Kindergarten is not as simple as it used to be. Assessments and testing have made their way down to the kindergarten classroom. Your child's teacher may be suggesting you read 15 minutes each day with your student. This is a great suggestion, but make that 15 minutes really count!
Pre-Reading Skills
Why does it seem like some students pick up a book and immediately begin to read, while others struggle for years just to become marginally competent at reading? Out of much reading research has arisen skill categories generally accepted as foundational to reading. These skills are easily mastered by most young children with no conscious effort on their part if you know what to show them.
Students who come into kindergarten either working on these skills, or who have mastered these skills, have a substantial advantage over those students lacking the skill sets. Until foundational skills are mastered, competent reading does not take place. Lack of mastery of these skills can negatively impact a student's lifetime educational experience.
Skill Categories
Broad categories of skills are subdivided into components to be taught and reinforced regularly to your child. Beginning skill sets include both concepts of print and phonemic awareness.
Skill categories can be confusing until you learn more about them. Once you incorporate these skills into your daily reading sessions, you will be amazed at the progress your student will make. Let's take a look at these two skill sets.
Concepts of Print
Sometimes we take for granted that a child knows why we even need to understand all that letter/sound stuff. This beginning stage is why your child's teacher is recommending you read to your child. It is important for your child to understand that you are getting this story from all those marks on the page; that the story is a wonderful gift from a storyteller. They need to understand which side is the front of the book, which direction pages are turned from, and which side of the page we begin reading. Once they have seen you always turn the book right side up, open the cover, and begin reading left to right enough times they will understand that is always how reading begins.
Phonemic Awareness
Students need to understand sounds. Speaking to your child in “baby talk” distorts the sounds they hear and associate with words. Mispronunciations may sound cute in the beginning, but can harm your student's ability to read and write later.
Play sound or word games with your child. Nursery rhymes are a perfect way to increase the awareness of your child to sounds, rhythm, and rhyme of the language. Look for rhyming words with your child. Play games of rhyme with the child, encouraging them to experiment with words and with rhyming non-words. Playing games of identifying the beginning sound, the ending sound, or middle sound of a word will help them when they begin to read.
Make Your Reading Time Count
There are other skill sets necessary for reading, but if you begin with these two, your child will have an advantage when beginning reading. He will also have confidence that you will be there to help him have fun and learn in the future.
