Reading Beginning Books

A Dad of one of my students said, “John was reading the book he brought home from school, but I could tell it was memorized. When I covered the pictures, or printed the words on a paper so he could read it to me, he didn’t know the words.” He seemed very concerned.

There are a lot of steps in learning to read. The National Reading Panel identified two steps: phonetic instruction, and fluency. On a Kindergarten level, fluency is memorizing and retelling a story.

Don’t be discouraged if your child is memorizing beginning books. This is an important step in reading fluency. A good reader uses inflection in his/her reading. He/she knows about punctuation to make reading flow. When a child memorizes a short book or parts of books, he/she is copying how a loving adult reads to him/her. He/she knows how it should sound so he/she memorizes and copies what the words should say. This is OK. This is beginning reading.

“Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man,” said over and over in a story teaches fluency. If your child had to sound those words out he/she might get; run, can, man, but the other words take higher reading skills. Your child knows the gingerbread story and he/she knows he/she wants to read it like his/her teacher. The sight words and other phonics skills will come later.

In Kindergarten we have books with repetitive text. I see airplanes, I see flowers, I see balloons, I see bags, and I see Dad.

Once the child has decoded the pattern, he/she only needs to figure out the last word. Some of the words are easy and can be sounded out. Other words are above a Kindergarten level, but there are picture clues on the page. Have your child look at the beginning consonant, and then look at the picture on the page. If the child says, “I see suitcases,” when it really says, “I see bags,” have them look at the word. Ask them, “what does suitcases start with? Do you see an “s”? Now look at this word. Look at the beginning consonant. Get your mouth ready to say that sound. Now look at the picture and see if there is anything that starts with /b/ in the picture.” Then your child will say “bags”. Good, now lets sound out the whole word, /b/ /a/ /g/, bag.

Beginning reading has many steps; phonics, sight words, memorization, fluency and developing language. Have fun with books. If your child knows you love books, he/she will catch the enthusiasm.