People often associate dyslexia with older students. Some assume kids need to struggle through the early grades before adults can determine who has dyslexia and who doesn’t. The truth is: it’s important to identify dyslexic students early. That way, they don’t fall too far behind. The earlier educators notice that a child has dyslexia, the sooner the child can have access to structured, systematic phonics instruction and decodable books–which is what dyslexic kids really need.
In kindergarten, dyslexic kids need to learn letter sounds systematically.
It’s important to teach students the essentials first. Nothing is more essential than the sound of a letter (not the name), because the sounds of letters unlock words. Thus, teach letter sounds first. Ensure kids say letter sounds properly. Students should:
- Say the letter sound only once (we don’t read cat as three c sounds: c-c-c-a-t). Say the sound once while practicing. That way, students can unlock words correctly while reading. This may be surprising, but many educators teach kids to say the letter sound multiple times in a row. Don’t do this. Teach kids to say the sound once.
- Teach kids to clip stop sounds. When we say stop sounds like /d/ /b/ or /c/ we naturally add an “uh”; be sure to clip that “uh” off, because we don’t say “uh” after letter sounds as we read. Students should pronounce d as d-, b as b- and c as c-. Students should NOT say duh, buh or cuh. Clip off the “uh” sound.
- Hold continuous sounds. There are some sounds we can hold for a long duration. For example we can say /m/ as mmmmm, /s/ as ssssssss and /l/ as llllllll. Teach kids to (yes, say the sound once) but also hold continuous sounds. In early reading, continuous sounds are important, because they help kids unlock words.
Teach the letter sounds systematically. I recommend teaching 2-4 at a time. Be sure to always review old letter sounds as well. That way, dyslexic students don’t become weak in old content.
Do phonemic awareness activities.
Dyslexic kids benefit from lots of phonemic awareness activities. These are activities that teach kids that words–although they sound like one utterance–are composed of discrete units of sound. Kids need to practice identifying individual sounds.
For example, you can do segmenting activities that ask students to break the sounds apart. You can say, “What are the sounds in cat?” The student should respond with, “c-aaaaa-t.” Notice how the student clips the stop sounds /c/ and /t/ and holds the continuous sound /a/. This is the correct way to segment cat.
Kids can also do blending activities. These are critical for helping dyslexic kids unlock words while reading books. However, remember there’s no text in phonemic activities. These are merely sound activities. In a blending activity, the teacher might say, “sssss-aaaaa-nnnnn-d. What am I saying?” The students should respond with, “Sand!”
Dyslexic kids need decodable books.
After students know letter sounds and practice phonemic awareness activities, they are ready to read books. Some kids only need to know a few letter sounds before reading books with limited letters. For example, to read “Cat Sat” in our decodable book bundle, kids only need to know a few letter sounds and the sight word “the.”
Decodable books are books that slowly introduce phonics sounds one at a time. They are systematic. That way, a child doesn’t need to know all of the phonics sounds at once: they can learn them gradually over time. Decodable books have limited language to help kids master one phonics sound before learning another. Because of their limited vocabulary, decodable books can often seem awkward and stilted. However, we worked hard to ensure that our decodable books are cute, fun reads for kids.
Enter our shop for our decodable book bundle.
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