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The first activity to help support the development of phonemic awareness is rhyme time. Children can be shown two cards and say the object on each picture. Then, the teacher can say both words and ask the students if the two words rhyme. The teacher should explain why the two words rhyme. To differentiate this activity, the teacher can give the child one picture, and have the child name a rhyming word (example: show a picture of a pig and have the child come up with their own rhyming word). Or the teacher can create a rhyming word puzzle pieces and have students put together rhyming words.

The second activity is a simple game of "I spy". Instead of using objects, you can say "I spy something that starts with the "s" sssss sound" (Phonological and Phonemic Awareness: Activities for Your Kindergartener, n.d.) This is a great opportunity to learn through play and exploration. In addition, this is a great visual activity. To differentiate, the teacher can throw in what it sounds like, and also what it rhymes with, or include other phonemic characteristics. On the other hand, the teacher can play the game in a controlled environment to offer 2-3 choices the student can identify. During this activity, the teacher should model or have the students say the first sound in all guesses.

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A hands-on activity to help support students understand that sounds correlate to letters is by using letter play dough mats, and having children make the letters of the alphabet. In order for students to match sounds to letters, they need to be able to recognize and identify letters. To differentiate this activity teachers can name a letter and have students make the letter without a playdough mat, and demonstrate the letter sound, and then give the name of an object that starts with that letter. The teacher can do hand-over-hand to help a child that may have difficulty performing fine motor tasks.

A second activity to practice and develop phonics skills is an alphabetic scavenger hunt. Pick up a read aloud book and have your child find each letter in the text. The student can then go further and say the letter sound, practice blending the sounds in that word to read (if the word is age appropriate). The teacher can also have the student look at the pictures and "read" the page. Then the teacher can sound out the word in the picture and model what the word starts with.

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"Learning new words is like adding to your writing toolbox. Your writing becomes so much more interesting and engaging when you have more tools available" (30 Meaningful Vocabulary Activities for Every Grade, 2023). One activity to help students develop vocabulary skills is by going on a gallery walk. To do this, teachers place large sheets of chart paper around the room with one vocabulary word. Have the students work in small groups, rotating between stations. Then, at each station ask students to come up with a different, original way to use each word. The teacher can encourage children to write words on the chart that are associated with the vocabulary word. Or, the teacher can draw a picture of the vocabulary word, and have the students tell her what the word is, and then write the name of the word with the help of the group.

The second learning activity includes playing pictionary. You can give a paper worksheet to the students with an age appropriate word, and then have the students draw a picture of the word. In addition, students can write a sentence with the word in it, or the teacher can pronounce the word, and have the students draw the picture. Then, the teacher can help the child spell out the word.

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To help develop fluency skills, two activities students can do is word ladders and choral reading. Word ladders involves taking a sentence, and breaking that sentence into sections. For example, if the sentence is "Jack made a box house", the student would start with:

"jack"

"jack made"

"Jack made a"

"Jack made a box"

"Jack made a box house"

(20 Reading Fluency Activities to Help All Learners, n.d.). This is a great activity to teach one word at a time. Teachers can make this more challenging by using longer sentences, or including more vocabulary words in the sentence. The teacher can also use small visual pictures above words, so the students is able to use context to decode the word.

The second activity is choral reading to help develop oral fluency skills. The students can have a sentence and read the sentence out loud. This can help take off the pressure when reading one-on-one. The teacher can divide students into smaller groups and have certain groups read multiple sentences together. The teacher can also use visual supports above certain words in a story.

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Two activities to help develop comprehension activities include retelling, and story maps. After reading a story, ask students to retell the beginning, middle, and end of a story. To differentiate this activity, teachers can have students retell the story using visual story cards. Teachers can also have students describe the setting and identify the problem and a solution.

The second activity to help students develop comprehension skills is to make a story map. A story map is a visual representation of the elements that make up a narrative. This helps students focus on important elements of a story (ex: theme, characters, settings, etc.). A simple story map can include a beginning, middle, end chart and having students write words to describe what happened in the story. To differentiate, the teacher can have students map different settings or characters. The teacher can also have students respond verbally, or make pictures to describe the setting or characters.

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For a fun activity to work on phonemic awareness at home, try syllable shopping. Have the child pick out an item in the home and have the child clap out the number of syllables. You can model the word first and have your child try (my turn, your turn), or you can have the child clap the syllables for the item, and then have them make a sentence describing that item.

This website linked is a great resource for families looking to expand on phonemic awareness at home.

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Encourage your child to listen for words that rhyme when you say them aloud, such as fun, sun; hat, cat; and fish, wish. See if your child can produce new words that rhyme with the words you say-fan, pan, ran, can, tan.

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Phonemic Awareness Activities for Parents | Heggerty

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Research shows that phonemic awareness is the strongest predictor of success in learning to read. Heggerty offers literacy activities for families.

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To work on phonics at home, try building words with magnetic letters. You can use a refrigerator, cabinet, cookie sheet, etc. Give your child an age appropriate word, and have them make the word with the magnetic letters. You can also have the child pick an item in the house, and challenge them to make the word by sounding out the word. You can also have the child pick up the magnetic letter that a word starts with and practice finding the beginning sound.

The website linked is a great resource for students to get extra practice in at home. It has many fun games and worksheets for students of varying ages.

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Browse Printable Phonic Worksheets. Award winning educational materials designed to help kids succeed. Start for free now!

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A great way to build vocabulary at home is by playing word games such as "The Question Game". Have your child pick a category, and then take turns asking questions to deduce it. You can add to this game by using bigger adjectives when asking questions. On the other side, you can pick a category and have your child describe characteristics/items that fit in that category.

The website linked has home activities, and strategies to help build your child's vocabulary.

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What image comes to mind when you hear, "learning vocabulary words?" A dictionary? A stack of flashcards? I think of the exhausting list of words to "define and write in a sentence to prepare for the quiz on Monday" assigned to me when my eighth grade class read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Today's research has changed educators' understandings, though, about how to best help students learn new words - not just for Monday's quiz, but permanently. Many of those strategies can easily be turned into family habits. Consider trying these ideas at home:

Cultivate a fascination with words. Fostering kids' interest in words encourages a lifelong habit of noticing new ones and retaining them. Whether it's a tart apple or a mischievous face, simply commenting on interesting words or sharing just the right word for a particular circumstance is powerful modeling.

There are also plenty of book characters to emulate, too. My boys love Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. Nancy would never say great when she could say stupendous. She even boasts a whole book of favorite words, Fancy Nancy's Favorite Fancy Words: From Accessories to Zany, by the same team, which could inspire kids to compile their own dictionaries. Our newest favorite vocabulary star is Jerome, featured in Peter H. Reynold's The Word Collector. As avid collectors of anything that can be squirreled away in a bag or box, my kids love how Jerome writes words he likes on slips of paper and tapes them into categorized scrapbooks. The many appealing words in the text, from "short and sweet" drift to "two-syllable treat" hover can spark discussion and kids' own word collecting.

Become (better than) a walking dictionary. In their acclaimed resource for educators, Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, researchers Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, and Linda Kucan highlight the importance of intentionality when introducing new words to kids. It's not realistic to stop and teach children the meaning of every new word they hear. Plus, they'd definitely get sick of it. Honing in on select high-utility words - one or two that are crucial to making sense of a picture book, for example - works well. Your best bet is to offer a brief and straightforward definition right when the word comes up.

Speaking of picture books, reading aloud is well documented as a powerful vocabulary booster. Studies show that picture books contain more diverse word choices than spoken language - even conversations between adults! Consider , a delightful new title by Holly Hobbie about a friendless porcupine. Precise, useful words like solitary and discouraged pepper the story, which provides the perfect context for explaining them in kid-friendly terms.

Work vocabulary into conversation and play. As the long-term ineffectiveness of cramming before a big test illustrates, Beck, McKeown, and Kucan emphasize that repeated experiences with a word help vocabulary learning stick. Experts Susan Neuman and Tanya Wright echo this in a review of research about vocabulary learning in early childhood, saying, "...frequency of exposure in a variety of meaningful contexts over an extended period of time enhances word learning."

For parents and caregivers, this means the interactions you have with children every day are prime opportunities for vocabulary reinforcement. My oldest son recently discovered professional sports in a big way. A conversation about the impact of his favorite basketball player's recent injury was the perfect opening for, "Gosh, that must be so discouraging not to be able to help your team!" My younger sons love to serve up unique concoctions in their pretend restaurant. I think Fancy Nancy would agree that their lemon-orange-mushroom pizza is simply stupendous. Repeating new words in meaningful contexts makes them more memorable for children. It invites them to try using them, too.

Play word games. Finally, in addition to being useful for filling wait time, word games are excellent for flexing children's vocabularies. A family favorite of ours is "The Question Game," a relaxed version of "Twenty Questions." One person picks something in a designated category, like a sport, superhero, or animal, and the others take turns asking questions to deduce it. Crafty grown-ups can work in previously learned or new vocabulary words, such as "Does the bird you're thinking of swoop down to get its food or does it hover over a plant to eat?" Nothing motivates kids to hone in on using just the right words to request the information they need like some competitive spirit!

Incorporating a few vocabulary-focused habits into your family dynamic is good for kids and satisfying for you. Not to mention, you'll save a bundle on SAT prep courses down the road.

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4 Easy Ways to Build Your Child's Vocabulary at Home | Brightly

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Today, educators have a new understanding of how to best help kids learn new words. Here are some of their strategies that you can easily turn into family habits at home.

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To help build your child's fluency at home, play the game "sight word spy" when reading a story. You can tell your child that sight words are hiding in plain sight on the page, and they are on a mission to find them. You can expand on this by having children find sight words in other various areas of the home, in the grocery store, etc. Or, point/highlight site words in the story and have your child go on a mission to find the words that are "lit up" and practice saying those site words.

This website is another great resource on how parents can support fluency at home. There is activities, information, and videos to watch on how parents can help support fluency at home.

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Your kindergartener is at the beginning stages of reading, and is working hard to master letter sounds, decode simple words, and recognize common sight words. You want to support these new reading skills without putting too much pressure on your child to read more quickly and with more expression. That kind of natural-sounding fluency comes with lots and lots of practice.

You can start gently to build your child's fluency with the activities provided here. Remember that every child develops at a different pace, and your child may not be ready for some of these activities until first grade.

Try these fluency activities at home

Choose the right books

Help your child choose books that he can comfortably read. The "five-finger test" is a useful guideline for beginning readers. As your child reads, count the number of words he cannot read per page. In general, there should be five words or fewer that give him trouble on each page. If a book contains several pages on which you count more than five words that he can't read, consider reading that book to your child until he develops more reading skill.

Listen every day

Once you've found a collection of books that your child can read, listen to your child read every day. Be patient - new readers often read slowly! Offer help when your child gets stuck, and always give lots of praise and encouragement.

Reread favorite books

Building fluency takes a lot of practice! Keep a collection of books that your child can read quickly and easily. Encourage your child to reread favorite books over and over again. With each reading, you may notice your child reading a bit easier, a bit faster, and with a bit more confidence and expression.

Read to your child every day

Model your own fluent reading as you read and reread books with your child. Even though your child may be able to read on her own, continue to find time each day to read books to her that are just beyond her reading level. She will enjoy listening to more advanced stories, and she will hear a great example of fluent reading - how you change your expression throughout a story and read with ease. Your child will hear how you raise your voice at the end of question sentence or how you change your voice for different characters.

Paired or "buddy" reading

Take turns reading aloud. You go first, as your reading provides a model of what good fluent reading sounds like. Then, ask your child to re-read the same page you just read. You'll notice that your child's reading will start to sound more and more like yours. Do this for several pages. Once your child is comfortable enough, and familiar enough with the book, take turns reading page for page.

Echo game

Choose a book at your child's reading level and read a sentence aloud using appropriate expression and pauses. Then, have your child mimic you, reading the same sentence and using the same expression and pauses. Repeat the game every few paragraphs as you read through the book.

Choral reading

Choose a book at your child's reading level and read a page or passage together in unison. You may have to slow your reading down a little to keep pace, but don't slow down too much. Encourage your child to copy your pace and expression

Practice fluency 3 ways: echo reading, partner reading, and repeated reading

This video is from Home Reading Helper, a resource for parents to elevate children's reading at home provided by Read Charlotte. Find more video, parent activities, printables, and other resources at Home Reading Helper.

Sight words

Sight words are common words kids have to recognize instantly without sounding them out. Many sight words are tricky to read - they aren't spelled the way they sound. The activity and videos below discuss how sight word recognition supports fluency, and offer easy ways to help your child learn them. Here's a list of common sight words for kindergarten.

Sight word spy

Tell your child that sight words are "hiding in plain sight" everywhere around us. Your child's "mission" is to spot the sight words out in the world (in the grocery store, on a sign, cereal box, or movie poster) and announce "aha, I found you! This silly game can get your child excited about recognizing words - as well as a boost of confidence from knowing how to read them.

Getting stuck on sight words

Many striving readers struggle with sight words. Reading expert Linda Farrell suggests this teaching sequence: first, be sure your child knows all the letter names, then all the letter sounds - and then you can introduce a few short high-frequency words such as was. Choose words that don't have regular phonetic spelling. (From our video series Reading SOS: Expert Answers to Family Questions About Reading.)

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Fluency: Activities for Your Kindergartener

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Reading fluency is a child's ability to read a book or other text accurately, with reasonable speed, and with appropriate expression. A fluent reader doesn't have to stop and "decode" each word and can focus attention on what the story or text means. Fluency is the bridge between decoding words and understanding what has been read!

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While reading stories at home, work on the five-finger retell once a story is finished. The five finger retell includes having your child tell you five things about the story using a finger to talk about each one (ex: characters, setting, events, end, favorite character, etc). You can encourage your child to add more detail to their answers, or do a three finger retell (beginning, middle, end).

The website linked has many suggestions on how to work on comprehension at home. It includes videos for information, activities, and links to more comprehension resources.

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Just 15 minutes each day makes a big difference! Reading aloud is a great way to help your kindergartener absorb new words and see how stories are structured. It's also one of the best ways to help children learn about the world and make connections between their own lives and what's in the book - that helps children see the world with empathy. And last but not least, it's a wonderful time to snuggle up with your child and share the experience of reading and discovery together.

Remember that reading together should spark curiosity, joy, and a desire to explore and learn. Conversations about books should be enjoyable, and not a set of quizzes and questions. As you try some of the activities listed below, remember to keep it light and lively for your child.

There are so many great nonfiction and informational books for very young kids (such as the popular DK Eyewitness series and National Geographic series). Try to include some of these during your next trip to the public library. Children love learning about the real world and are proud to share what they know!

Even a walk around the neighborhood or a trip to the grocery store can be a rich learning experience for young children. A child may see an urban bunny for the first time on a walk, and then be able to connect it to stories about rabbits. These personal connections help children connect what they read with what they know - a powerful way to build comprehension skills!

Try these comprehension activities at home

"I predict ..."

When you sit down for a read aloud, look at the book's cover together. Ask, "What do you think this book might be about? Why? Can you make some predictions?" Guide your child through the pages, discuss the pictures, and brainstorm what might happen in the story. Talk about any personal experiences your child may have that relate to the story.

Five-finger retell

After reading a story together, have your child tell you five things about the story, using her fingers to talk about each one:

1. Characters: who was in the story?

2. Setting: where did the story take place?

3. Events: what happened in the story?

4. End: how did the story end?

5. Favorite character or part of the story

Active reading

Model active reading when you read with your child. Talk about what's happening as you're reading. Stop and discuss any interesting or tricky vocabulary words. Help your child make pictures of the story in his mind. Ask your child, "What just happened here? How do you think that character feels? Have you ever felt like that? What do you think will happen next?" Not only will this develop your child's comprehension, but critical thinking skills as well.

Mind movies

When you come to a descriptive passage in a book, have your child close her eyes and create a mental movie of the scene. Encourage her to use all five senses. Read the passage over together, looking for details that bring the scene to life. Ask questions like, "How do you know it was a hot day? Which words help you understand that the child was lonely?"

Tell me about it

After a read aloud, one of the best and easiest ways to check for understanding is to ask your child to summarize what the book was about in their own words. You can ask a question or two to help your child clarify her thinking or to add more detail.

Think alouds

Connect the book to your child's own life experience. For example, A River Dream: "This book reminds me of the time my father took me fishing. Do you remember the time we went fishing?"

Connect the book to other books they have read. For example, Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters: "This story reminds me of Cinderella. Both stories are about sisters. Do you know any other stories about nice and mean sisters? Let's keep reading to find out other ways the stories are similar."

Connect the book to big ideas/lessons. For example, Stellaluna: "This story helps me understand that we are all the same in many ways, but it's our differences that make us special."

Wordless

Wordless picture books provide your child with practice using clues to create meaning. There are no wrong stories with wordless picture books, only variations based on what the "reader" sees and puts together. Rosie's Walk, Good Dog, Carl, and Beaver Is Lost are all interesting and fun wordless picture books to explore. Find more wordless books on BookFinder.

Family stories

This is a wonderful activity for a family picnic or for a rainy day when you're snuggled together on the couch. Share a favorite story about your childhood or a family story that's been passed down from generation to generation. Use vivid language and details about people, places, and things. Funny or scary will really get your child's attention! Your child will probably have lots of questions, which keeps the storytelling alive. You could also ask your child if she has a favorite family story of her own.

Map this book!

Draw a map of the book's setting, and be sure to include the places where the main action happens!

Beginning-middle-end

This is a great way to see if your child understands the main parts of a story. After reading a book together, give your child three sheets of paper, with "beginning" on one sheet, "middle" on the second sheet, and "end" on the third sheet. Ask your child to think about the three parts of the story, and then draw what happened on each on the sheets. Arrange the sheets in order, left to right. What happens if you re-arrange the sheets? Does the story still make sense?

Words, words, words

Be sure to include books with rich vocabulary in your read alouds and call attention to interesting words and phrases from the story. This may include repeated phrases or idioms (such as "get cold feet" or "I'm all ears"). Offer a kid-friendly definition and connect the new word or phrase to something your child already knows.Talk about how the author used language or words to make the text interesting, informative, funny, or sad.

Picture walk

Talk about the book before you read it. Show the cover illustration and ask your child to predict what the book is about. Flip through the book, look closely at the pictures together, and talk about what's on the jacket flaps.

Remember when ...?

Connect what your child reads with what happens in life. If reading a book about birds, relate it to birds you've seen on walks in your neighborhood.

Story detectives

As you read with your child, stop and ask questions such as: What's happening in the picture? Why do you think the puppy is sad? Have you felt that way yourself? Why do you think the spider wanted to help the pig? What do you think is going to happen next? How do you think the story will end? Take turns and let your child to "be the detective" and ask you questions about the book. Not only will this develop your child's comprehension, but critical thinking skills as well.

Picture the character (Part 1)

Try this activity from the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR). The FCRR "At Home" series was developed especially for families! Watch the video and then download the activity: Picture the Character . See all FCRR comprehension activities here .

Picture the character (Part 2)

Try this activity from the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR). The FCRR "At Home" series was developed especially for families! Watch the video and then download the activity: Picture the Character . See all FCRR comprehension activities here .

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Kindergartners are just beginning their journey as readers, yet they are actively absorbing language and experiences to make sense of the world around them. Encourage your child to think and talk about shared oral stories and books that are read aloud.