Maybe this is your first year homeschooling. Your first or only child is starting Kindergarten programming at home. Perhaps you’re a veteran homeschool mom teaching your 3rd or 4th child how to read, and want more clarity around phonics instruction.
If we were chatting, mom to mom, and you asked me, “Melanie, do you have any alphabet tips for homeschool moms teaching Kindergarteners to read? I’ve already purchased a curriculum. I know there are thousands of alphabet worksheets I can print for tracing practice. Is there anything else I should know to help my daughter start reading?”
I’m so glad we’re chatting, because helping moms correctly model phonics skills to teach their beginning readers at home is exactly what I teach. Today, I’ll share my top 5 Alphabet Tips for homeschool Kindergarten reading.
5 Smart Alphabet Tips for Homeschool
Tip #1
Begin with phonemic awareness (use hand motions for engagement to orally blend and segment sounds into words).
Phonemic awareness is a listening phonics drill. Your child is focused and dialed in to hear each individual sound you say out loud to blend sounds he hears into whole words.
The 2nd phonemic awareness drill is oral segmenting. This is not a paper and pencil activity, but, a listening and hearing activity to segment each individual sound in a whole word.
Since phonemic awareness is an oral drill, you are not asking your child to spell yet. Your child’s ability to segment words into individual sounds is vital to his success as an independent speller.
Tip #2
Carefully teach letter sounds (no schwa). What is a schwa sound?
Tip #3
Introduce a handful of phonemes and graphemes at a time. If you overload your child with too many alphabet letters and sounds, your child ends up absorbing or processing very little.
Tip #4
Begin blending sounds visually using VC and CVC words right away. Intentionally teach certain letters and sounds that pair with simple blending and segmenting drills, now you’re teaching with intention.
Tip #5
Start segmenting sounds in whole VC and CVC words visually using only letters and sounds you’ve taught your child so far. Don’t wait until your child knows every single letter name and letter sound in the alphabet. Teach your child to segment sounds.
Now, it’s time to use the 5 alphabet tips for homeschool Kindergarten reading!
