Supporting Your Child's Reading at Home

Summary

Learning to read begins at home through everyday parent-child interactions, long before children attend school. Your continued support of literacy development throughout elementary school positively affects your child's reading ability. We are pleased to provide these Family Activities with easy-to-follow instructions to help your child practice foundational reading skills. We invite you to view the short Family Videos for tips on how to use the activities to help your child grow as a reader. Using the Family Activities at home can help your child develop language, link sounds to letters, blend letters and word parts to read and write words and read for understanding.

Kindergarten

Introduction

These Family Activities include easy-to-follow plans to help you support your child's foundational reading skills at home. Materials needed for each Family Activity, such as letter cards, are included. They begin with simpler activities and progress to more difficult ones. You may want to start with the first activity and move to the next when you notice that your child has a firm understanding of the content from that activity. We encourage you to select appropriate activities for your child, and feel free to set aside an activity that seems too difficult. The goal is to engage your child in activities that promote learning in a positive environment, not to induce frustration. The activities should be completed with the child, frequently, with patience, and positive feedback. Using the activities at home will be a fun way to spend family time together!

The Family Literacy Videos show families engaging their child in the Family Activities. The key points about the videos can help you know what to focus on for a specific activity.

The Family Activities were excerpted from a Kindergarten Teacher's Guide to Support Family Involvement in Foundational Reading Skills, which is free online: 

A Kindergarten Teacher’s Guide to Supporting Involvement in Foundational Reading Skills

You can also access these videos free online: REL Southeast's K Family Involvement Guide - YouTube

Kindergarten: Recommendation 1: Developing Language

Talking While You Read

Expose your child to the language that is common in books and in schools.

Having a conversation about a book will develop your child's vocabulary and knowledge about the topic of that book. Whether you are reading a fairy tale, a picture book, an informational book, or any other text, you can engage in a discussion as you enjoy reading together.

The best books to use have detailed pictures and are about topics that are interesting to your child. You can use books from your home or borrow a book from your child's classroom library, school library, or the public library. Also, keep in mind that you can access books on laptop computers, tablets, digital reading devices, and smartphones. Websites such as Project Gutenberg provide free access to books and mobile formats especially for smartphones. Don't forget to look through your phone's app store for free apps containing books for children.

To engage your child in conversation, you can use a tool called PEER: Prompt, Evaluate, Expand, and Repeat. See the Talking While You Read tri-fold and Bookmark for an example of how to use PEER.

Talking While You Read (Bear Says Thanks)

Key Points About the Video

  • Mom uses some of the important words, like bare, from the book to ask questions and talk about the book.
  • Mom has the Talking While You Read Bookmark in her hand to remind her about the kinds of questions to ask.
  • Mom encourages her son to answer questions in complete sentences by modeling how to do so.
  • Mom rereads the relevant part of the story if her son doesn't know the answer to a question.

 

 

Talking While You Read (Llama Llama and the Bully Goat)

Key Points About the Video

  • Mom asks several "wh" questions (who, what, where, when, why, and how) to provide opportunities to engage in a conversation about the book.
  • Mom relates the activities in the book to her daughter's life.
  • Mom and daughter discuss words and their meanings ("equation", "bully").

 

 

Talking While You Read Trifold

The Talking While You Read Trifold includes an overview of how to use PEER. There is also a story with questions placed where they are most helpful to prompt your child. Remember to read the story through one time first with your child. On the second read, use PEER as you ask each question.

Talking While You Read Bookmark

You can use the Talking While You Read Bookmark to engage your child in conversation while reading any book.

Supporting Oral Language and Vocabulary Development

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Kindergarten: Recommendation 2: Linking Sounds to Letters

Sounds in Words: Syllables

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Sounds in Words: Rhyme

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Sounds in Words: Individual Sounds

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Letter Names and Letter Sounds

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Linking Sounds to Letters

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Kindergarten: Recommendation 3: Blending Letters, Recognizing and Reading Words

Blending Words

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Word Families

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Decodable Words

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High-Frequency Words

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Challenging and Important Words

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Kindergarten: Recommendation 4: Reading for Understanding

Accurate and Efficient Word Identification

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Recognizing Misread Words and Correcting Errors

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Oral Reading Practice

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Kindergarten

Introduction

These Family Activities include easy-to-follow plans to help you support your child's foundational reading skills at home. Materials needed for each Family Activity, such as letter cards, are included. They begin with simpler activities and progress to more difficult ones. You may want to start with the first activity and move to the next when you notice that your child has a firm understanding of the content from that activity. We encourage you to select appropriate activities for your child, and feel free to set aside an activity that seems too difficult. The goal is to engage your child in activities that promote learning in a positive environment, not to induce frustration. The activities should be completed with the child, frequently, with patience, and positive feedback. Using the activities at home will be a fun way to spend family time together!

The Family Literacy Videos show families engaging their child in the Family Activities. The key points about the videos can help you know what to focus on for a specific activity.

The Family Activities were excerpted from a Kindergarten Teacher's Guide to Support Family Involvement in Foundational Reading Skills, which is free online: 

A Kindergarten Teacher’s Guide to Supporting Involvement in Foundational Reading Skills

You can also access these videos free online: REL Southeast's K Family Involvement Guide - YouTube

Kindergarten: Recommendation 1: Developing Language

Talking While You Read

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Supporting Oral Language and Vocabulary Development

This is content that will expand when the heading is clicked.

Kindergarten: Recommendation 2: Linking Sounds to Letters

Sounds in Words: Syllables

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Sounds in Words: Rhyme

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Sounds in Words: Individual Sounds

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Letter Names and Letter Sounds

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Linking Sounds to Letters

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Kindergarten: Recommendation 3: Blending Letters, Recognizing and Reading Words

Blending Words

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Word Families

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Decodable Words

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High-Frequency Words

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Challenging and Important Words

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Kindergarten: Recommendation 4: Reading for Understanding

Accurate and Efficient Word Identification

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Recognizing Misread Words and Correcting Errors

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Oral Reading Practice

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First Grade

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Second Grade

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Third Grade

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