This invaluable supplementary curriculum meets Reading First criteria and contains numerous classroom-ready activities designed to increase the phonemic awareness and preliteracy skills of preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade students.

Phonemic awareness--the understanding that words are made up of sounds--is essential to a child's early reading success. With this book, children gain this awareness through activities that are easy to teach and engaging. Children play with sounds through songs, rhymes, poetry, picture games, and other exercises. The activities cover the five basic levels of phonemic awareness: * the ability to hear rhymes and alliteration; * to do oddity tasks; * to orally blend word and split syllables; * to orally segment words; * to do phonemic manipulation tasks. Blends critical reading skills with joyful word play. For use with Grades K-2.

Experts are raving about this "must-have" resource for primary teachers that includes dozens of fun activities to help children listen to language and play with sounds. Activity cards can be cut out and laminated to create a handy reference file of fun ideas. A wide selection of reproducibles (picture cards, word cards, and manipulatives) is included.

Designed for kindergartners and first-graders, this proven plan for teaching phonological awareness features a developmentally sequenced, 11-week program that meets Reading First criteria.

Teaching phonemic awareness can be boring and repetitive in the hands of a teacher who wishes to just use a workbook approach. This delightful book packs loads of fun into 75 lesson plans, providing educators with myriad creative strategies for integrating word study with children's picture books. Each lesson includes a read-aloud book description, literacy experience activity, direct instruction, follow-up activities, recommended poem, and related reading. The lessons build skills in phonemic awareness, morphemic analysis, letter identification, rhyming, and sight words, through singing, dancing, games, art activities, cooking, and interesting experiences, as well as a wealth of humorous picture books. The early childhood teacher who is committed to making literacy development meaningful, and as much fun as possible, will enjoy the wealth of valuable material here. Grades K-2.

A devastatingly large number of people in America cannot read as well as they need for success in life. With literacy problems plaguing as many as four in ten children in America, this book discusses how best to help children succeed in reading. This book identifies the most important questions and explores the authoritative answers on the topic of how children can grow into readers, including: What are the key elements all children need in order to become good readers? What can parents and caregivers provide all children so that they are prepared for reading instruction by the time that they get to school? What concepts about language and literacy should be included in beginning reading instruction? How can we prevent reading difficulties starting with infants and into the early grades? What to ask school boards, principals, elected officials, and other policy makers who make decisions regarding early reading instruction. You'll find out how to help youngsters build word recognition, avoid comprehension problems, and moreâ€"with checklists of specific accomplishments to be expected at different ages: for very young children, for kindergarten students, and for first, second, and third grade students. Included are 55 activities to do with children to help them become successful readers, a list of recommended children's books, and a guide to CD-ROMs and websites. Great strides have been made recently toward identifying the best ways to teach children to read. Starting Out Right provides a wealth of knowledge based on a summary of extensive research. It is a "must read" for specialists in primary education as well as parents, pediatricians, child care providers, tutors, literacy advocates, policy makers, and teachers.

Help pre-school through Grade 1 students develop and reinforce beginning phonemic awareness skills. Games and activities for both whole class and small groups introduce developmentally-appropriate concepts in a fun and interactive way. The step-by-step directions are easily followed by classroom teachers, aids, or parent volunteers. Plus each book includes all patterns and game pieces to save prep time. Includes Teacher Resourc CD with full-color patterns. 176pp.