Plain and simple, you need both -but, that wouldn’t make for much of an opinion if I left things that way. In fact I think it does go deeper than a simple answer. In my opinion, it is best to start teaching using the sight words. Especially if you have a struggling reader. Most of […]
Teaching Vowel Sounds
I have a few fun posts lined up for this week and I am super excited about them! First, I want to teach you about teaching vowel sounds. Hearing the different sounds within a word is difficult. Learning to sound out words, and hear the correct vowel sounds can be hard and confusing. So, here […]
Nonsense Word fluency
On Monday I published a post on reading fluency, and what I thought was the “secret sauce” in helping your child learn to read fluently. Today I wanted to talk about nonsense word fluency. Is it important for little readers to be able to read nonsense words fluently? What are some things we can do […]
How to help struggling readers
My mother, Mrs. Karle, who wrote this program, was a reading specialist. She taught for 25 years and many people called her the reading doctor. If first through third grade students were struggling with reading, they would assign those students to her. The students would go to her classroom for 1/2 hour each day and […]
Should I redshirt?
This post originally appeared on The Good Men Project. Does a high success rate in kindergarten all come down to your child’s birthday? I am inclined to say yes, and here is why: Redshirting is the term used to describe when a parent delays her child’s entrance into kindergarten by one year so that the […]
What is phonics?
Many parents of little readers often ask the question “what is phonics?” They may ask if their child needs to know phonics in order to learn to read, or how old their child has to be learn phonics. I hope to answer a few of those questions today. Phonics is a method in which a […]
What is concept of book?
Concept of book is a very important concept to pay attention to when you are trying to decide whether your student is ready to read. Concept of book is a type of concept of print. Several of the questions we ask on our free reading readiness test assesses a student’s concept of book and concept […]
What is phonemic awareness?
What is phonemic awareness and why is it important when learning how to read? A student has phonemic awareness/is phonemic aware if the student can hear, identify, and manipulate sounds in the SPOKEN word. Students understand that words are made up of sounds. The student understands that the different sounds in a word makes the […]
How to teach the sight words
As many of you know, Mrs. Karle’s learn to read for free program teaches children to ready by introducing new sight words each day. When children feel confident about the words they have learned, the student then moves on to the next day to learn the new words that she introduces. Children slowly learn and […]
When is my child ready to read?
Many times I am asked the question, “When is my child ready to read and start your program?”. One way to determine if a child is ready to read is through a reading readiness test – (find a free reading readiness test here). Today,though, I thought I would give a candid answer from my […]