Kindergarten reading getting ready for 1st Grade

Let's look at why kindergarten reading lessons are so important to 1st grade reading success. 

What are the kindergarten reading lessons?

1. Listen to stories, then discuss the elements: story sequence, the start, middle, and end of the story; did surprises happened in the story; who were the characters, what details were connected to the various characters - drawing pictures of these story aspects is helpful.

2. Getting comfortable and skillful with a pencil. Arm, hand, and finger muscles must slowly learn to control tiny movements. Finger-plays and drawing shapes are helpful activities.

3. The child's eyes must begin to see the tiny differences between letters e, c, M, N, etc. Puzzles, finding animal shapes hidden in pictures, and finding matching shapes are helpful.

4. Gradually learn the name, shape, and sound of the 52 letters of the alphabet, 26 letter pairs.

Ignore backward letters; they will not slow your child's reading progress, are rarely dyslexia, and will self-correct by mid-2nd Grade. However, the correct direction of lower-case b, d, g, p, q is critical. Be sure your child can identitfy b /d and p / q / g within words when your child starts 1st Grade. Target these letters one at a time. Look for b at the start, middle, and end of words while reading stories. Then d, etc. Parents must pay attention; children "fall through the cracks" at school. Your child will know the name and sound but can get confused by b / d and p / q / g when these letters are combined with other letters - in words - when your child starts reading. Take action to correct that problem.

Why? Because the brain anticipates which information it needs to retrieve from memory.

The eye actually sees which letters are coming up. When the 1st Grade child's eye sees a letter b coming up and the child's mind is unsure whether the letter is a b or d - problems begin. 

I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help, all my books will pop up. My books, (Panda cover and Giraffe cover) give you specific language to make sure your child has control of these crucial letters when your child is trying to read on his own and you are not nearby to help. All books include my contact info; email or call for help.

 Write with questions. Thank you, Mary Maisner

ABC book you make for your child




All children learn their lessons.

 You and your child can make your own ABC book with a page and picture for each letter.
Get two pieces of heavy card stock to use as front and back covers and a package of heavy white paper, something in the range of 32 pound weight.

Office Max, Office Depot, Kinko, Staples, and Xpedx sell the kinds of material you will want. These places can also spiral-bind your child's book so that it lies flat and is more fun to use.

Each of our ABCs need their own page. Remember to tell your child that each letter has a "dress up" letter to use at the start of someone's name, like Anna or Adam; or, Beth or Bart. And a small letter for all other print work: Aa apple, Bb bear, Cc cat, etc.

Later, when reading stories together, point to capital letters when they comes at the start of a name or at the start of a sentence. These are the two uses of capital letters: proper names and the 1st word in a sentence. (boy is a category word, John is a proper name.)

The lower-case a, also called small a, is the partner of capital A. Small a, lower-case a, is used for all the other writing jobs. Lower-case a comes at the start of words that are not special names, like: ant, alligator, antelope. And at the start of words that are not first in a sentence: ankle, any, answer. And inside of words, as in cat, raccoon, car, can, call, ball, banana, baboon, and so on. Lower-case a is small but much busier than capital, dress up A.

Have fun learning the ABCs. Children love making their own books and are much more interested in learning when they are looking at their own letters and pictures.  

You may like to look at my Panda bear book when your child is ready to move into reading lessons. I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help, all my books will pop up.

 All my books blend the tricky phonics, sight words, and a special comprehension method. Lessons are instructed through stories and games; lots of color pictures; step-by-step, not hit-and-miss.   Thank you, Mary Maisner

help a struggling reader

                                                                                 

Does our goat know how to get down?
yes   no   maybe   I doubt it   of course 

Getting a better connection to comprehension is the fastest way to help your child, and surprisingly easy. 

This system works at any grade-level. One of my 7th Grade tutor kids went to the Honor Roll at his private school after one summer of catch up with this system. A 3rd Grade tutor child got the hightest test score of his entire class.

1) Quit stopping to sound out. Stopping to sound out causes your child's short term memory to drop whatever meaning has been gathered so far. This is the way the brain works for everyone.

When your child is reading with you, tell your child the unknown words or tell him to slide over the unknown word and keep reading onward. 

If he is reading on his own - tell him to read the words he knows and slide over unknown words. Keep going to the end of the paragraph. Next, take a moment to recap what has been happening in the story so far.  (You help, ask what is happening so far?)

Next look at the unknown words. Tell your child the word, or let him try twice, then tell him. Your child will get stronger with this light touch, than with a heavy one. Everyone's brain wants things to make sense. The brain will supply some of the unknown words and meaning (canoe means boat, boulder means rock).   Keep reading using this method. In a month, your child will have stronger comprehension. Many words cannot be sounded out. Your child has a big speaking bank but does not recognize his words in print. 

2) Your child has some weak letter/sound skills. Use my blog's search box - top left corner - 

Search: ce, ci and ge, gi and silent gh and compound words story and tion and tious, adding ed and changing y to i, etc. 

I now use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help my books will pop up. All books are brand new, full of exactly what your child needs, include my contact info; email or call for help.              Have a great day, Mary Maisner

History of sight words

 Many of the first three hundred sight words are among the oldest in the English language. They were already several hundred years old before the year 1066 when the Norman French conquered England.

Twenty of our twenty-five most often used verbs were being spoken in England by the Anglo-Saxon people before 1066.

Understanding that these words are so old helps explain their odd spelling changes as they move through time-tenses, such as go / gone, instead of goed;   and take / took instead of taked. Look at the 25 most frequently used verbs:

be       have     do     say      get     make     go     know     take     see     come     think     

look    want     give     use     find     tell     ask      work     seem     feel     try      leave     call

From this set, we get words like: is, was, were, could, would, should, been, does, done, tries, and found which can be hard for children to learn. Also inherited from those ancient days: right, fight, fought, buy, bought, catch, caught, thought, and through, laugh, enough, and cough.

In 1880, Professor L. A. Sherman noticed that during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the I, daughter of Henry the Eighth, a sentence would typically contain fifty words. By Professor Sherman's lifetime sentences had shorten to twenty-three words. Sentences are even shorter these days.

By the early 1920's, Edward Thorndike suggested that educators needed a better understanding of exactly which words were critical to successful reading. Edward W. Dolch researched a list and called them the service words (1936).  

In 1963, Edward B. Fry contributed his researched list of the most frequently seen words in print. These three men pressed the idea that stumbling over recurring words put children at a big disadvantage. On the other hand, children able to recognize these words "on sight" possessed a huge advantage when reading a page of print.

As a retired teacher, I want parents to understand that there is simply not enough time at school for the practice needed for your child to get sight words under control. Many sight words have vague meanings and seem to look alike to children. And, they cannot be sounded out.

Learning the words in sentences and stories is the most effective teaching method. They provide the constant reuse of the words and meaning clues which help your child anchor the words. (I use stories to teach sight words in all my books.)

I now use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up. My books are all new and use color pictures and stories to teach sight words as well as tricky phonics and a special comprehension method. No book has a grade-level marked on it and all include my contact info; email or call for help. 

Write with questions. Have a great day, Mary Maisner

Improve reading skills

Our gorilla can protect himself from threats he can see.
Can a tiny invisible germ make his life miserable?

A strong connection to comprehension is amazingly easy and boosts the performance of all reading levels.

Tip: quit stopping to sound out; it breaks the short term memory and all collected meaning - comprehension - is lost. This is the way the brain works for everyone. If your child is in 1st or 2nd Grade, tell your child any unknown words and have your child keep reading onward. With all age children use the steps below:

Find a topic your child will like - animals, space travel, etc. Get a short story or book your child can write in. Ask your child to look through the 1st paragraph, putting a dot under every word he knows, sliding over unknown words. (You do not interrupt even if you hear errors.)

At the end of the paragraph, you ask questions: what is happening in the story?  

Once your child has a feel for what is going on in the 1st paragraph, ask your child to read that paragraph to you. If he has not figured out unknown words - tell him the words. Move on to the next paragraph with the same steps. It will be bumpy at first, but your child will start picking up much better comprehension. (A struggling 3rd Grade tutor student of mine got the highest social studies test score of his entire class, using this method. Three middle school kids made the Honor Roll at their school.)

The brain likes for things to make sense, so as your child gets better at this, the words will start popping into place. Many words cannot be sounded out, like canoe, but the meaning, boat, will come to your child and soon the word itself will come. Your child has a big speaking bank but he does not recognize his words in print. And, your child does not yet have good letter sound skills to help him. 

The good news is there are only about one dozen tricky letter / sound lessons. A child will not be able to figure out these lessons without someone showing him. These tricky, invisible units are scattered across every page of print, starting with 1st grade. Pointing them out makes a huge difference for your child.

I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help my books will pop up. All books are brand new, full of everything you need, and include my contact info; email or call for help. 

               Have a great day,  Mary Maisner 

ABCs reading help

Our ABCs have 26 letters:

Aa    Bb    Cc     Dd     Ee     Ff    Gg    Hh    Ii   

Jj    Kk      Ll     Mm    Nn     Oo    Pp    Qq    Rr     

Ss    Tt     Uu     Vv      Ww       Xx      Yy      Zz  

Your child needs to be able to identify all letters when your child starts reading in 1st Grade. It is harder to identify some letters when they are mixed with others; b, d, g, p, q are tricky because they are reversed images. Also, in print there are two symbols for lowercase g. Arial font g and Times New Roman g. (Both g symbols have a fancy tail - use that clue.) Also, Arial capital I  and Times capital I. Arial capital I is the same as lowercase letter l, as in lamb. I am naming these fonts in case this blog self-corrects to Arial.

If your child is just starting to learn his ABCs, begin with letter Aa. Explain that just as people have special dress-up times, like going to church, our ABCs have dress-up times, too.

Tell your child letter Aa has a dress-up look for being the 1st letter in someone's name, like Adam or Anna. You print a large A on a sheet of paper.  Ask your child to run his pointer finger several times over your A. Then give your child a crayon or pencil; ask your child to make As that looks like your A. Children do not have good finger muscle control - all letters will be wobbly and huge.

Now you make a large lower-case letter a on paper. Your letter a will be a circle with a line on the right side.  Let your child run his pointer finger several times over your letter a.  Tell your child this is called small letter a because it is not the dressed up letter A. Let him work on making letter a on paper.

Later, play this game. Take his capital dress-up A and place it in plain sight somewhere in the room. Place his small letter a in a different spot in the room. You and your child take turns placing and finding the dress-up A, also called capital A.  Also take turns looking for small a, also called lower-case letter a.  Small a is used for all the other words like ant, alligator, ankle, all, apple, and inside of words like cat, car, card, cap, can, call.

You can write these words on cards and hide them around the room. Ask if your child can find a dressed-up capital A word card, like Anna?  Can he find a small a word card, like ant or cat? As your child is ready, teach letters B and b in the same way. Always start by reviewing all letters you have worked on in previous lessons.

Do not obsess over the printing of backward letters, they will not slow your child' s progress, are rarely dyslexia, self-correct by mid 2nd Grade. But, b, d, g, p, q must be correctly printed. Also, look for b in words as you read stories together. (Then, target d, then g, etc.)  Goal: Your child needs to be able to identify b, d, g, p, q within words by early 1st Grade. 

My Panda book teaches reading for the beginning reader. 

I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up. All are brand new and include my contact info; email or call for help.
Have a great day, Mary Maisner

Lower-case letter



Nuremberg, Germany painted by Albrecht Durer, 1494


Each of our ABCs has a capital letter and a lower-case letter. Capital letters are for the names of people: John Smith; places: Paris, France: and special things, called proper nouns: Denver Hospital. And for the very first word in a sentence: My cat is orange.

Lower-case letters are for all other uses.

The title for the small letters, lower-case, comes from the time of the 1st printing press machine. The small letters were kept in the lower drawers of the big cases where the metal letters for the printing press were stored. 

The capital letters were kept in the upper drawers of the big cases, the upper-case drawers. The metal letters were taken out of their drawers when they were needed for a word that was being printed by the machine.

The first printing press was developed by Johannes Gutenberg about 1450 in Mainz, Germany, then part of the Holy Roman Empire.

This watercolor by Albrecht Durer lets your child see what that part of the world looked like when Mr. Gutenberg was experimenting with his metal letters and the printing press, which changed the world. Before the printing press, every single thing written had to be written by hand. 

I have reading instruction books to help you help your child be a skillful and happy reader. You might like to see them at eBay. Search Instant Reading Help plus your child's grade level.  Thank you, Mary Maisner

Kindergarten reading lessons

Mother Cat is peeking in to be sure
her kittens are safe.

Children must learn that words are actually separate beings with space between them. Spoken words run together like water coming out of the sink faucet.

Ask your child to point to each word as you read a story. After reading the story, use the story to make clear these concepts:

1) You ask: Which way did your finger go when we were reading?  Yes, your finger always went this way >.

2) Ask: Find the 1st word, on the 1st page of the story.

You tell your child that 1st word. Say: See the tiny space between the 1st word and the next word?

(Tell your child that 2nd word.) 

 Say: Look, there is always a tiny space between each word. Do you see that tiny space between the words? Ask your child to point to the tiny spaces. 

Ask: Why do we have tiny spaces between words?  Listen to your child, then guiding to, cars on the street need space or they will bump into each other. Words need space or they will bump into each other. 

3) Ask: Do you know any of the words on this page, or this story? If yes, you help your child find the word your child knows. If not, you choose an animal word (cat, dog, bug, etc).  This word (cat) always has the same letters: c a t. Let's look for this word: c a t  in the story. Do you see cat on any of the pages of this story?    After your child finds and points to cat several times, you say: now, you know the word cat. You can find your word cat in this story. Ask: can you find your word cat in other stories (which you know uses the word cat).  Listen to you child; then guide to, yes, you can find cat because cat always uses the same letters, c a t.

Please repeat these important concepts over the next few days. Young children have much going on in their minds. They forget, and sometimes get mixed up. 

You might like to tell your child that in the early history of writing, snaking lines were used. Snaking lines proved to be very confusing, so a rule was made. The rule said: always returning to the left side of the page to start the next line of print. Can your child think of any reasons why snaking lines might be confusing?

I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help. You will see a panda on the cover. My books are brand new and include my contact info. My books are based on tons of research and experience. Best wishes, Mary

What is a suffix



Do you see that our snail has something fixed on his end?

The word suffix means something fixed onto the end, as with go / going.

Common suffixes are: s and es, ed, ing, er, est, y, ly, ful, ness.

Look: snail / snails; frog / frogs; cat / cats.

Look: tall / tallest;  fast / fastest

Look: help / helpful;  harm / harmful

The word before the suffix is added is called the root word.  Ask your child to tell you the root words:

1. helps        3. helper       5. helping

2. helped     4. helpful       6. helpfulness (two suffixes added to help)

Sometimes the root word has to be changed before adding a suffix. When you add suffix y to the root word rain > rainy;  you have to change y to i before you can add er or est:

1. rains        3. raining       5. rainier    

   
2. rained     4. rainy           6. rainiest 

I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up.

Knowing how vowels work with suffixes becomes critical in the upper grades but vowel lessons are not taught in the upper grades. I have created Vowel Power (grades 1-3) and Prefix / Suffix (4th grade and up) because our children do not know how to make changes to words. This makes schoolwork, homework, writing, and test-taking  - miserable. 

 
Vowel Power has a rabbit hopping through the woods. Prefix / Suffix has a dog looking through a metal fence.   Being a skillful reader makes life so much easier!

Thank you for visiting my blog, Mary Maisner
 

What are sight words

Sight words are the highway of our language. You cannot say anything or write anything without them.

About 50% of all the words on any page are the same 100 sight words, like: this, that, those, were, and was. (Research by Edward Fry.)

All sight word lists are the same. Words are listed according to how often they are seen in print. Word the is seen most often, so the is sight word number one.

Since children see these same words over and over it seems like they would learn them.

Children do not learn them.

Children can learn words like skunk, tree, or flower. These words have clear meanings and can be sounded out. Skunk, tree, and flower are not sight words.

The sight words are the oldest words of our language. Many sight words have crazy spellings which make them impossible to sound out. Also, because they are service words - they do not have clear meanings. Such words as: does, were, whether, would, their, there, etc.

In addition to sight words, young readers have a vast amount of other lessons to master.
I have created a few books to make sight words and the tricky lessons easier to learn. 

I use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up. All include my contact info; email or call for help. My books all teach a special comprehension method and color-code the tricky phonics, making it easy for your child to see the tricky phonics and learn them.   Write me with questions. Thank you, Mary Maisner

Kindergarten sight words



I see three kittens.

 Sight word lists are all the same and in the same order. Words are on the list according to how often a child will see the word while reading. Teaching through sentences and stories is the most efficient way to anchor so many words in your child's mind. Here are the 1st ten:

the, of, and, a, to, in, is, you, that, it

Use the picture of the kittens as you teach the story below. Start with sentence number one: target word, the.  You read, asking your child to point to each word in the sentence as you read it. After reading the sentence several times, ask if your child can point to the target word, the, in sentence number one. Let your child read the target word, the, in the 1st sentence as you read all the other words in the sentence. Instruct the 2nd target word of with the same steps.

1. I see the kitties. The kitties are pretty.

2. The air is full of snow.

3. The white kitty and the black kitty are looking at the snow.

4. The brown kitty has a leaf.

5. The brown kitty wants to play with the leaf.

6. Is it cold in the snow?

7. It is cold in the snow.

8. Do you like to play in the snow?

9. That brown kitty likes to play in the snow.

10. It is fun to look at the kitties.

You may like to see the books I have to help your child slide into smart reading: Panda for kindergarten, Giraffe for 1st grade. The tricky phonics like ce are underlined in the words of the stories so your child will see them and learn them. Comprehension and sight words are also taught. 

I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up. All are brand new and include my contact info; email or call for help.
Have a great day! Thank you, Mary Maisner

oi oy reading help

Vowel teams oi and oy always make the same sound, as heard in boy, toy, boil, coil.
Vowel teams oi and oy do not come apart for sounding them out. Oi and oy are not long or short; instead, they have their own special sound.

1) Practice the oi oy sound in this rhyming family:
boy    Roy       joy         destroy    employ
toy     ahoy     enjoy     annoy       coy means shy 

2) Listen to the oi oy sound in: loyal, royal, voyage

3) Practice the oi oy sound in these rhyming families:
coin      join  
purloin means to steal; My dog purloined my sandwich when I wasn't looking.

Tortoise and porpoise are ancient words with their own sounds; truly rare for oi  oy.  
I created the Vowel Power book to make all the vowel lessons easy for your child. All my books teach with stories, skills pages, and lots of color pictures. Click this link, then click bookstore and scroll down to see the rabbit hopping through the woods: http://www.zoomreadingstrategy.com  All my books teach a special comprehension method.

Nothing is more fun than being a star reader.    Have a great day, Mary Maisner 

Word ends with e add ing

When words end with e, as in shine, trade one vowel for another vowel: shine to shining. The vowels: a, e, i, o, u, y.

Let your child practice:

1) add ing to smile

2) add ing to race

3) add ing to move

4) add ing to hide

5) add ing to leave

6) add ing to decide

Answers: smiling, racing, moving, hiding, leaving, deciding

Children cannot get enough practice at school to really learn these lessons. This becomes critical for homework and test-taking as your child advances.

I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up.

All are brand new, full of stories, skills works, comprehension work, and include my contact info; email or call for help.  Vowel Power (grades 1-3) and Prefix / Suffix (4th grade and up). 

Thank you, Mary Maisner

Difference short vowel words long vowel words



Short vowel sounds: grass, limb, pond.
Long vowel sounds: air, doe, leaf, hide.

Vowel rules are taught in 2nd - 3rd Grade but not in 4th Grade - upper grades where knowing the rules is required to add ed, ing, able, also to change y to i at the end of a word. Below are the basics for any age:

The vowels are: a, e, i, o, u, y. Each vowel has a long sound and a short sound. 

Long vowels: a vowel is called long when it says its letter name in a word: snake, ride. Long y uses the long i sound: spy, by, my, try, why.

There are two rules for long vowels:

1) When two vowels go walking the 1st vowel does the talking: air, day / leaf, peach, ear / pie, trial / coat, toad / due, Tuesday. 

In English words, u always comes next after q; qu is a team saying kw. In the qu team u does not act as vowel: quiet, queasy, squeak, squeal.

2) When there is only one consonant between two vowels, the first vowel will be long, as in: lake, shape / mine, bite /  poke, nose, over, chose / huge  / style, nylon.  The 2nd vowel is most often silent but can be short: dial, chaos.

Short vowels have variable sounds, but do not say their letter name. Short y uses the short i sound: myth. There are two rules for short vowels:

1) When there is only one vowel in a word, the vowel is most often short: cat, match, walk / wet, left, next  / sip, will, drink / log, soft / hug, trunk / myth.

2) If there is more than one consonant between vowels, the 1st vowel will be short: panther, battle, father, basket /  better  / sister, whisper / mother,  brother  / hunger, suffer.

English is an ancient language with a few quirks. A word can have a short sound no matter the vowels, as in short vowel words: panic, feather, family.

The following words should have short vowels but instead have long vowels: paste, waste, taste, haste, tangle, strange, stranger, bind, blind, find, grind, kind, mind, wind, (wind, short i).

My blog has a search box - top left corner - for finding other reading lessons

I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help; all my books should pop up.
All books are brand new, none have grade-levels marked on them, all include my contact info, email or call for help.

Most of my wonderful graphics are from Corel Software. Have a great day, Mary Maisner

Short vowel words change when you add e at the end

The vowels are letters a, e, i, o, u, y. When words have only one vowel, the vowel will usually says its short sound. Vowel a is short in mat and match.

Look: you can change a short vowel word, like cap into the long vowel word cape by adding vowel e at the end of the word.

Cape has two vowels separated by only one consonant. (the consonant p)
Adding vowel e at the end, changes the short vowel word into a long vowel word.

Remember, when a vowel says its letter name, we call it long. 

1) cap  to  cape

2) can  to  cane

3) car  to  care

4) plan  to  plane

5) rid   to  ride

6) hid  to  hide

7) bit   to  bite

8) hop  to  hope

Being smart with vowels becomes very important in the upper grades for adding ed, ing and for changing y into i. Vowel lessons are not taught in the upper grades. Early readers also need to be smart with vowels, look:

The dog bit my hand. Did the dog bite you?  I met a new boy.  I like to meet new kids.

I now use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up. All are brand new, full of all the lessons your child needs to be a Star Reader. And, include my contact info; email or call for help.

Have a great day, Mary Maisner

Yy is a vowel reading help

                                                                    

Would you like to pet this furry bunny?
Albrecht Durer painted this watercolor  
 in the year 1502.

The vowels are a, e, i, o, u, y.   Always include y; this will eliminate uncertainty about y when your child learns how to add suffixes, like ed and ing.   

While reading easy-to-read stories with your child, point to the y at the end of words, like furry and bunny.

Say bunny together. Help your child say and hear the e sound at the end.  Now say furry several times and hear the e.

Look for other words in the story that end with y, like happy, tiny, pretty. Say the words, listen for the e.

Just so you know: the letter e at the end of a word is usually silent, as with snake and name.            

Y has three possible sounds at the end of a word:  

1) Most common: y says the long e sound: any, every, hurry, carry, and when ly is added as an ending, such as slowly, gladly, quickly, quietly, happily, carefully, instantly.

                                             

2) Y says the long i sound at the end of one syllable words: my, why, try, sky, spy, cry, buy, guy, reply, rely, ally, wry, awry; by the middle grades: identify, verify, specify, vilify, etc.

3) In the ay / ey teams, y is the second and silent vowel: day, play, say, they, obey, convey.

Y has three sounds inside a word:

1) the long i sound: python, eye, type, rhyme

2) short i sound: myth, bicycle, symbol

3) Y uses its consonant sound as the first letter: yes, yellow, yummy; also, beyond, crayon, canyon.  

You may like to look at my Vowel Power book to help your child become a reading star. It teaches through stories and skills practice and is full of color pictures. 

I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up. All are brand new and include my contact info, email or call for help.

Have a great day, Mary Maisner

            

short vowels long vowels



The ABCs have two kinds of letters: consonants and vowels. There are six vowels:  Aa,  Ee,  Ii,  Oo,  Uu,  Yy.           

Consonants are all of the other letters.                                                                               
Vowels can work in teams which have a special sound, as with oi and oy heard in boy, toy, boil, coil. 

Vowels can also be long or short.  
When a vowel is long, your child can hear the vowel say its letter name, as in snake.

Long vowels have two letter patterns: 1) side-by-side, as in air, flea, weasel, pie, goat.

Or, 2) two vowels separated by only one consonant, as in cane, line, hope, style.

When a vowel is short, your child will not hear the vowel say its name. Say these words with your child. Help your child hear the difference:

at / ate, tap / tape,  can / cane,    best /  beast,  met / meet,  fed / feed,    pin / pine, pill / pile, 

hop /hope,   sop / soap,  not / note,   tub / tube,  mull / mule,  hug/ huge  ge team says j.

A vowel is usually short if it is the only vowel in the word, as in man, raft, hen, fish, hop, tub.

And, it is short when there are two or more consonants between two vowels, as in father,

catcher, battle,   better,  whisper,   pitcher,  wiggle,  pickle,  mother, bother,  puddle, puppy.

Being smart with vowel rules becomes important in the upper grades. The upper grades do not teach vowels and rules.  Try to get enough practice in the early grades; and remind your upper-grade student of the rules.  Schools do not have enough time for the practice needed. Being a powerful reader starts early.  

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Have a great day, Mary Maisner