Anonymous wrote:Weekends? 5 minutes every morning? Any available time, basically, OP. You need to make it a family priority, otherwise for busy working parents who need daycare, it's going to fall by the wayside. I sympathize with the long days, though. It's hard on everyone.

I wouldn’t say *any* available time but pick one piece of time and always use it for reading supplement. We do sight word flashcards in the car. If your K student can’t read at all in January, you need to do this.

Anonymous wrote:Weekends? 5 minutes every morning? Any available time, basically, OP. You need to make it a family priority, otherwise for busy working parents who need daycare, it's going to fall by the wayside. I sympathize with the long days, though. It's hard on everyone.

This. Take advantage of weekends, breaks, summer to get the bulk of material covered. Otherwise on weeknights, reading to them every night is enough for now.

It is hard, and supplementing becomes more time consuming the older they get. Covid propelled my kids several grade levels. When school shut down and activities stopped, we homeschooled them. We homeschooled about a year and half and I couldn’t believe how much we were able to do. It was astounding. They went back to school far ahead and that trajectory has kept going. Kids are doing very little in school and most are capable of much more.

You have to be consistent to do it daily, same time as part of you/ your kids schedule, 10-20 min is good enough. Start with phonics flash card, then progress to simple books then move up level for longer paragraphs. You let kids read to you for a sentence or two, then you help correct. Sometimes kids will memorize very short books without knowing how to read. You don’t need a tutor. DC1 was at the lowest reading level in class, so I did what I described above, in 2 months DC1’s reading very well and reading above level end the school year.

My 3 kids all learned to read in K. By the end of the year they were advanced and reading simple chapter books. My kids are in. Private school and most kids read by then too. That said, I felt like I taught each one of them how to read and definitely had them read to me every day. With my first I started in Jan/Feb of K. I started in Oct with my second and started in PK with my third. So far, my first (a girl) is the strongest student/reader… but my third is in 1st and a boy so that might change.

In maybe January or February of kindergarten I was concerned that my daughter hadn’t progressed beyond simple cvc words and didn’t understand the concept of blending. I found the app reading.com which has sliders for blending sounds and we did all 100 lessons. Each took maybe 10 min. She loved it and it worked so well. She’s an excellent reader now in first grade! Highly recommend.

Weekends? 5 minutes every morning? Any available time, basically, OP. You need to make it a family priority, otherwise for busy working parents who need daycare, it's going to fall by the wayside. I sympathize with the long days, though. It's hard on everyone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What? Read to your kid every day. That’s it. Read, for a good 30 minutes. It’s part of a bedtime routine.

This is good to do, but it will not teach reading.

We spent 10-15 minutes each day on the Bob Books. We did it every day for months. Do them all and do them in sequence. Gently correct/help DC if they misread something.

It will not teach decoding, but it will teach comprehension which, in the long term is more important. Your kid will get phonics in school, which will teach them to decode. Supplementing decoding for a child who isn't behind, at the expense of time spent working on comprehension which they can never get enough of is a bad choice.

If your kid is behind, or showing signs of dyslexia, this becomes more complicated, but that doesn't seem to be the case for OP.

Not reading at kindergarten isn't an issue and if you've read enough of these types of posts of parents worrying about their kid and reading you'll see it varies when reading really starts to click. My first took to reading really quickly around late K/1st and I think it was in part bc we were paranoid and read everyday at bedtime since she was a toddler (and she had a great K teacher). Our second was slower to take off but now loves reading in second grade and I think it was in part because we were more relaxed with the second and busier/more tired (and a horrible K teacher) so we didn't read together as much. Agree with everyone else to just read with them as much as possible at this age. Bedtime is a great time to do this.

Anonymous wrote:What? Read to your kid every day. That’s it. Read, for a good 30 minutes. It’s part of a bedtime routine.

This is good to do, but it will not teach reading.

We spent 10-15 minutes each day on the Bob Books. We did it every day for months. Do them all and do them in sequence. Gently correct/help DC if they misread something.

Sounds ld possibly

It's early in the year, I agree with PP. Mine picked up reading (the very beginnings of it) by the end of K. So I wouldn't worry, beyond reading together.

I also agree they come home really tired at that age. Even a year or two it's a little different. We didn't even do the optional math HW workbook in K (MCPS).

Mine had better attention for reading earlier in the day on weekends. Less tired. That said, 6pm is just a long day. It will be hard to do a lot with that scehdule even as they get further along.

In kindergarten? Reading will come. Keep reading every day. Easy picture books. Books with good stories. Books everyone enjoys. It’s too much for kids after a long day to try to teach more and your kids are too young to be worried about this. Repost if they aren’t getting it in 3rd grade.

I do that already. The child still can’t read on his own. I don’t think he’s actually being taught to read at school (DCPS)

What? Read to your kid every day. That’s it. Read, for a good 30 minutes. It’s part of a bedtime routine.

I mean on an everyday and logistics/scheduling basis. My kids are in K and preK3. Not worried as much about the younger one, but see already that we should be supplementing reading instruction for the older. They go to aftercare so they get home about 530/6 and go to bed at 730/8. Bob books seem like a lot on top of an already long day? Once they’re home, decompressed, and fed - it’s pretty much time for bath and bed. Are we supposed to do this instead of aftercare? Hire a tutor?