Question for K or 1st grade teachers

[AC7179]

My daughter just started Kindergarten, but she has been reading small books in her Montessori classroom for a year and a half or so. She has just finished the Primary Phonics set and is reading those Stage 1 books you can buy at Walmart or Target now.

Anyway, she is a good reader for her age, BUT she reads almost exclusively based on sight words. She will see a word once, commit it to memory, and then just remember it for the next time. She is not truly that good at sounding out words beyond the three and four letter words (cat, hit, lake, etc.) In addition, she often will completely guess at words in her book and it's not even close. "A princess is so caring," instead of "A princess is so kind." I just correct her and she will correct it, most of the time.

Just checking if there is anything I can do to help her with the guessing or if it is a normal part of learing to read. My fear is that she will commit enough words to memory nad then later never have really learned to sound out the words well enough. On the other hand, I know that a lot of reading is in context, so her guessing based on that may not be a bad tool.

Thanks for any help!

 

[Robindianne]

Words their way word sorts. They're fun and teach sounds and symbols with picture and word cards. Great for phonemic awareness.

My daughter just started Kindergarten, but she has been reading small books in her Montessori classroom for a year and a half or so. She has just finished the Primary Phonics set and is reading those Stage 1 books you can buy at Walmart or Target now.

Anyway, she is a good reader for her age, BUT she reads almost exclusively based on sight words. She will see a word once, commit it to memory, and then just remember it for the next time. She is not truly that good at sounding out words beyond the three and four letter words (cat, hit, lake, etc.) In addition, she often will completely guess at words in her book and it's not even close. "A princess is so caring," instead of "A princess is so kind." I just correct her and she will correct it, most of the time.

Just checking if there is anything I can do to help her with the guessing or if it is a normal part of learing to read. My fear is that she will commit enough words to memory nad then later never have really learned to sound out the words well enough. On the other hand, I know that a lot of reading is in context, so her guessing based on that may not be a bad tool.

Thanks for any help!

 

[nataliz]

These are a couple of questions I might ask as she's reading (when she reads incorrectly):

1. Do the letters match the sounds?
2. Does it sound like language?

If she has a hard time matching letters to sounds then I would work through those along side her.

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

My daughter just started Kindergarten, but she has been reading small books in her Montessori classroom for a year and a half or so. She has just finished the Primary Phonics set and is reading those Stage 1 books you can buy at Walmart or Target now.

Anyway, she is a good reader for her age, BUT she reads almost exclusively based on sight words. She will see a word once, commit it to memory, and then just remember it for the next time. She is not truly that good at sounding out words beyond the three and four letter words (cat, hit, lake, etc.) In addition, she often will completely guess at words in her book and it's not even close. "A princess is so caring," instead of "A princess is so kind." I just correct her and she will correct it, most of the time.

Just checking if there is anything I can do to help her with the guessing or if it is a normal part of learing to read. My fear is that she will commit enough words to memory nad then later never have really learned to sound out the words well enough. On the other hand, I know that a lot of reading is in context, so her guessing based on that may not be a bad tool.

Thanks for any help!

Caring and kind have similar meanings and starting sounds. Since you say she's reading mostly on memory, it's likely she remembered the meaning from the story and switched out the words.

Sounding out words at the beginning of kindergarten is good. It's likely that she needs help with "chunking" bigger words into smaller segments to decode longer words.

Good readers utilize several strategies both for decoding and comprehension. It sounds like she is using several already. She will likely plateau at some point in her reading growth if she doesn't get a solid phonemic awareness foundation, as both you and a PP mentioned. I would not be concerned, as she is ahead of grade level for the beginning of kindergarten, and phonics and decoding skills will be taught at the school.

You can get some phonics workbooks, flashcards, programs like Hooked on Phonics or Words Their Way. She will likely be on the 2nd level - the one with blends and digraphs. You'll have to look at the materials and make a judgment based on what you already know she can and cannot do for sounding words out.


You can give her a quiz like this one with nonsense words to see what kind of decoding skills and phonemic awareness she has.
http://www.scholasticred.com/dodea/pdfs/SPED_TR_nonsense.pdf

 

[AC7179]

Thanks to you all.

She has worked through the Primary Phonics and can sound out most three or four letter words. It's bigger words she is having trouble with, but it could be she has just reached a level that is too hard for her. I looked up blends and made her flash cards with the words made up of two blends. I wrote each blend spread apart and when she wants to we will work on squeezing htem together. Example: CL OWN, etc.

I am also going to look into the workbooks. I just want to make sure she is not skippng any of the all important basics. At Monstessori, they work at their own pace, and I was a little worried about them skipping something. I'm sure it's fine!

Thanks for the advice!

 

[golfgal]

Chances are they will work on phonics/letter sounds in kindergarten. What your DD is doing is completely normal. At conferences I would ask the teacher about the phonics program and when they start that. Our kids had a fabulous phonics program in elementary school (Saxon) and part way through 1st grade all the kids in their class could sound out pretty much every word they encountered (I volunteered in their class and listed to kids read so that is how I know).