Basic words

I started to prepare my children for school by making them familiar with some of the basic words they use in beginning reading. I made books with these words and I made words cards with doubles of each word. I started with only five words and as my children recognized the words I added a couple at a time. With the word cards we played snap and memory (and much later we played Fish (but only when they could recognize and say they word i.e. read it!).

A beginning basic list: I, am, my, and, the, up, is, go, to, on, can, said, went, in, me, here

Further basic words: look, no, was, will, of, yes, for, at, all, he, she, house, out, play, saw, you, with, it, see

I also included: mum, dad and family names

It is heaps of fun playing snap and memory. I started with just recognizing the words and I would say it when they matched. Eventually they began to recognize and say the words themselves.


N.B.
Be aware that NOT EVERY CHILD is interested or ready to learn these. It MUST be kept fun and if your child isn't interested DON'T force them as this is the fastest way to turn them off learning and reading.

Make your own books

Its easy to make books with your pre-schoolers. You can get your children to draw pictures or you can use photographs you have taken. I made a mixture of stories with my own children. These included stories that were of their interests, that were about experiences they had, and we also made stories with simple repetitive text that used basic words that are used in early readers at school.

e.g. page 1- I am happy (picture happy face)
page 2- I am sad. (picture sad face)

e.g. photo- Jo is visiting her grandparents.
photo- Jo and Nana bake a cake.

e.g. This is a Stegasaurus. It has plates on its back. This is a triceratops. It has three horns on it's nose.

e.g. Write what your child tells you to write. This is a great one if you make up a booklet and get them to draw their story first.

The possibilities are endless so get creating!

Children love Repetitive Stories

Children love predictable stories and text. Stories with repetitive text are a great way to involve children of all ages in the process of reading. It is not important when children are pre-schoolers to be able to read words accurately. Young children are extremely good at memorizing text. What is important is to kick start children's interest and love of books and reading. Predictable, repetitive text helps hook them in. I bet there aren't too many of us adults that can't chant, "Then I'll huff and I'll puff..." or "Run, run as fast as you can...". The authors of these classics were onto something! Hence these have been much loved stories for generations.

Stories such as Hairy McLary from the wonderful New Zealand author Lynley Dodd are much loved favourites because every page has an opportunity for children to contribute to the story telling/reading process. Joy Cowley, another fab New Zealand author, also writes many books with repetitive text. An example of this is her 'Mrs Wishy Washy' series. Joy Cowley writes many of the school beginning readers that you will become familiar with when you have school children who are learning to read.Yet another great New Zealand author is Joy Watson who writes the 'Grandpa' series (Grandpa's cardigan, shed, cat, slippers, shorts).

If you have titles that you can recommend please post their titles by clicking on the comments link at the bottom of this posting. We would love to hear from you.