It's spring at last! At Wise Wonder, we love this time of year and the symbolism of celebrating our budding learners and blossoming readers.

 

As we move into this final season of the school year, our Kinder Hoot learners are strengthening the literary muscles: we are solidifying letter formation, understanding of story structure, and continuing our journey of blending sounds. We are adding more sight words to our repertoire and preparing to step into independent reading in Kindergarten and beyond.      

 

A core focus on the Wise Wonder program is to build confidence and foster a love of reading. 

 

For our Kinder Hoots, who are preparing for Kindergarten and working on their independent reading levels, cultivating this confidence is key to boosting their conviction and curiosity.

 

At Wise Wonder, we use word families to promote this confidence, and give our young readers a gateway into more challenging lessons. 

 

Every week we start by identifying a new word family. We repeat, repeat, repeat, until the sounds are like a song in our students' minds! Next, we look at a short passage that incorporates all the rhyming words we just practiced. The longer, unfamiliar passage is like a new, unexplored house, but the familiar words are the window our students can peek through, giving them access to a new learning landscape! 

 

Equipping our children with words, sounds, letters, and blends that they recognize, will give them more confidence and inspire them to keep their eyes on the page as they begin to read independently for the first time.