Early Reading

When children are first learning to read at Magenta, we gift them the pattern of the language. What you are focusing on is now that they know the pattern you expect them to say the pattern. They should be pointing to the word. 

Magenta- What you say you must see, What you see you must say.

You said the, do you see the? They are pointing to nothing or on top of the word. Hold their finger. 

You should be reducing what you are saying. Can you hear me tap, I want to hear you tap. 

Sometime children at these levels will add words. The prompt for this is cover and "Have you run out of words to see?"

If they don't read all the words "Have you run out of words to say?"

We are reinforcing high frequency words You said.......can you see? on correct words first before you check on words they get wrong. 

Developing and reinforcing letter sound knowledge. You said ....... What would you expect to see for......? Are you right?"

This is an important foundation for reading knowing, direction, orientation and sequence. 

Word work:

Making and breaking high frequency word, I want you to make the word come. Find it in the book and make it. break it make it many times. Write it, check, rewrite. 

Making word: Always go make to the word they known word. Not, spot, dot, hot. Ask one child to make the word and them everyone says it. This can be done in the text or at the end of the text. 

Once children have these skills you are giving them options to check from. This again reinforces letter sounds and what I say I must see. 

Sometimes it is best to gift the correct word especially if the words start with the same letter for example waves and water. You said She ran in the water. This says "she ran in the waves" We know it is waves because it had v in the middle. 

Every time you prompt and fix is a great time to get them to read it again with the prompt read it like they are talking. Fluency develops through practice. Try putting these three words together, "The boy went" Then the next part "up the hill." Then put it all together. 

We want children reading for meaning and a huge part of this is rereading the sentence after finding. 

When they are stuck: 

"Try again and think....."

"Try again and think who runs down the hill."

When a text is a bit of a struggle, you might choose to read the texts together at the end it unison. "We are going to read this again like speaking." 

Helen said when she has a group come to her, she gets them to read the book from the day before then. She marks off their homework book. Then she does flashcards of sight words before her orientation.