Tag: reading first grade

Monster Digraph Fun!

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I made this cute sheet to use during my 5 a-day reading lesson. You can read more about this on my Fruity Labels for Daily Readers post. It encourages children to hunt for and recognise digraphs in books that they are reading and is a good compliment to my Dainty Digraph Quilt activity. I ask my class to read their book twice. The first time is for the enjoyment of the story and the second time is to find as many Monster digraph words as they can and to write these words into the correct column. I made a double sided sheet for my class which meant that they were looking for lots of different digraphs. You could hand out just one sheet and have them complete that. Then you could save the other sheet for another day ;). Click here to download both sheets.

Clipart by DJInkers

This sheet would be useful at home or in school . The digraphs used as from the Jolly Phonics programme , but would compliment any phonics instruction. It would be a great “busy bee” activity sheet for earlier finishers too!

I have already used this sheet with my class and it got a thumbs up for cuteness! I hope that you have the same happy response 🙂

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh 🙂

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How do I pick a book that my child can read?

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How hard should the book be?How do I know if I am buying the right one? I am probably asked this question weekly by parents.

Picking a book to read to your child is pretty easy, finding one that he/she can read independently is a little trickier. Often parents think that should be stretching their child with a “hard book”. I get complaints about school “take home books” being “too easy”!

Children will learn sight words from regular reading. No one is disputing this. It is recommended that children read for up to 10minutes daily.If the books that they read are always challenging it may actually turn them off reading.  Reading at home should mostly be about “reading for fun”.

You might actually be surprised by the rule below. Only 2/10 unfamilar words  per page is considered the perfect level for both learning and enjoyment.

The 5 Finger Rule

Open a page in the middle of the book and read it using the 5 finger rule:

  • Make a fist.
  • Hold up one finger for every word that you find tricky

 

a) Too hard: 5 tricky words = Frustration

4 tricky words = Challenging/instructional level that we would use in school

b) Too easy 0-1 tricky words

 

 

c) Just right 2-3 words = Interest level

I made this cute little bookmark for you to downloadand stick into a book or onto a noticeboard for reference.

It is a really great idea to use this rule with your child so that in time he/she can actually make informed choices about what to read.

Clipart by DJInkers

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh 🙂