🔊That magic moment when the letters and their sounds become words and their meanings!✨

Kindergarteners are working with CVC words to blend letters and phonemes together to make words. CVC words (three letter, one-syllable words with the spelling pattern Consonant - Vowel - Consonant) are so powerful for beginning readers because they strongly reinforce letter-sound recognition and encourage students to sound out and blend each letter sound. While texts like the Bob Readers are simple and repetitive, they are specifically designed to encourage phonemic understanding: the words and sound patterns change just enough that kids avoid guessing and must instead sound each letter and word out. Our goal is to have kids putting letter sounds together to gain access to the meaning.

P.S. At PCS, Kindergarten is most decidedly NOT first grade. And, while reading training is not a requirement, we do most definitely follow the children — and when they express an interest in reading we offer developmentally appropriate skill practice to meet their interest! This class of Kindergarteners has been thriving in a literacy rich environment, and they were feeling ready to take the next step. They are loving being able to make the leap from sounds and letter names to words and meaning. We’ll see where they (and we) go from here! But there’s no pressure for their reading to progress past their readiness.