Posted in Reading

Step 6: Learn to read a full sentence

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Sight Words and Sentence Building

Sight words are a collection of commonly used words that a child can learn to recognize by sight without decoding. A large amount of text is made up of 100 commonly used words. Most of these 100 words are small and easy to read (the, or, it, is, a, I, and, are, on). Some sight words are not easy to sound out by following the phonemic rules taught to early readers (from, what, there). This is why educators teach these words by sight. Memorizing sight words help children begin to read more fluently. There are 2 prominent lists of high-frequency words Dolch list and Fry list. Both lists include the same words but words on the list differ when it comes to frequency ranking. Using the top 100 words from either of these lists is sufficient for teaching sight words to early readers.

I was able to get my pre-kindergarten class to learn sight words by teaching them 1 word a day. During circle time, we would review about 10 to 15 words with flashcards but, 1 special sight word would be our word of the day. I would tape this word to my shirt and during snack, recess, and center time I asked the children to tell me what word I had on my shirt. This forced them to pay attention to our special word and learn it by sight.

After 80% of my class new 10 or more sight words, I began to have them read full sentences. This was introduced during circle time. I prepared about a dozen sentence strips that included phrases, questions, and statements. All words on the sentence strips were either 3 letter (CVC) words, student names, and sight words. I did not use any unfamiliar names on the sentence strips, as new names may be hard to read. My class constantly saw their names on cubbies, tables, cots, snacks, and other labels; they were familiar with the names of the children in the class. During circle time, I had the class read the sentences out load to me. I would add new sentences as they mastered new sight words, CVCe words, and other phonics sounds.

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Sight Word Teaching Resources
Sight Word Worksheets
120 High-Frequency Word Flashcards. With a bonus of 13 worksheets which include word searches and spelling worksheets.
Sentence Building Worksheets – Coming Soon
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Building Reading Skills is a Continuous Process: Read! Read! Read!

Read to children, even if they are now able to read to themselves. Have a child read to you if they enjoy reading. Below are several Unabashed Kid list of awesome books to introduce to children.

Posted in Reading

5th Step to Reading: Tricky and Long Vowel Sounds

Tricky and Long Vowel Sounds

This is the time to review the alphabet as vowels and consonants. Read our blog post about books that teach vowel sounds.

CVCe words are a part of the tricky vowel blends, I suggest introducing them after mastery of CVC words. Review Word Family worksheets and activities to practice long vowel sounds. 

  • Bossy r sounds include words with ar, ir, er, ur (car, shirt, her, hurt). 
  • Long a sounds include ai, ay, a_e (train, play, make).
  • Long e sounds happen when these letter combinations are found at the end of a word: ee, ea, e_e, y (see, read, here, happy).
  • Long i sounds happen when these letters are found at the end of a word: ie, i_e, igh, y (pie, like, night, my).
  • Long o sounds include oa, ow, o_e (goat, snow, home).
  • Long u sounds include ue, u_e, ew (cue, fuse, few).
  • Short o sounds happen when these letters are found in the middle of a word: aw, au, al (saw, caught, walk)
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Rules to making long vowel sounds

  1. Vowels at the end of a syllable make the long sound. (ba/by, he/ro, mu/sic)
  2. Vowel teams can make the long sound. (beat, meat, seed, they, tie, dew)
  3. Silent e makes the previous vowel long. (like, make, tone)
  4. i and o make their long sound when they come before two consonants. (mind, bold, right)
Posted in Reading

4th Step to Reading: CVC Words and Word Families

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How to Teach Rhyming Words, Word Families and CVC Words

The word phonogram comes from Greek and is translated as the “written symbol for a sound.” Phonograms are the building block to almost all English words, the vast majority of words follow the regular phonogram sounds. You can introduce children to the majority of words that don’t follow regular phonogram sounds, by teaching sight words. 

CVC stands for Consonant/Vowel/Consonant. These words will be super easy for kids to read once they have learned their letter sounds. You can even get a child who knows their CVC words to begin reading books. Check out the Unabashed List of Easy to Read Children’s books. Teach a child that the letters A, E, I, O, and U are vowels. Teach the short and long sounds of these letters. Children will learn to distinguish the long and short sounds with CVC and CVCe words in the next step of reading. CVC stands for Consonant/Vowel/Consonant and CVCe words are words where the letter ‘e’ at the end make the vowel in the middle make a long sound (say its name).The FREE CVC to CVCe packet aids in teaching children the long vowel sounds.

CVC Word Family Game

Pre-K students playing word family game

You can make your own cards (like I did in the image above), or print out our word family flash-cards. This game is easy to play, fun, and engaging for students. I had the children in my classroom work in groups of 2. One student will read the word outload and the other would match the words to the correct word family.

This game is fun for students who love to rhyme. It is also helpful to pair a stronger reading student with a less advanced reading students. They learn to work as a team and often children explain things to each other in a way that adults cannot. The less advanced reading student learns from the strong reader.

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Word Family Truffula Trees – Inspired by Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax

After reading the Lorax, the Pre-Kindergarten class created their own truffula trees. We turned our art project into a fun word family game.

Dr. Seuss Word Family Trufulla Tree

Use these flashcards and worksheets to assist you while teaching reading lessons. Don’t forget to make it FUN!

Phonograms

word families
Purchase these Word Family Flash Cards to build reading confidence. Includes over 400 easy to learn words. CVC, CVCe, flashcards.
ap word family

Consonant Vowel Consonant (CVC) Words + Intro to CVCe

CVC to CVCe word writing worksheet
CVC to CVCe comparison

50 page word building worksheet packet – coming soon

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