Building Blocks of a Reading Program

• Phonemic Awareness:  The awareness that words are composed of sounds.  Students will develop their phonemic awareness through nursery rhymes, listening to rhyming books, segmenting letter sounds (c-a-t), learning that "mom" and "Monday" both start with the same sound, morning message, etc.

• Interesting Words: Through our reading, students will learn new and interesting words as well as real life words that they find personally relevant such as favorite restaurant names, cartoon characters, and family members. 

• Letters and Sounds:  Students will learn letters and sounds through daily activities such as my morning opening, daily message, journal writing, mystery bag, making words activities, shared writing of predictable charts, and alphabet books.

• Language Concepts:  Students will develop the ability to read and write through the use of the daily message, journals, sentence building activities and environmental print.

• Print Concepts:  Students will be shown how to write and they will participate in shared reading and writing experiences.

• Desire to Read and Write:  My classroom will be an environment where all students see themselves becoming independent readers and writers. 

• YOU!:  Students can become successful readers and writers with my guidance and teaching.  But students need to see their parents reading, and parents need to read to their child.  Reading to your child only takes a few minutes of your time; however, the benefits are enormous!  Please make it a priority in your house to see that reading to your child, with your child and by yourself happens daily.