Kindergarten Reading
Children learn to read as they gain literacy skills.
Kindergarten reading - Although literacy is a developmental process, skillful instruction is necessary. The ability to listen, speak, read and write begins to develop before children go to school and continues throughout their school years.
Areas of literacy are:
- Listening and speaking
- Phonemic awareness and reading skills
- Writing skills
- Responding to literature
Kindergarten reading and writing, speaking and listening and responding to literature comes about as children are given opportunities to hear quality literature, to play with letters and words, to engage in activities and experiences about literature, and as they receive specific instruction that increases their awareness of language.
Emergent Literacy - What is it?
Kindergarten and preschool literacy begins early. Children are said to be emergent readers and writers when they start to develop reading and writing skills.
Reading and writing begins when children begin to:
- pretend to read
- "write" with lines of scribble or letters
- point to words from left to right
- use vocabulary like "letter" and "words"
- recognize a few words and names
- start to understand what rhyming words are
- can name letters and beginning sounds of words
Reading Instruction
Children need instruction to:
- develop an awareness that letters and letter patterns represent the sounds of spoken language
- acquire reading comprehension strategies and apply them to the reading of text
- develop and maintain a love of reading during the learning process
Help children learn letters and letter sounds during kindergarten reading times
Use modeling clay to help children learn letters.- Collect objects beginning with the same letter sound and emphasize the sound.
- Have children look for an object in the room that begins with the letter sound.
- Paint letters at the easel using thick bright colored paints and big brushes
- Play games like Bingo, but create your own cards to start with. Playing Bingo with 3 or 4 letters at a time is more beneficial than using a set with the whole alphabet on it. Repeat the same letters on the cards so children have more than one opportunity to locate it.
Simple beginning assessment for kindergarten reading
Exposure to literature varies with families. Check children individually to evaluate if they:
- can recognize the front and the back of a book
- can identify - what is the title of a book
- can identify- what is a word
- can identify - what is a letter
- can identify where you begin reading on a page
- can identify where you finish reading on a page
Literacy pages:
Reading / Literacy
Listening & speaking
Phonemic awareness
Writing skills
Responding to literature
Math & literature
Picture books
Also see theme pages
