Forming the foundation for reading is the most important thing your child can gain in Kindergarten.  If a child cannot read well, they will struggle with all other subjects later in life. One of the main focuses of Kindergarten is Literacy.  A typical lesson begins with a phonemic awareness/ phonics skill, a story, a comprehension activity and then guided reading groups and literacy centers.  Each Unit will focus on a different skill that will be reinforced in their independent center work.  Their center work will be sent home on a weekly basis.

Examples of some literacy centers your child may experience are as follows:

1. Writing Center: Students will practice writing lists, labelling a picture, writing stories, and making cards.  Creativity and imagination is welcome at this center!
2. Writing the Room:  Students will use clipboards to search the room for words.  This center will progress in difficulty as the year goes on. 
3. Magnets:  Students will use different magnets to correlate the skill of the week.  They may be asked to match rhyming pictures, spell word family words or build sentences with word magnets.  There will be a recording sheet where they can show what they made with the magnets when they are done.
4. Computer: Students will learn how to use the computer for different literacy games and also Microsoft word to type. We will also be using RAZZ kids on a daily basis on Ipads.  In the beginning of the year, students will be asked to type their ABC’s or words they have learned.  Later in the year, they will be given tiered/theme related word lists and will be asked to type sentences/mini stories from the lists.  After they can print and illustrate.
5. Word Work: Students will work with sight words and word family words at this center. Students may be asked to build words with tiles, stamps, play word games and do word search activities.
6. Stamps: Students will use stamps for all phonics skills.  They will match rhyming words, fill in missing sounds in words, stamp different words and even stamp out sentences.
7. Sentence Building: Students will be asked to build sentence starters, word cards and sentence building games. Students will record their sentences and illustrate them.  They will be asked to read their sentences to a friend or the teacher/aide when they are finished.

 

8. Reading: Students will read different books (on their independent reading level) based on the theme we are studying.  They will do a reading response on the story which will require them to write about the story and draw their favorite part. We will be using story maps and graphic organizers.
9. Games: Students will play different games that could be theme related or comprehension or phonics games.

 

While the students are at Literacy Centers, this will be the time for GUIDED READING GROUPS. Each student will visit the Meet with Miss Alison center 3-4 times each week.  In their guided reading group they will working on specific reading strategies and working with books on their instructional level. Students will also be meeting with Miss Alison and our Aides for small group skill work.