Teach your preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten kiddo to read easily at HOME!
Hi, I'm Erin! I'm a former classroom teacher, literacy specialist, and mom of 2 who's here to help busy moms teach their littles to read at home in the fastest and easiest way possible!
Stick around and I'll teach you all about: ❤️ The 5 Steps for Reading Success 🧡 Why memorizing sight words is NOT reading 💛 How to teach phonological & phonemic awareness 💚 The reason your child needs to PLAY during reading time 💜 How to teach handwriting 🩷 The reason I don't teach the alphabet in ABC order 💙 And so much MORE!
NEXT: ✨Download The 5 Steps for Reading Success Guide for FREE: bit.ly/steps-for-reading-success ✨Find me on IG or FB @littleslovelearningblog and message me to say hello! ✨Check out the Littles Love Learning Podcast on your favorite podcast player!
Thanks so much for reaching out! Head to littleslovelearning.lpages.co/consonants-and-vowels/ to download my freebie to learn more about consonants & vowels. Please let me know if you have any questions!
Yay! Here is the link to download your freebie: littleslovelearning.lpages.co/end-of-year-literacy-goals/ Let me know if you have any questions! Thanks!
Thanks for reaching out! Here's the link to see my video reviewing 3 different sets of decodable readers: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Z6C4-Mgqj6o.html
Yes!! That speaks exactly what i have been feeling the past few years working on the ABC ! You kind of connected all the dots for me. Except, i have been teaching at a different order and not the original alphabet. But other than that, i now understand two things- First, that focusing on sounds, oral muscles, oral feelings, where the sound comes from etc was the right things to do! Second, what actually interrupted an organic flow, in general and for those who actually are a bit more progressed than others. The one thing i will keep though is a weekly ABC day, as I live in Berlin (Germany) and the education system here is different.
This is great! However, i feel it suits preschoolers, or not before 5yo. Would you agree? Even with the 4 to 5yo in my classrooms, it seems like a tough idea to carry.
Thank you for watching! Phonemic Awareness can actually be started with 3 and 4 year olds, but it takes a LOT of modeling and having them repeat what you say. You can also start more simply (such as beginning sound in a word) before moving on to more complex PA skills. I think it's great to start including it when they're young so it becomes something that's totally normal to them!
False. English phonics is fucked. It's only useful when you've never written a word before which occurs less often as they get older. It's absolutely possible to learn thousands of words - that's how we read quickly. Ask any literate chinese speaker. Teaching your kid phonics over word memorization is a good way to have them fail english; teach them both, with phonics as a backup.
Are you also a teacher? I would love to see research to back up this opinion. As a teacher with my master's degree & specialized training in reading instruction, I can assure you that memorization is not how we read quickly. Phonics (which facilitates orthographic mapping of words) is the best way to teach kids to read, not memorization. Are you familiar with the 4-part processing model of reading words? Or have you listened to the podcast "Sold a Story" by Emily Hanford? If this topic interests you, let me know and I can send you more resources.
hi, i have a degree in psychology and have done research in psycholinguistics and language learning specifically. you are wrong. the original poster is 100% correct
Thanks for watching, I'm glad it was helpful! What grade is your little one in? The first thing I'd do is back up and check: 1. Letter sounds 2. Phonemic Awareness skills If your little one is good with those 2 areas, I'd work on spelling. If they can read words (but you know they've memorized them), ask them to spell those words. That will bring to light which phonics patterns they've actually learned and which ones they need to work on. Start with CVC words (dog, cat), then move on to words with digraphs (chat, ship) and blends (clap, lamp).
Should I practice holding pencil with my 3 year old first?. I just have her use sand,rice, etc to form letters now . I’m nervous that having her write too long with holding pencil incorrectly will be hard to correct
I love that you started with sand and rice to form the letters! That's great! Every child is ready to hold a pencil at a different time. There's no need to rush her, but you could try it and see how she does. Give her a golf pencil and show her how to hold it correctly. See if she can draw lines and shapes but not necessarily letters. If she starts holding the pencil awkwardly or seems like it's too heavy for her, she might not have developed her muscles enough yet. In that case you can do more fine motor activities like zipping, squeezing, rolling play dough, etc. to help.
Thank-you for going through this. I had never thought of this so explicitly before but I am excited to more intentionally teach a "speech to print" format as I start to introduce the letters to my 3 year old. Do you have a way I can get/purchase just the silly alliteration sentences you use to introduce each letter sound?
If teaching a child in an 1:1 setting, what level of letter mastery would you recommend the child reaches before moving onto the next letter to ensure that it’s sticking and still moving at a good pace?
I actually don't worry too much about mastery the first time I introduce the alphabet, especially with my preschoolers. I know my students are going to be seeing that same letter over and over and over again, so I know they'll get it! The way I teach includes a lot of review in each lesson, plus I like to cycle through the entire alphabet multiple times in a year. I like to introduce 3-4 letters a week. If a child hasn't gotten any of those letters, we might need to slow down and figure out what's holding them back, but I don't expect mastery of all letters before moving on.
Of course! The order for reading is: o, a, d, g, c t, m, l, h, n i, r, p, u, j, s ch, f, b, k, sh e, th, w, v, x, z wh, y, qu, -ck The order for writing lowercase letters is: c, o, s, a, d, g, q r, n, m, i, j, p, u l, k, h, b, t f, e, z v, w, x, y And I didn't mention this in the video, but here is the order for writing uppercase letters, which is from the program "Handwriting Without Tears" (I always start with uppercase for my preschoolers): L, F, E, H, T, I, U C, O, Q, G, S, J D, P, B R, K, A, M, N V, W, X, Y, Z
When it comes to integrating songs into circle time? Do you have any specific methods to ensure that children are about to understand and apply knowledge covered in the songs out of context? For example, weather type knowledge when asked out of the blue
I use songs during circle time to expand background knowledge, work on oral language skills, and develop phonological awareness. I find that songs help kids transfer their knowledge more easily than learning facts without songs.
When I was trained in OG through Brainspring, UFLI didn't exist yet, so I hadn't been exposed to their scope & sequence (which is also great). For my program, I start with two vowels (short o and short a) so we can compare/contrast those sounds right away. Plus vowel sounds are continuous and are easy to produce, so kids are successful with them. Then we add a few stop sounds (d and g) so kids can put them together to bend easily (like "og" and "ad"). I also like that if I were teaching lowercase letters at the same time (such as in kindergarten), the letters o, a, d, and g are all 2 o'clock letters (magic c letters).
Thanks for the video. Do you know where I can find info comparing Orton Gillingham to UFLI to get a better understanding of why they structure the scope and sequence differently and which may work best for me?
That's a great question! I don't know of any resource that compares them, so you might have to check them out individually. But keep in mind that UFLI is a curriculum that's been researched and tested, but it does not include extensive teacher training. Orton-Gillingham is an approach that trains educators and supplies materials, but there's not just one Orton-Gillingham scope and sequence. (I was trained through Brainspring, which uses a different scope & sequence than IMSE).
Nice video, like the idea of a fine motor journal. Do you have any suggestions on how to order the activities systematically for children to progress a smoothly as possible over time?
I think it depends on your class! You could do informal assessments to see which skills your students are great at and which skills they need more help with. Anything you can do to work on fine motor skills will be SO helpful, no matter the order.
I would start slowly, by adding the high-frequency word in a phrase or short sentence, before asking a child to read it in a book. For example, if they can read the word "the" in isolation, I might start with "The cat sits" or "I see the hat" (depending on their phonics skills) and see how they do before asking them to read a paragraph or book. You can also do fluency pyramids, which are really helpful. So if the sentence is "The cat sits," you start with one word "The" then have them read "The cat" and then finally read "The cat sits." I would also check that they can spell that high-frequency word. I'd want to make sure they hadn't just memorized it from a flashcard in isolation. If they can't spell it, they might have just memorized it.
I missed the email for the 5th day of the Back to school blitz, was there an issue in sending it out, or did I just miss it alone? I received all the ones before it
Nice video Should a child generally develop in each of these skills at a similar speed? What should you do if your child lags behind in a particular skill?
Great question! A child might struggle in one area while thriving in another. I've seen kids (who are later diagnosed with dyslexia) struggle with rhyming but they're able to do phonemic awareness activities. I think it's important to note if a child is struggling in a certain area, but I wouldn't hold them back from working on the other skill areas.
When introducing numbers do you suggest using the symbols e.g 1,2,3 and the written form (one two three) at the same time, or delaying the written form as they can’t yet decode them?
I introduce the symbols and work on recognizing and writing those first (so many kids struggle with writing numbers). I don't worry about the written form in the younger years since many of the number words are actually "heart words" (not easily decoded) such as "one" and "two."
I like to talk about punctuation right away, even before they can read on their own. When I'm reading to kids, I like to talk about why I changed my voice if the sentence has a question mark or exclamation mark. I think modeling is key for this!
Great question! I think it's important to expose students to both so they can decide which they like best, but I don't think one is better than the other. My husband prefers fiction but I LOVE reading nonfiction. Each person is so different, and I want kids to find what they love best!
Thank you for explaining why letter of the week doesn't work. I don't teach the alphabet in order to my students because that's not how they will see letters and words in the real world. I like that you mentioned teaching them by how they are formed. That is something I never thought about
You're so welcome! I love that we can choose different ways to introduce the letters each time since we get through so many cycles in one year (instead of just getting through the alphabet one time with letter of the week).
Letter of the week takes so long and doesn't give the opportunity to review. Learning the alphabet takes so much practice and reviewing the letters and sounds over and over again. I love the idea of going through the alphabet in one way and then mixing up the letters and reviewing them in a different order.
Ugh yes! Unfortunately Letter of the Week is still common in preschools and on Pinterest...so parents think it's the best way 😭 Hopefully we can spread the message that teaching the alphabet in a more dynamic way leads to reading even before kids learn all their letters!
