Reading instruction in K / 1st grade - - reading together/ early reader books

[Anonymous]

Hi - I have an active son who finished K. His K teacher was never clear in what was expected "developmentally" - just he was fine. So what do most Ks do in reading instruction? What is development appropriate exactly? Is it just sounding out basic CVC words and sight words. Or does it go into the long vowels and more complicated things. I assume that most of this gets repeated first part of first grade at a faster pace. This is not a competitive issue, just curious and also helpful as we work on reading together. Im happy if we can get a 2-3 books in a week where he enjoys the time.

Also for those experienced parents - what are good tips for reading together as they are starting out? what are some of your favorite early reader books for boys? I have found the fly guy series very fun. Surprisingly star wars, super heros not so much. text is so boring even though subject fun

[Anonymous]

I am not sure what public schools consider developmentally appropriate these days. I think if a child is reading at all at the end of K, they are doing quite well. My advice is to keep reading TO him as well as with him and just him alone. Or you will have a bunch of boring early readers that will bore him too. I like the series called something like Read With Me where one page is for the child to read and one is much harder for the parent to read. My son likes those and they have different levels too. Read different genres too- poetry, non-fiction, magazines, etc. I've found lots of cheap early readers through the Scholastic books orders if your son's school has them. I love that you can get books from other libraries for free too. I often go online and reserve books from other libraries. You could teach him the silent "e" rule which is pretty easy as well as "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." Keep up the phonemic awareness too by doing rhyming games, etc. Google "phonemic awareness" for ideas.

[Anonymous]

I bought a bunch of those little sets from Scholastic and those Brand New Readers series (with the sticker reward charts). My DD could read them herself, which she loved.

Also, we had a reward chart for every book she read. She was not reading when she left K. The summer in between K and first she read 100 books (all little beginner books). She was so excited. It was a huge accomplishment for her. She loved that she did it all by herself.

We also read harder books together.

[Anonymous]

In the beginning, it should be mostly reading to your child as well as shared reading to model for them. There is a website that is pretty good called Reading Rockets that can help.

[Anonymous]

I totally know what you mean when you say that there are two kinds of books: books that are well-written and those that are not. Even the most exciting topic can be made boring with flat, uninteresting text. My daughter is a Sesame Street fanatic, but I cannot find even one decent Sesame Street book. They are all boring as hell.

You want good books for kids? I'm going to tell you where to go:

1. Politics and Prose on Connecticut Ave, NW.

They've had a loooong reputation of hiring really experienced book-buyers with an eye toward quality texts. I've always gotten good advice from their children's book buyers.


2. Mount Pleasant Public Library

The librarian there is fantastic. Great books out on the tables for kids, and she knows which ones are the 'award-winners.' Your child can browse and tell you what he likes, at no cost to you.