First Grade Readers

We have been celebrating March as Reading Month at All Saints Academy.  Our goal is for students not only to learn to read, but to find joy in reading!  First grade is a big year for gaining literacy skills and developing a love of reading.  In preschool and kindergarten, students learn foundational skills for reading and begin reading simple words and sentences.  They also fall in love with story time. We build on those skills in first grade and, by the end of the year, have a goal of reading 60 words correctly per minute.  This is a big jump, but with many different types of practice, first graders are up to the challenge!  Let’s explore how first graders build their literacy skills.

At the beginning of each week, students are introduced to a new sound and spelling pattern.  Currently, we are working on the “bossy r” which likes to take charge of and change vowel sounds–the regular /a/ sounds make an /ar/ sound when r comes right next to it.  Students will explore making that sound and observing their mouth with a mirror to see how the sound is made within their mouth. They notice where their tongue goes and how open or closed their mouth is. They will compare their mouth position when making that sound to other similar sounds.  This helps the student to differentiate between similar or often confused sounds.

After we have identified the sounds, it is time to start blending sounds in words.  Students will practice reading words with the new sound /ar/ by sounding out the letters and blending them together to make the word.  Once we have read all the words, students will underline the new letter pattern /ar/ in the word.  This helps us to make observations about where the letter pattern occurs.  Is it always in the middle of the word? Does it ever come at the end of the word? 

Next, students are ready to segment words, which will help them to learn spelling.  We have a new favorite method for this activity called tap it, map it, graph it, and zap it.  Students will say a word and then tap the sounds to segment or break it apart into its individual sounds. For example, the word barn is segmented to b-ar-n.  Then they map it by placing colorful chips into sound boxes that represent the sounds of the word.  The next step is to graph it by writing the letters that create each sound.  Finally, students get to zap the word by using a magnetic wand to pull the chips away as they say the word.  

Now, students are ready to practice reading the new spelling pattern in a decodable text, which means all the words in the story follow spelling patterns that have already been taught to them.  To get ready to read the story, they will use a highlighter to find all the words that use that spelling pattern ar in the story.  Once we have found the words, we practice reading only those words.  Now they are ready to read the story.  Students will get a clean copy of the text and read it as a group.  Once we have read the story as a group, it is time for partner reading.  They sit with a partner and take turns reading the story.

As students build these skills and become stronger readers, we often see their enjoyment of reading take off! Students are choosing to read books in the classroom as a free choice activity.  Parents are reporting that their students are reading for enjoyment at home.  The students are trading different books that they have read with each other and giving recommendations.  Reading has been a blast in first grade this year!