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?

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