Kindergarten reading instruction includes work in each of the following areas:
Phonemic awareness: This term refers to a child's ability to hear and manipulate sounds. Phonemic awareness is a listening and speaking skill. A child who can complete a rhyming song or phrase (ex: from Green Eggs and Ham: I will not eat them in a box, I will not eat them with a ___) is developing his/her phonemic awareness. Examples of phonemic awareness skills are:
- Hearing and saying rhyming words
- Hearing and saying beginning and ending sounds
- Hearing and clapping words in a sentence, or syllables in a word
Phonics: This term refers to a child's knowledge of letter-sound relationships. A child who can tell the sound of letter P is developing his/her phonics skills. Other examples of phonics skills include:
- Knowing the sounds for most consonant letters
- Knowing short vowel sounds (/a/ as in apple, /e/ as in egg, /i/ as in igloo, /o/ as in octopus, /u/ as in umbrella)
- Knowing and using consonant blends (cl, fl, and so on) and digraphs (sh, th, ch, wh)
Sight Words: These words, also called high-frequency words are those words that the child can recognize automatically, without having to sound out the word. Some of the sight words on our list are "phonetically regular" (meaning that each letter makes it's own sound; for example, the word "not") while others cannot be decoded (for example, "the" or "of"). Examples of sight word skills:
- Reading sight words in isolation (flash cards)
- Reading sight words in books, magazines, etc.
- Writing sight words correctly
Print Awareness: This term refers to a child's understanding of books and text, and his/her ability to handle print materials correctly. Other examples of phonics skills include:
- Identifying the front/ back cover of a book
- Identifying the title page of a book
- Knowing the difference between letters and words; sentences, words, letters and spaces
- Tracking print from left to right, top to bottom
Alphabet Knowledge: This term refers to a child's knowledge of letters. Children should know all 26 uppercase and 26 lowercase letters, and recognize them in various texts, and words in the environment.
Comprehension: This term refers to a child's ability to understand what he/she is reading. Comprehension skills include answering questions about books, retelling stories, making connections among books and/or to the child's own experiences, and identifying elements of stories and books (characters, problem/solution, facts/main ideas, etc). Comprehension can be literal (about facts/ events in a story; questions-- who, what, when, where) or inferential (thinking about the deeper/ unwritten meaning; questions-- why, how).
Phonemic awareness: This term refers to a child's ability to hear and manipulate sounds. Phonemic awareness is a listening and speaking skill. A child who can complete a rhyming song or phrase (ex: from Green Eggs and Ham: I will not eat them in a box, I will not eat them with a ___) is developing his/her phonemic awareness. Examples of phonemic awareness skills are:
- Hearing and saying rhyming words
- Hearing and saying beginning and ending sounds
- Hearing and clapping words in a sentence, or syllables in a word
Phonics: This term refers to a child's knowledge of letter-sound relationships. A child who can tell the sound of letter P is developing his/her phonics skills. Other examples of phonics skills include:
- Knowing the sounds for most consonant letters
- Knowing short vowel sounds (/a/ as in apple, /e/ as in egg, /i/ as in igloo, /o/ as in octopus, /u/ as in umbrella)
- Knowing and using consonant blends (cl, fl, and so on) and digraphs (sh, th, ch, wh)
Sight Words: These words, also called high-frequency words are those words that the child can recognize automatically, without having to sound out the word. Some of the sight words on our list are "phonetically regular" (meaning that each letter makes it's own sound; for example, the word "not") while others cannot be decoded (for example, "the" or "of"). Examples of sight word skills:
- Reading sight words in isolation (flash cards)
- Reading sight words in books, magazines, etc.
- Writing sight words correctly
Print Awareness: This term refers to a child's understanding of books and text, and his/her ability to handle print materials correctly. Other examples of phonics skills include:
- Identifying the front/ back cover of a book
- Identifying the title page of a book
- Knowing the difference between letters and words; sentences, words, letters and spaces
- Tracking print from left to right, top to bottom
Alphabet Knowledge: This term refers to a child's knowledge of letters. Children should know all 26 uppercase and 26 lowercase letters, and recognize them in various texts, and words in the environment.
Comprehension: This term refers to a child's ability to understand what he/she is reading. Comprehension skills include answering questions about books, retelling stories, making connections among books and/or to the child's own experiences, and identifying elements of stories and books (characters, problem/solution, facts/main ideas, etc). Comprehension can be literal (about facts/ events in a story; questions-- who, what, when, where) or inferential (thinking about the deeper/ unwritten meaning; questions-- why, how).