How to help kindergartener struggling with reading

[Anonymous]

I purposefully did not teach my kid to read before K. She is thriving and made great progress and knows all the sight words and can read worksheet instructions and most of the texts they give her 1/2 a year in. Shes also not bored yet. We did read a ton (in two languages) and still do.
But she always had a great memory so i assumed she would pick it up and given all the contextual vocab she had from listening to complex stories she learned whole word more than phoneme decoding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is true that some kids need extra help with phonics, and some kids need even more. I have friends whose kids were diagnosed with dyslexia and that was really hard. However, I always thought that teaching the nuts and bolts was the job of the teacher and my job as a parent was to give them warm snuggly associations with reading. I wouldn’t worry too much about things midway through kindergarten, OP. Just read to them- and even more than 30 minutes a day, if you can. Good luck.

Except schools don't teach reading! I'm surprised he's even being sent home phonics worksheets. We're not in MCPS, though.

I would bet a whole lot that a child acting like OP's child will both need extra help (explicit structured phonics) AND that the school won't notice. Worse, they'll likely tell her everything is fine. It won't hurt him to learn it if he doesn't need it, but the opposite is not true.

See the reading latter: https://www.nancyyoung.ca/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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/

AAR doesn't have spelling, but they do have a separate All About Spelling program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is true that some kids need extra help with phonics, and some kids need even more. I have friends whose kids were diagnosed with dyslexia and that was really hard. However, I always thought that teaching the nuts and bolts was the job of the teacher and my job as a parent was to give them warm snuggly associations with reading. I wouldn’t worry too much about things midway through kindergarten, OP. Just read to them- and even more than 30 minutes a day, if you can. Good luck.

Except schools don't teach reading! I'm surprised he's even being sent home phonics worksheets. We're not in MCPS, though.

I would bet a whole lot that a child acting like OP's child will both need extra help (explicit structured phonics) AND that the school won't notice. Worse, they'll likely tell her everything is fine. It won't hurt him to learn it if he doesn't need it, but the opposite is not true.

See the reading latter: https://www.nancyyoung.ca/

I’m the PP you’re responding to and I am afraid you’re right. For most kids it’s osmosis, but for some they do need more direct phonics instruction. But the OP was asking about retaining a love of reading so I wouldn’t start with some big program yet. I would endeavor to create an awesome reading culture at home- snuggly endless reading sessions on the couch. Try that first! He’s still very little and the pandemic has scrambled things even more…

[Anonymous]

My daughter's school does a lot of word work and phonics. Her first grade teacher is pretty old school though so I wonder if she is responding the fact that the students do not have a good reading foundation from virtual kindergarten. My daughter is learning a lot about blends and digraphs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ignore the advice that the student will pick it up when they are ready. while this may be true for some, it's definitely not the case for all, and by the time you realize they need more intervention, they will be really behind.

the phonics approach and reading books they like has greatly helped my DC

This is my DD. We have always read to her, and thought she would “pick” it up. She’s in kindergarten now and is in the minority of kids who can’t read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is true that some kids need extra help with phonics, and some kids need even more. I have friends whose kids were diagnosed with dyslexia and that was really hard. However, I always thought that teaching the nuts and bolts was the job of the teacher and my job as a parent was to give them warm snuggly associations with reading. I wouldn’t worry too much about things midway through kindergarten, OP. Just read to them- and even more than 30 minutes a day, if you can. Good luck.

Except schools don't teach reading! I'm surprised he's even being sent home phonics worksheets. We're not in MCPS, though.

I would bet a whole lot that a child acting like OP's child will both need extra help (explicit structured phonics) AND that the school won't notice. Worse, they'll likely tell her everything is fine. It won't hurt him to learn it if he doesn't need it, but the opposite is not true.

See the reading latter: https://www.nancyyoung.ca/

+1. I’m not OP but I also have a child in kindergarten who can’t read. More than half the class can read and we expressed our concerns to the teacher. She can’t read, can’t write and the teacher said everything is fine since she can identify her upper and lower case alphabets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ignore the advice that the student will pick it up when they are ready. while this may be true for some, it's definitely not the case for all, and by the time you realize they need more intervention, they will be really behind.

the phonics approach and reading books they like has greatly helped my DC

This is my DD. We have always read to her, and thought she would “pick” it up. She’s in kindergarten now and is in the minority of kids who can’t read.

I'm the one who wrote the 'ignore the advice' post ... You'll know by mid-school year in kindergarten if your child is one of those who learns to read by 'osmosis.' my younger child was one of those.

with my first child, I had no experience and, like a previous poster, on purpose did not teach her how to read, as per the 'whole child' approach. as she reached the 2nd half of kindergarten, it was clear to me, despite the whole child philosophy, that her reading was getting worse: her self-esteem was very low (it seemed most of the other students could begin to read by this point), and MCPS's emphasis on sight words was causing her to start randomly guessing. the school did not believe she needed additional help (!)

so i started scouring the web to find help for my DC. it was scary and difficult (ELA can be unnecessarily jargon-y) but i tutored her for a year and a half and now she is at the top of her class for reading. i know in my heart that had i not intervened, she would still not be able to read to this day. she is in 2nd grade. apparently some kids in her class still cannot read right now (in part due to the school being closed to in-person learning) ...this would've been her fate. just about every day i am thankful to have listened to my intuition that she needed reading intervention.

in regard to which phonics approach to use - i'd say try one program out and go from there. the resources mentioned in this thread are good. you will know what your child needs. we completed one of the programs but found that this was not enough and found another resource, and then another, etc.

take your kid to the library/bookstore and have them choose books they like. my kid started out with easy graphic novels - this sparked her interest in reading. good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ignore the advice that the student will pick it up when they are ready. while this may be true for some, it's definitely not the case for all, and by the time you realize they need more intervention, they will be really behind.

the phonics approach and reading books they like has greatly helped my DC

This is my DD. We have always read to her, and thought she would “pick” it up. She’s in kindergarten now and is in the minority of kids who can’t read.

I'm the one who wrote the 'ignore the advice' post ... You'll know by mid-school year in kindergarten if your child is one of those who learns to read by 'osmosis.' my younger child was one of those.

with my first child, I had no experience and, like a previous poster, on purpose did not teach her how to read, as per the 'whole child' approach. as she reached the 2nd half of kindergarten, it was clear to me, despite the whole child philosophy, that her reading was getting worse: her self-esteem was very low (it seemed most of the other students could begin to read by this point), and MCPS's emphasis on sight words was causing her to start randomly guessing. the school did not believe she needed additional help (!)

so i started scouring the web to find help for my DC. it was scary and difficult (ELA can be unnecessarily jargon-y) but i tutored her for a year and a half and now she is at the top of her class for reading. i know in my heart that had i not intervened, she would still not be able to read to this day. she is in 2nd grade. apparently some kids in her class still cannot read right now (in part due to the school being closed to in-person learning) ...this would've been her fate. just about every day i am thankful to have listened to my intuition that she needed reading intervention.

in regard to which phonics approach to use - i'd say try one program out and go from there. the resources mentioned in this thread are good. you will know what your child needs. we completed one of the programs but found that this was not enough and found another resource, and then another, etc.

take your kid to the library/bookstore and have them choose books they like. my kid started out with easy graphic novels - this sparked her interest in reading. good luck!

DP. Here's a somewhat non-jargon-y post about the issues with reading instruction: https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading

If you want to go deeper into the science, I love this post: https://www.parkerphonics.com/post/the-essential-linnea-ehri

[Anonymous]

One of the Logic of English PPs.

Here's another short and strong case for phonics:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/opinion/kids-reading-spelling.html

Yes, some kids will pick up reading just by exposure (I was one). Yes, Kindergarten is too academic and love of stories should be one of the most important aspects of reading.

But research shows a substantial group of kids will struggle without explicit phonics instruction, especially given increasing academic expectations. If school does not provide a sufficient basis in phonics and/or uses guessing/sight word approaches that will confuse kids without phonics, you will give your child a gift by helping them at home. There are so many different curriculums and ways to do this, and you can make it fun and short while still giving them a foundation for reading and spelling that will help them enjoy school and learning.

[Anonymous]

The problem is trying to compare Kindergarteners when it comes to reading. Some will be reading when at the start of K, others will have progressed into reading by mid K, and for some they won’t get it until mid 1st. Guess what? In the long run it doesn’t matter as long as they grasp it by mid 2nd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is trying to compare Kindergarteners when it comes to reading. Some will be reading when at the start of K, others will have progressed into reading by mid K, and for some they won’t get it until mid 1st. Guess what? In the long run it doesn’t matter as long as they grasp it by mid 2nd.

I’m an earlier post who said for now just focus on reading to / with your child, and I agree with this. Imo it is too early to know if this is a problem, and I’d trust the teacher’s thoughts as I think parents get worked up about reading/writing in these early grades because of the huge range of skills (you see Johnny reading Magic Treehouse and wonder why your kid can’t read a Bob book). Fwiw my kids are older and avid readers, and neither could read or write in K (they had gone to a play based preschool that didn’t directly teach either).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read hop on pop slowly and together. Fun way to learn to read! Lots of good rhyming early reader Dr Seuss books.

+1 why is the shortest answer on the string the best?

[Anonymous]

OP there's a natural "tipping point" with kids and reading, especially boys, where suddenly it makes sense to them. I would keep going with the Bob books- we found them really helped our son who then became an avid reader in later grades.

[Anonymous]

I agree about there being a tipping point, especially if your child went to a play-based preschool. DC learned to read in kindergarten and is an avid reader. I'm a fan of phonics over sight words and cues. Look up research discrediting Lucy Calkins and her methods.