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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hi, Kindergarten teacher here who uses a lot of phonics and phonemic awareness instruction and who also uses the best parts of balanced literacy.
For the parents who are saying they don't know what to do, here's a simple lay out:
1) Teach letter sounds.  I start with sounds that match words they already know.  For example, I teach that letter m says /m/ (not "muh"), that mom starts with the letter m and says "mmmmmmmmmom" really stretching out the first sound.  
2) Read a LOT of alphabet books from the library to your kids.  Put up simple print in the house (ie,labels on the box where you put the legos that has the word "legos", etc).  Talk about letters when you read books or see signs, etc
3) Once a kid has a few letters (and maybe one vowel--always starting with the short vowels), say they know m, a, t, p, s....then model how to touch each letter and say each sound for "mat", "sat" etc.  It can take kids a while to make the jump from knowing letter sounds to knowing how to blend sounds into words.  It's also good to do this orally.  For example, say the sounds /m/ /a/ /t/ and then say "mat" to model how to do this.  Do this daily for 1-2 minutes.  You can also segment CVC words (say "mat" then say each sound in mat).

While you do this, teach your kids these sight words: I, a, the, see, can, go, like, to, love, am, he, she, is.  Use phonics with those words too whenever you can.  Even for "the", one can use the /th/ sound to at least sound out the first two letters.  Write simple sentences for them to read with these sight words and some CVC words.  (I see the cat.  He is my dad.)

Once a kid can easily decode CVC words, add more sight words (google kindergarten sight words, teach 1-2 new ones per week and speed up as needed).  Then go onto blends and digraphs (ch, th, wh, sh, bl, pl, st, etc with words with short vowels--shot,chip, plan, etc)

Once they have these, start teaching long vowels.

Starfall.com in the kindergarten section has some fun letter sound and CVC reinforcement.  Lalilo is okay too.  
Bob books are okay, but use those sparingly.

I know this is just a basic overview, so ask questions if needed.[/quote]

That’s a typical approach to teaching reading that probably works for many students, but unfortunately it didn’t help my child who was really struggling. So if that more conventional approach isn’t working, I would say try the other resources mentioned by PPs and really read and understand the introduction. She’s now a fluent above-grade level reader.[/quote]

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