How to help kindergartener struggling with reading

[Anonymous]

Our kindergartner completes his math “homework” pretty easily but struggles with the reading activities his teacher sends home. He knows his letters, but his teacher sends home decoding worksheets and letter blend worksheets and he gets frustrated really easily and rolls his eyes and starts whining. We gave some Bob books too which are a bit better with the pictures but we still hit a wall after the first few. Trying to encourage him to be patient and just try with me but it seems he doesn’t really know what to do and my attempts to help are just making him more frustrated. I worry this is turning him off reading altogether and wonder if we need to step back and go through a more structured supplemental program at home. Has anyone done this? I’ve seen All About Reading and Logic of English mentioned in another thread and wonder if anyone has experiences with these (or others) for a kindergartener? Also wondering if there are specific elements of it you found useful ;or not). This isn’t something we could realistically devote more than a half hour a day to. TIA!

[Anonymous]

Your kindergartener gets take home work? Wow.

Our approach was to come at it from the opposite direction of school and do more reading out loud and decoding words in narrative/visual context. It won't necessarily help with the worksheets but did help keep him interested in reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your kindergartener gets take home work? Wow.

Our approach was to come at it from the opposite direction of school and do more reading out loud and decoding words in narrative/visual context. It won't necessarily help with the worksheets but did help keep him interested in reading.

Thanks- it’s possible I’m overthinking this, I just don’t really know the decoding techniques they are learning or should be learning.

[Anonymous]

We are covid homeschoolers, so we homeschooled last year and this year, and we did Logic of English.
My oldest was in public school and an advanced reader so we didn't find it worked as well for her.
My youngest was in K when we started, just turned 5 at the time, and is doing so well with Logic of English. We particularly like that he developed more phonetic learning than she did in school so his pronunciation and spelling is much better.
We already decided that even though our toddler will likely be in public school when she is ready, we want to make sure we use LofE for her because of the benefits we see. We are disappointed we didn't use it for our oldest.

We don't spend more than a half hour a day, often far less than that. I usually do a lesson a day, but if he isn't in the mood for it or I can tell he just doesn't have the attention span that day, I do the lesson in two days. From what I have looked online, other families will often spend more than one day per lesson.

If you don't have younger children who will be using the materials, there is a Buy/Sell/Trade FB group you can sell your materials on.

[Anonymous]

Hi! I homeschooled kindergarten last year because of the pandemic (my kid is back in in person school for 1st this year). I used Logic of English and loved it. I plan to use it to teach my younger child before kindergarten because our school district (not in dc area) uses balanced literacy and not full phonics. I like lLofic of English va All About Reading because it includes spelling, but I think both options are pretty similar.

It is rather involved, so you will need to dedicate some regular time to it if you want to do it in addition to school. You can still do lots of fun, hands-on phonics games with your kid though - they will be so much more engaging than worksheets! Logic of English has a picture book with letter sounds and songs that you can use without the full curriculum. You can write phonograms (or sight words if you’re using them) on flash cards and ply bingo, or do go fish or matching games. Here are some other ideas:

https://readingeggs.com/articles/2016/01/25/phonics-games/

https://readingeggs.com/articles/2021/08/15/phonics-activities/

[Anonymous]

How well does your child know his letter sounds? Decoding is difficult and frustrating if kids don't know the sounds with automaticity. Ask the teacher for any tests scores that would show his mastery of them. Also, there is more than one way to teach students how to decode. Google continuous blending (Blend As You Read) for the easiest way. Your child's phonemic awareness needs to be strong before teaching blending. Can your child blend 2 sounds orally? 3 sounds orally? If he can and can easily look at letters and say their sounds, start with continuous blending.

[Anonymous]

We used ABCMouse. You can leave DC alone with a tablet. Used it only at age five. By age six, the handouts from the teacher sufficed.

[Anonymous]

Kumon. Our kindergartner went from 0 to 60 in a couple months.

[Anonymous]

Reading to your child an hour or every half-hour every night is the best method.

Sooner or later your kid will read through osmosis, but first ensure your child has "sight words" down pat. A lot of issues can develop if the kid isn't well-versed in sight words first. YouTube has a lot of great videos where the child can read along and they're free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reading to your child an hour or every half-hour every night is the best method.

Sooner or later your kid will read through osmosis, but first ensure your child has "sight words" down pat. A lot of issues can develop if the kid isn't well-versed in sight words first. YouTube has a lot of great videos where the child can read along and they're free.

Reading is hugely important. If you want to actively supplement decoding, try Words Their Way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reading to your child an hour or every half-hour every night is the best method.

Sooner or later your kid will read through osmosis, but first ensure your child has "sight words" down pat. A lot of issues can develop if the kid isn't well-versed in sight words first. YouTube has a lot of great videos where the child can read along and they're free.

My kids are much older, but this is what we did and continued to do for many years. To clarify we didn’t use you tube, we read to our kids every night. We read at a minimum two books - one was always a very basic book (like a Bob book would be in grades K/1) and had our kids chime in when they could. The other book was always at a higher reading level with a more interesting plot and we’d ask questions at the end of a chapter (we’d read a chapter a night, maybe something like a Roald Dahl book). Kids learn to read eventually, but comprehension skills are just as important. Unless the teacher has raised a flag, I’d keep a low key approach at this age - as you said, you don’t want to turn DC off from reading.

[Anonymous]

Most kids learn to read in first grade. Stop stressing.

[Anonymous]

Highly recommend Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I'm working through this (very slowly) with my kindergartener and it is clicking so much! I wish I had done this with my older child who is really struggling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most kids learn to read in first grade. Stop stressing.

Not anymore. There is an expectation in most public school districts that students who are considered on grade level are reading by the end of kindergarten. I would meet with the teacher to get specifics about areas of strength and weakness. Sounds like your child might be weak in phonemic awareness and maybe letter sound fluency.

[Anonymous]

Kids are all over the place OP. I volunteered with reading groups in a mcps focus school in first grade. Yes some kids are reading but some are still sounding it all out. It’s ok. Having said that, I would maybe take a break for a couple weeks then start again…. Just do 5-10 mins a day. I used the BOB books and really liked them. My kid liked the sense of accomplishment after each book. Have him read to you, then you read to him. Try and make it something you do that takes turns, not him doing it all.