. Games like I Spy help kids learn vocabulary and practice visual discrimination.  Playing concentration (otherwise known as memory) helps build their working memory which is needed when breaking up longer words. Word games are also available for purchase if you want.  Games like Bananagrams and scrabble can be modified for even the youngest readers.
3. Lastly, know what questions to ask. Our natural inclination when a child is trying to read is to tell them to “sound out” an unfamiliar word.  Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple.  There are a few techniques you can use to help Gabby become a more skilled reader.  I like to match up the techniques to animals, because let’s face it, kids love animals. Here are my favorites for the littles:

Hoppy Frog- “hop” over the word for now and finish the sentence.  Come back and see if you can figure out the word.

Flippy Dolphin- “flip” the vowel sound from short to long when sounding out the letters.

Chunky Monkey- some sounds are impossible to sound out.  For example the combination of ch needs to be taught since it doesn’t sound like c-h. After a child has learned multiple chunks they can look for those chunks in unfamiliar words.

Eagle Eyes- look at the pictures to see if the word makes sense or if the picture combined with the first sound tells you the word.

I hope that helps you Brittany!  I’d love to hear what others do at home to help make reading fun during the summer!