How to Help Your Child at Home

The first step to teaching children to read is making sure they can recognize and
name all letters of the alphabet. Practice reviewing the alphabet (upper and lower
case) in and out of sequence. There are also many online resources available to
help children learn the alphabet (see attached list of Websites for Further Learning).

After children know letters and letter names, they need to learn the sound(s) that
each letter makes.

It is important to differentiate between vowels and consonants. Children need to
know that vowels can make more than one sound, while consonants only make one
sound (with the exception of the letters G, C and X).

Once children know all of the letters and their sounds, they can start to learn to
blend the sounds together. Start with 2 letters at a time (A+T = AT, I+N = IN, etc.)
and then move on to 3-letter words (C+A+T = CAT).

Simultaneously, students need to be working on memorizing “sight words”
(sometimes referred to as “high-frequency words”). Many of these are words that do
not follow the rules of English grammar and cannot be sounded out, but instead
need to be memorized. For example, do, you, there, said, was, for, come, from, of,
etc. (see attached Dolch Sight Word List). A good method for learning these words is
to write them on flash cards and practice them over and over. Start out with only 5
words and add more once your child has mastered the first 5 words. You can print
flash cards (for Pre-Primer through 3rd Grade) for free at
http://pdf.mrprintables.com/mrprintables-dolch-words-all-bw.pdf.

Read with your child daily. Have conversations about what you read. Ask your child
questions about the stories and encourage him/her to ask questions in return. Invite
your child to read to you. When he/she reads even just a few words, be very proud!
Celebrate these small successes. See attached Tips for Emerging Readers.

Make learning fun. Play games with your child to help him/her learn and reinforce
what he/she is being taught at school. See attached list of Games for Emerging
Readers.
Dolch Sight Word List
Preprimer
Primer
a
my
all
now
what
and
not
am
on
white
away
one
are
our
who
big
play
at
out
will
blue
red
ate
please
with
can
run
be
pretty
yes
come
said
black
ran
down
see
brown
ride
find
the
but
saw
for
three
came
say
funny
to
did
she
go
two
do
so
help
up
eat
soon
here
we
four
that
I
where
get
there
in
yellow
good
they
is
you
have
this
it
he
too
jump
into
under
little
like
want
look
must
was
make
new
well
me
no
went