Parents often ask what they can do to help there child at home. There are several things that will be very beneficial.
- Read aloud with your child every night. As they increase their reading ability, have them take turns reading, too. At first it may be a few words or a sentence, but pretty soon they will be reading on their own! As you read with them, they are developing phonemic awareness - an understanding of how words are put together. It is a critical skill on the path to literacy.
- Play word games with your child. Say a word and help them think of rhyming words. Ask them to tell you the beginning sound, ending sound, or vowel sound in words (notice I said 'sound' and not letter' - that is a different skill). Tell them a word and see if they can think of another word that starts the same way, but has a different sound at the end. These games help your child develop that phonemic awareness.
- Practice the Spalding Phonograms with your child as they learn them. They are the building blocks for spelling and decoding words! There are some websites to help you become more familiar with these sounds below. I will be sending home in-class phonogram practice pages for you to review with them once we have learned a few more sounds and the correct handwriting for forming the letters. Point out the phonograms as you read with your child, or even better, have them point them out to you. Application of the phonograms in reading and spelling.