“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Dr. Seuss
Learning to read is hard. First you have to learn all of the letters and the sounds they make. Then you learn that some of them make a second sound. Then, you learn that when you put two of them together, they make an entirely different sound! But despite all of these challenges, our 1st graders are doing it and they are doing it well.
Students have become masters at tapping out words to sound them out. They know a variety of diagraphs such as -ph, -wh, -ed, -ng, -sh, and -th. They have learned common letter combinations that we call “glued sounds” including -tion, -ung, -ing, -an, -at, and -all. Knowing these glued sounds allows students to sound out words faster as they are able to see that as one sound instead of having to identify every letter. First graders have used letter clues to identify trick words like “the” (why does that e say uh?). We have learned about Bossy R’s that make vowels say different sounds. We have learned about Magic E’s that make that vowel say their name. Learning to read is a struggle and it does not come naturally to most kids. Nevertheless, our kids are doing it and they are doing it better every day.
The best part of our reading journey is that our students are gaining confidence in their reading. We have volunteers every week that want to be the librarian and read a story to the class. Students ask if they can read a story that they have practiced sounding out in front of the class because they are proud of their achievements. Students constantly visit the classroom library so they can pick out a new book to read when they finish their work early. I am so happy that along with learning how to read, our students are learning to love to read. Way to go 1st grade!