Best things to help my nearly 6 year old daughter with reading/sight words over the holidays? I'm gutted with my daughter's prep report card, not just academically but behaviourally. I'm feeling really disappointed that the teacher didn't communicate that her conduct hasn't been that great (respect for others, looking after property, working well in groups - all with the result 'sometimes' not 'consistently' or even 'frequently'). My daughter is quite shy but can be chatty when she's comfortable in her environment. Her reading ability & comprehension is quite low and I really want to help her with this before she hits grade one. We read with her and our other kids every night but am after other ideas. Also will get her back on reading eggs. She has some speech problems and we're waiting for the appointment to come thru for the speech pathologist. Any advice or thoughts from others in similar circumstances would be appreciated.
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If your waiting for the public speech therapist don't, go private. Reading and speech problems are very closely linked. So the faster the speech is worked on the better. Also make sure she knows her letter sounds and can recognise them fluently and can say them correctly as that can improve reading ability. Then do the same with common blends. She also needs to be able to write each sound and blend when she hears it said.
don't worry about the sight words /reading ..she is still small and every child learns at own rate.. just keep having fun Make books a pleasure.. my child attends a Steiner school and they don't start reading maths until the year they turn seven! @there is a lot of evidence that starting later is better for whole brain and emotional development..many European countries only start at 7 yrs.. many teachers and parents think this push with the new national curriculum to learn so manysight words so young is creating stress and pressure on both parents and kids..whose main job should be play! please research this further.. there are some really good articles around..you don't have to not do any reading writing either..we do and my 5 ye old loves to write letters words friends names..we even do readingeggs sometimes.. but with no pressure .. imaginative play..music..rhymes..movement.. fun
get her to read to you. the easier books to start and go from there. you can also do this when you are out pick words of places to get her to find and point out. reading eggs is good as well but knowing what words she needs to learn from this year and next year will put her forward before she gets to the next grade, start the year off with telling the teacher straight you want to know any differences or changes as they can be much different from what you expect or see at home. as for speech any words she has trouble with get her to slow down and sound out and pathologist will help with this more but it can start you off