Our PreSchool Blog

The importance of phonemic awareness and phonics instruction for beginning readers has received wide support among reading researchers.  When young children participate in specific instruction in how to identify and manipulate the sounds of language (phonemic awareness) and how to associate those sounds with letters and letter patterns (phonics), children are very likely to succeed in reading.  Skill at decoding, or sounding out unfamiliar words, is so critical for skilled reading that neither instruction instruction in sight word reading nor strategies in the use of context can compensate for poor decoding skills.  Decoding skills are considered an essential for fluent reading in later grades.  We begin this journey in our pre-k program to create a solid foundation in early phonics for your child to build on as they continue their path to becoming fluent readers.

We discovered the Blue Ringed Octopus today during our Country Study.  We created our own as we spied letters as a letter sound was called out.  Both upper case and lower case were included.  This is our final week of letter Aa, Bb, and Cc Review.  Next week we will review letters Dd, Ee, Ff and their sounds.  Keep practicing at home!  They are doing a GREAT JOB!

We focused last week on number words while reading the book, Lost Feathers by Bruce Larkin.  Our week was full of number word activities including coloring by number word and graphing a number word.  We are becoming better readers every day in preparation for Kindergarten!  Kindergarten Here We Come!

We will be introduced to two new word families this week.-it, and -ot.  Today we focused on the -it family as we buddied up and read our -it family books in pairs.  The Paired Reading strategy encourages peer teaching and learning.  Students are divided into pairs and take turns reading aloud to each other.  Reading with a buddy encourages students to try reading materials that may be just above their normal reading level. Paired Reading can also be used to build oral skills so that reluctant readers can work toward reading more confidently in front of a small group.  Because the students have been so successful this year with their reading progress, this is a strategy that we will be able to incorporate on a more regular basis during small groups.

We are working on the book, This is My Mom this week in reading groups.  It talks about all the different kind of jobs that moms have outside of the home.  We are reviewing the sight word this, is, and my during our word work activities.  Our new sight word this week is she and we have been introduced to the sound that the sh makes when put together.  The children are doing an amazing job!

We began reading the book, How Many Animals? today during reading groups.  We reviewed the sight word see and began learning about syllables.  We clapped out the syllables in our names, our friends names, and the animals names we read in our book.  This is a simple game to play in the car on the way to and from school to help your child begin to identify the numbers of syllables in words.  Happy Counting!