Kindergarten Children Begin to Read

Lets talk more about teaching kindergarten children beginning reading. Last time we talked about letters and sounds, blending small words, sight words, and reading beginning picture books.

Today lets discuss rhyming, word families, and beginning and ending sounds:

Rhyming is important because it shows children how words work. They learn how to manipulate language. In rhyming the end stays the same and the beginning changes. It’s ok to use nonsense words. ”What rhymes with dog?” Log, hog, sog, wog, bog, tog, chog… all these are fine. Some are words and some are nonsense words, but the children are hearing the sounds and hearing the changes in words. Rhyming games are fun while you are driving, playing or cleaning the house.

The next step in rhyming is word families. When teaching word families use only real words, (this is also rhyming). In the “at” family there is bat, cat, fat, hat, mat, pat, rat, etc. Put “at” on an index card then change the beginning consonant. See if the children can sound out the new word. Make lots of different word families: “an” family: can, fan, man, pan, ran, tan, etc. “Og” family: bog, dog, fog, hog, jog, log, etc.

When you teach beginning and ending sounds say a word and ask two different questions. 1) What sound do you hear? 2) What letter makes that sound? It is important for the children to hear the sound at the beginning and ending of words even before they know the name of the letter. Children will hear the beginning and ending sounds, before they are able to hear the middle vowel sound.

A fun game to play is separating words into sounds. Say, “I am thinking of a word” and give 3 separate sounds. Have them try to put it together and tell you the word. This is difficult for children so be patient. What is /c/ /a/ /t/? Answer: cat. Do it the opposite way as well. Tell me the sounds you hear in dog. Answer: /d/ /o/ /g/.

After all these fun games don’t forget to just cuddle up with a book, read together and enjoy a story. Nothing will make a child want to read more than learning to enjoy a story. So happy reading!