Reading In COLOR!

Many of you are teaching your little ones to read!  What an exciting time in a child's life.  When letters start forming words.  Today I wanted to share with you a little trick I use when teaching using my Beginning Reader Mini Books.  

As many of you know there are stages to reading.  There are 3 basic levels to read.

1.  The first stage is when the child sounds out all the words.  b-a-t, bat. c-a-t, cat. r-a-t, rat!

2,  The next stage is when they start blending sounds they have become familiar with.  b-at,      

      bat. c-at, cat.  r-at, rat!

3.  The last stage for a child is when they start reading the word as a whole.  bat, cat, or rat!

My favorite way to help a visual learner remember words in a story, and help them 

advance quicker to reading words as a WHOLE, 

is with the use of a stop sign.  

{image via Spotonlists}

Starting with lesson 4 in the Beginning Reader Mini Books I talk about a stop sign.  I ask the child, 

"When you come to a stop sign what do you do?"

You STOP!  

Just like the stop sign, there are STOP WORDS.  These words don't sound out --you stop and just say it!  You can simply tell the child these stop words. (often called sight words or gel words)

In the book 4 of the mini reader I introduce the word 'the'.  THE is a STOP WORD.  Ask the child how many times they can find the word 'THE' in the story.  Color all the 'the' words RED!  Just like the stop sign.

the.

Next I talk about the name in the story.  In story lesson 4 the name we talk about is SAM.  Read the word Sam.  I then would ask the child, "Do you know anyone named Sam?"  (trying to help the child find BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE helps the child to remember a word better)

Today we are going to color all the words SAM Yellow!  Yellow is the color that makes you slow down and think.

Sam.

Next we talk about the green light.  Green means Go!  Green words you know!  You've learned them before, and you've sounded them out many times.  Go ahead and just say the word.  In lesson 4 the word 'at' is a word they have seen before and know.

at.

I know I've talked about this concept with using colors to read HERE, but today I wanted to go step by step with you...just so I know you feel confident with the idea!  

Here is an example of the story lesson 4 in the Beginning Reader Mini Book.

As you continue reading the stories in the Mini Reader with your preschooler feel free to use different colors for the names.  For example in story lesson number 10 you may choose PINK for Pam and BLUE for Sam because the child thinks those characters would like those colors.  BUT, I don't change the STOP WORD color.  Always keep the sight words RED to remind the child to just say the word.

Hope that helps y'all today!  ---Did any of you know I was born in Georgia?  Yep!  That's me your neighborhood Georgia Peach!  

Till next time friends.