Janet’s Book Nook

Mt oldest child is just finishing up with Kindergarten and I picked up on a neat idea for teaching these children to read. Her classroom has sets of books that start out on the lowest reading level and work their way up to higher levels. The teacher started mid-year giving each child a book to take home each night and they were to bring the book back when they were able to read it. Once they brought the book back and could successfully read the book they were given a book that was the next level up. These children hate not being able to receive a new book so they are so motivated to get the current book correct so that they could move on to the next level. What I noticed about the book were that the beginning books were all similar in set up. They take a key phrase like "I see a …" and they change the words that fill in at the end to match the pictures on each page. The next book might have a different set of phrases. The children start off memorizing the phrase and then just changing the end so that it matches the picture that they see. They aren’t actually "reading" but this repetitive action actually teaches them what these words look like. I found that kids that had read the "I see a.." book could recognize those words when presented separately as being those words even though they weren’t shown them in that order. I was amazed. I decided to try something at home with my 4 year old who will be 5 in July. She is going to be going to Kindergarten next and she loves to pretend to read with her older sister. I got a set of books that are called Sight Word Readers and I have been letting her practice with them. It is so working. She loves that she can "Read" and is getting so confident with attempting to say words even if she isn’t really sure what they are. She is getting very good at it. An example would be her most recent which is called "Ride on!" This is how the progression of the book goes:

Ride on a bus. (picture of child riding a bus and also a small picture of a bus next to the word bus)

Ride on a plane.

Ride on a bike.

Ride on a train.

Ride on a horse.

Ride on a boat.

Ride on a sled.

Ride on a float.

The pictures change to fit the transportation. They learn to recognize the words Ride On and A. They alter the last word to fit what the picture says. My 4 year old has now read 7 books and she is beginning to know what the words are without having to have them in the same order as the book. As you move up they get harder and change up some. The one from today used a set of key words with animals. On the last page it changed two words in the phrase from Run to Jump and from the animal name to The Animals. So on the first few pages it would say "The (insert animal name) runs. On the last page it says The Animals jump. It was so neat to see that she knew that the word on that page was not run but jump. She had trouble figuring out animals but she is just starting out and she loves that she can tell everyone she reads books all by herself. I would recommend this to anyone who is struggling with getting their child to read. I got them through the book order form from my daughters school. I am sure that everyone uses the same one. They are marked as being made by Scholastic so that is a good place to start. I don’t think I paid more that 10.00 for the whole set and it is well worth it. They also had sets for older children which I will be purchasing soon for my older daughter. I am so excited to see the enthusiasm they have at reading on their own now.