Our PreSchool Blog

We continued with our second book, Making Bubbles  by Bruce Larkin in reading groups this week. The children have been working hard to track each word in the repetitive text that introduces a new sight word each week. The sight word we worked on this week is the word, the. Sight words are words that are used most frequently in text. The reason that they are called “sight” words is because the goal is for your child to begin to recognize these words instantly, at first sight. These are very important to master because they account for up to 75% of the words used in beginning children’s books. These words, typically, are not words that can be “sounded out,” therefore need to be learned by sight.

Many of the students were asking to take the books home to be able to share them with you. If you would like your child to read the text for you. You can find a digital book here. Just click on “Making Bubbles” under Kindergarten Books to access the book.

Our early reading adventure began in K Prep this week. The focus this week was how to use their “Magic Reading Finger.” Why do we have children use their finger to track the words while they read? The reason for this practice is because our eyes naturally follow movement, placing a finger, on a page and strategically moving it down the text, a reader will naturally keep their place and be more focused. This helps readers concentrate and understand what they read making reading a more satisfying experience.  They did a wonderful job!

We continued our animal exploration during reading groups this week as we reviewed many of the sight words we have been studying.  Do You Eat Grass? by Bruce Larkin is one of the many Bruce Larkin readers we use during reading groups throughout the school year that helps our young readers develop the skills they need to blossom into independent readers.

In this strategy, students read aloud to each other, pairing more fluent readers with less fluent readers.  Children who read at the same level may be paired to reread a text that they have already read, for continued understanding and fluency work.  In order to increase student fluency, readers need experience reading to and listening to other readers of all kinds.  Specifically, lower-level readers benefit from strategies such as Paired Reading by listening to the reading of a higher-level reader.  Reading with someone else encourages students to try reading material that may be above their usual reading level, while also building oral skills so that students are more comfortable with their reading.

Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in words. We know that a student’s skill in phonemic awareness is a good predictor of later reading success or difficulty.  We have continued our study of phonemic awareness through the exploration of word families.  Our first word family of focus was the -at family.  After becoming familiar with our at family reader, the students enjoyed buddy reading throughout the classroom.  Reading and rereading text allows students to become more proficient in fluency and and have more practice with the reading strategies they have learned so far!

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My magic reading finger helps me learn how to read.  It helps make sure my mouth says what my eyes see.  When my finger’s under a letter, my mouth makes a certain sound.  It moves faster when I’m blending, for sounding out it must slow down.  For sight words it can HOP SKIP JUMP, these words I read with ease.  It covers up tricky parts, and makes looking for chunks a breeze.  This magic finger will help you, but there is one thing it please.  Keep the magic in the finger…by only using it to read!

-Jodi B. Whalen

In this strategy, students read aloud to each other, pairing more fluent readers with less fluent readers.  Children who read at the same level may be paired to reread a text that they have already read, for continued understanding and fluency work.  In order to increase student fluency, readers need experience reading to and listening to other readers of all kinds.  Specifically, lower-level readers benefit from strategies such as Paired Reading by listening to the reading of a higher-level reader.  Reading with someone else encourages students to try reading material that may be above their usual reading level, while also building oral skills so that students are more comfortable with their reading.