In the Time of Waiting…
Waiting doesn’t come easy, for any of us. Whether we are children or adults. It’s a difficult task, especially when you know that what comes next may be life-changing.
If your child is on the waiting list* for a reading tutor here at Dyslexia Reading Connection, we have some ideas for you that will be beneficial for your child as they wait for their start date.
Recommendations for Younger Students
- Ensure upper and lower case letter recognition, which can be accomplished through a variety of games. Here are a couple of ideas:
- I Spy: As you’re out and about, you can play “I Spy” with letters. “I spy a lowercase t.” “I spy an uppercase G.”
- Post-it Game: Write 1 letter per post-it note, a variety of upper and lowercase. Post them all around the house. Then give the child a flashlight, turn off all the lights in the house, and tell them to go find “an uppercase B”, etc.
- Ensure fluent handwriting skills for upper and lower case letters.
- Letters should be made from the top to the bottom.
- Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK_sHQgN94M (First couple minutes are for letters. Numbers are the second half.)
- Letters should be made from the top to the bottom.
- Handwriting Without Tears is an excellent curriculum for handwriting practice. https://shopping.lwtears.com/product/MPB/handwriting
- Practice identifying first or last sounds in words
- “What’s the first sound in the word POOL?”
- “What’s the last sound in the word PARK?”
- Car game: Everyone in the car comes up with a word that starts with /a/. Then move on to /b/. Keep playing through the alphabet.
- Practice correct letter sounds, trying to avoid adding /uh/ to the end of letters. The following videos make the letter sounds correctly.
Being solid on this material will help your child make quicker progress through the Foundation in Sounds™ program as well as the first few levels of the Barton Reading & Spelling System. Good luck, and we hope to see you soon!
*These suggestions will apply to any student on our reading waitlist or any 4-6-year-old child who needs to practice their letter recognition and phonics skills.