multi-tasking reading help

Are these puppies thinking about taking a
tiny nibble? 

Your child's brain is always multi-tasking. It is always monitoring: whether he or she feels scared or secure, hungry, too hot, have to go to the bathroom, how long the lesson is going to be, an argument overheard at home, what is going to take place later, whatever else is happening in the room, or to people close by. 

At the same time all of the above self-monitoring is going on - your child is trying to learn a new lesson plus remember the old ones: letter sounds and words which may be wobbly.

Add to that, remembering what is happening in the sentence or the story.

This is why it is so important to have the basic reading tools deeply embedding in your child's long term memory. The lessons below need to be ready for instant recall:

1) Sight words - all sight word lists are the same no matter what your school calls them: Snap, Instant, High Frequency, etc. (In my books, or download.)

2) Names and basic sounds of each ABC letter; mastery control of name, sound, shape of b, d, g, p, q so that your child does not confuse b / d and p / q / g when he starts reading words in early 1st Grade. Ignore all other backward letters; rarely dyslexia, will not slow your child's advance, and will self-correct by mid 2nd Grade. Better to hit the critical lessons.

Tip: Quit stopping to sound out. Stopping breaks the working memory. This is the way the brain works for everyone. Tell your child unknown words. Tell your child to keep reading onward using the words he recognizes.This will build your child's connection to comprehension.

3) 2nd Grade: phonics teams ce, ci, cy, ge, gi, gy, sh, ch, th, wh, blends like br, bl, cr, cl, etc. and higher level sight words: thought, through, bought, brought, etc.

This is a ton to learn; do not feel overwhelmed as a parent. Reading stories to your child as your child runs his fingers under the words is very important. After the story, go back to look for one sight word at a time (the, saw, was, is, in, it, to, etc.). Also look for individual letters b, d, g, p, q, and so on.  Have fun!

My blog has 160 lessons. But you might like a book full of help, I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you. All books are new and include my contact info. Have fun reading with your child,  Mary Maisner