I’ve written a festive Halloween kindergarten phonics story called Pam’s Pumpkin. It includes short vowel words and consonant digraph words. There are some sight words in the story including: have, said, was, some, orange, were, some, one, of. You can also use this for first graders who are working on fluency or are in a […]
Kindergarten spelling lists
Kindergartners should work on spelling phonetic words and sight words. When they work on phonetic words, they should write the word sound-by-sound. When they spell sight words, they should write the irregular aspects of the sight word from memory. Do not have your kindergartner work on memorized lists of words each lesson. Instead, construct your […]
Silent e Worksheet
Kids usually learn the silent e sound towards the end of Kindergarten or beginning of first grade, depending on your state and district standards. Silent e is a significant milestone, because for the first time, kids branch off from short vowel words (ex. Hat, met, sip, dog, cup) and read long vowel words (ex. bake, […]
Short a Phonics Words
Kids work on reading short a phonics words in early Kindergarten. They are the first words kids need to master. Some short a phonics words include: mat, Sam, fan, fat, ran, yak, tap, mat, Pat, Pam, man, bat, cat, lap, Dan, rat, rad, tad, dab, nab, mad, sad, pad, fad, wag, lag, sag, bag, yap, […]
Sounding Out Words and Why Kids Struggle
Your student is in Kindergarten. He knows letter sounds. Yet, when he tries to string letters together to form a word, he forgets the first or middle sound. “H-aaaa-t… um does that say hit?” he says. Sounding out words is a critical early reading skill. Some kids really struggle to blend sounds. If a child […]
Short Vowel Word List pdf
Beginning Kindergartners first start reading short vowel words. To teach using systematic phonics instruction, gradually introduce one short vowel at a time (a_ as in apple, i_ as in igloo, o_ as in octopus, u_ as in up and e_ as in elephant). Click the link below for a FREE short vowel word list pdf […]
Teaching the ing Inflectional Ending
At first, kids learn to read single-syllable words. Once they’ve mastered these word types, they move on to learn the ing inflectional ending. Janice was a 3rd grader that could not read ing inflectional ending words like dining, tapping or sailing. As a result, she was stuck on low level books, and her reading skills […]
How to Avoid Frustration During Reading Lessons
When parents work with their struggling reader, lessons can get tense. Jacob was a struggling reader in 2nd grade. He loathed reading lessons and when his dad tried to sit him down at their kitchen table to conduct reading lessons, Jacob ran around the house in an attempt to play hide and seek. After Jacob’s […]
Printable Kindergarten Paper
When you teach your k-2 student how to decode, you should also include a spelling activity. If you’re anything like most educators, you constantly need primary paper, so I’ve included a free printable kindergarten paper in this post (scroll down to print). To learn more about how to teach spelling, discover how to design leveled […]
Kindergarten Spelling Lists
Kids learn how to spell while they are learning how to read. Reading is decoding, while spelling is encoding. For beginners, reading tends to be easier than spelling, since spelling requires the ability to segment sounds and remember the symbol that correlates with each sound. The strategies you use on kindergarten spelling lists can help […]