pre-reading

  • Airplane Books

    Airplane Books for Preschool

    Airplane week is in full swing, but let me tell you, choosing books for this week was a bit of a challenge. Books about airplanes can easily get way too technical for young children, and sometimes they are a little too history-heavy for little ones who don’t have an understanding of the concept of past and present. Here are the books that we chose (all links are affiliates). Planes – National Geographic Kids I Want to be a Pilot – Peter J Eyewitness Flight – DK Books We Are Going on an Airplane – Mavis Camellia Ask a Pilot – Justin Kelley

  • Preschool Birthday Books

    Birthday Books for Preschool

    On Wednesday I shared all of the birthday activities that we’re enjoying this week. Here are the books that we’re using to support our birthday theme (all links are affiliates). The Berenstain Bears Too Many Birthdays – Stan Berenstain Happy Birthday to You – Dr. Seuss The Birthday Book – Todd Parr Happy Birthday Cupcake – Terry Border Weird but True: Birthdays – National Geographic Kids

  • preschool books 2023

    What I’m Loving at the Scholastic Book Fair

    I spent yesterday morning helping with the Scholastic Book Fair at my daughter’s school. I don’t know what it is about a book fair, but Scholastic has really cornered the market on getting kids excited about buying books. I have fond memories of LOVING the book fair as a kid, and the students that I helped this week had that same enthusiasm. If I’m being honest, I was still a little giddy about getting my hands on some new books. I found some amazing new offerings that would be wonderful additions to any classroom library. I’m linking my favorites below – and I’m not being compensated in any way for…

  • Teaching preschoolers to read

    Introducing CVC Words in Preschool – Resources

    There are SO MANY different activities that you can do with CVC words – just do a quick Pinterest search, it’s a little overwhelming! After trying a ton of these in the classroom, I realized that I really needed some activities that could be used any time of year, and that were easy to store. Here are the resources I’ve created and use regularly for practicing CVC words: CVC Ring Books – These are the best because the pieces are all self-contained, and they’re really easy for children to use independently. The large colored strip has the word family ending, and the smaller white boxes have a variety of letters…

  • Preschool Reading

    Teaching CVC Words in Preschool

    Earlier this week I shared my thoughts on reading instruction and it’s place in the preschool classroom. One of the strategies that I’m a huge fan of is introducing CVC words. So let’s go back to basics for a minute and explore what CVC words actually are. These are words that follow a consonant-vowel-consonant pattern (hence the CVC abbreviation). These words fall into “word families” with words in the same family ending with the same vowel and consonant. For example, the -at family includes the words bat, cat, hat, and rat. CVC word families are generally introduced by consonant sound, with short a words first. Before children are ready for…

  • Teaching Preschoolers to Read

    Should Learning to Read Happen in Preschool?

    Most early childhood educators would agree that learning about language is a lifelong process – we begin hearing and decoding words at birth, and continuous growth happens from that moment! But when you specifically ask if preschoolers should be taught to read, you’ll get a wide variety of different answers. The truth is that preschoolers are already learning to read – whether we intentionally introduce activities that support this or not – they notice letters, the ways that these are oriented on the page, how combining them creates words, and that letters can be strung together and used to share information. These are foundational pieces for sure! My answer to…

  • Preschool activities that promote sound segmenting

    It’s Wednesday, and here at Preschool Ponderings, that means time to focus on the standards.  Every Wednesday I choose an Early Learning Standard and share a number of activities that can be aligned with that particular standard.  Remember, the Standards that I use every day, and am most comfortable with are Ohio’s Early Learning Development Standards – you can review them here, however I’ve found that even if your State’s standards differ, many of these activities can still be aligned similarly. I’ve rounded up some great ideas today! Domain: Language and LiteracyStrand: ReadingTopic: Phonological AwarenessPhonological awareness is all about recognizing the different sounds that make up words, and all of the…

  • Sound Blending in Preschool

    It’s Wednesday, and here at Preschool Ponderings, that means time to focus on the standards.  Every Wednesday I choose an Early Learning Standard and share a number of activities that can be aligned with that particular standard.  Remember, the Standards that I use every day, and am most comfortable with are Ohio’s Early Learning Development Standards – you can review them here, however I’ve found that even if your State’s standards differ, many of these activities can still be aligned similarly. I’ve rounded up some great ideas today! Domain: Language and LiteracyStrand: ReadingTopic: Phonological AwarenessPhonological awareness is all about recognizing the different sounds that make up words, and all of the…

  • Activities to practice syllable recognition

    It’s Wednesday, and here at Preschool Ponderings, that means time to focus on the standards.  Every Wednesday I choose an Early Learning Standard and share a number of activities that can be aligned with that particular standard.  Remember, the Standards that I use every day, and am most comfortable with are Ohio’s Early Learning Development Standards – you can review them here, however I’ve found that even if your State’s standards differ, many of these activities can still be aligned similarly. I’ve rounded up some great ideas today! Domain: Language and LiteracyStrand: ReadingTopic: Phonological AwarenessPhonological awareness is all about recognizing the different sounds that make up words, and all of the…

  • Preschool activities to practice rhyming

    It’s Wednesday, and here at Preschool Ponderings, that means time to focus on the standards.  Every Wednesday I choose an Early Learning Standard and share a number of activities that can be aligned with that particular standard.  Remember, the Standards that I use every day, and am most comfortable with are Ohio’s Early Learning Development Standards – you can review them here, however I’ve found that even if your State’s standards differ, many of these activities can still be aligned similarly. I’ve rounded up some great ideas today! Domain: Language and LiteracyStrand: ReadingTopic: Phonological AwarenessPhonological awareness is all about recognizing the different sounds that make up words, and all of the…