Growing Readers Together
December Tips for First Grade Parents
reading strategies
StrategY SPOTLIGHT
When your child reaches an unknown word, it is important to let her use reading strategies to try to read the word. Here is a reading strategy to use that reminds your child to look for "chunks" in words.
Look for a “chunk”, or word part, that you know. (-ing, -er, -at, sh-, ch-, th-, -ow, etc.)
“Does the tricky word look like another word you know?” If he can read ‘look’, can he use that knowledge to figure out the word ‘took’? If she can read ‘my’, can she use that knowledge to figure out ‘by’ and ‘try’?
Click here for a short, 2 minute video demonstration of this strategy.
Click here for a fun song about chunking words when reading!
Word Work
long and short vowels
Knowing the sound a vowel makes in a word is important to reading the word quickly and accurately. Here is a fun game to play to reinforce this skill.
Long or Short?
To start, draw or print pictures with long and short vowel sounds and put inside a sack. Take turns pulling a card from the sack, saying the picture, and identifying if it has a long or short vowel sound. (Picture examples include cab, jet, sit, hot, cub, grape, leaf, line, hole, juice, etc.)
Next, write the following words on index cards and put inside the sack. Take turns pulling a card from the sack and reading it. Your child must first notice whether or not there is a silent "e" at the end of the word to determine if the vowel is long (as in cape) or short (as in cap).
Word list: cap, cape, tap, tape, bit, bite, kit, kite, can, cane, hop, hope, slid, slide, slop, slope, pin, pine, tub, tube, rob, robe, rip, ripe, cut, cute, mad, made
Substituting beginning and ending letters
In first grade, students need to be able to identify and manipulate sounds and letters in words. They need to be able to change the first and last sound in a word to make new words. Here is a suggestion of how to help your child practice this skill.
Play a listening/speaking game where you try to change words by leaving out either the beginning or ending sound to make new words. You: "Say hat." Child: "hat" You: "Now say hat without the /h/. Child: "at".
Here are some words to use for deleting the beginning sound: fin without the /f/, nice without the /n/, boat without the /b/, table without the /t/.
Here are some words to use for deleting the ending sound: rode without the /d/, seed without the /d/, leaf without the /f/, goat without the /t/.
Have fun trying to think of more words to use!
BEGINNING AND ENDING BLENDS
The ability to blend consonants together is an essential skill for readers to master. Sometimes consonant blends occur in the beginning of a word (ex. st in stop). They can also occur at the end of a word (ex. nd in band). Here are some ways to practice consonant blends.
Ask your child to write words with consonant blends (ex. stop, fly, grow, try, sky, spin, past, milk). She can write them on paper, dry erase board, in sand, or in shaving cream.
Pick three blends. On index cards, write three or four words with each blend in them (one word per card). Let your child sort the words into groups by blend.
Pick two or three blends. Ask your child to think of words that start with those blends. As your child thinks of the words, write them on a piece of paper or dry erase board.