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Dear Families,

Skills in literacy are important for your child/children to have


because they are the foundation for reading and writing. The five
components of literacy are fluency, comprehension, vocabulary,
phonics and phonemic awareness. In this newsletter, you will find
a description for each of the five components of literacy. Also
included in this newsletter are different activities that you and your
child can complete in order to work
on their literacy skills. Some of the
literacy activities can be found online and others can be
completed without a computer. Please take some time to read over this newsletter and try out
some of the included activities.
Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate individual sounds in words.
There is also an understanding that spoken words are made up of individual sounds. For young
children it can be hard for them to understand that words are made up of different sounds.
Phonemic Awareness Activity 1: M&M Phonemes
o Give your child a pile of M&Ms (or something to use as a replacement), then
give you child words that follow the Consonant-Vowel-Consonant form for
example BAT.
o As your child identifies the different sound in the word, have them place an
M&M into the line
B A T


Phonemic Awareness Activity 2: Word World- Dogs Letter Pit
o When prompted, children click on the letter that matches given sound to make
words
o http://pbskids.org/island/preview/gamepreview.html?ww-letterpit








http://www.k-
3teacherresources.com/printable_fl
ashcards.html#.VCMxl_ldWSo

Phonics is learning the relationship between letters and their sounds as well as remembering the
letter patterns and sequencing for these sounds. In order for students to read both independently
and be able to get meaning out of their reading, they need to know the relationships between 44
different speech sounds and the different spellings that represent these sounds.
Phonics Activity 1: Name that Letter/Say that Sound
o Make a card for each letter of the alphabet
o Hold up a letter and have your child tell you what that letter is and the sound that
the letter makes.
Phonics Activity 2: A B C D Watermelon
o Children click on the letter that comes next in the alphabet
o http://pbskids.org/lions/games/abcd.html







Fluency is the accurate and rapid naming or reading of letters, sounds, words, sentences or
passages. Fluency develops over time and begins with the early stages of reading. To become
fluent students need to learn to decode words rapidly and accurately, in isolation as well as in
connected text, and to increase reading speed while maintaining accuracy.
Fluency Activity 1: Echo Reading
o Read a section of a book out loud to your child, having them follow along
o Have them read the passage you just read using the same pace that you used
Fluency Activity 2: Super Why! SUPER WHYs READING CHALLENGE
o Students read the given sentences and click on the sentence that matches what is
happening in the picture
o http://pbskids.org/island/preview/gamepreview.html?superwhy-challengewhy




Vocabulary helps students with their general reading comprehension. Oral vocabulary
represents words that students learn to understand by listening to others speak and by using these
words themselves. Reading vocabulary consists of the words that students understand when they
read them in text.
Vocabulary Activity 1: Elaborating Words
o Give your child a sentence and under line a word like The dog chased the cat.
o Have you child write at least one descriptive word for the underlined word. For
example large
Vocabulary Activity 2: Abbys Adventure Game
o Children learn new vocabulary words by clicking on objects that match the sound
Abby gives them
o http://pbskids.org/sesame/games/abbys-adventure-game/







Comprehension: is the process of creating meaning from text that you read. Comprehension
includes applying your knowledge and experiences to the text as well as drawing logical
conclusions from the reading.
Comprehension Activity 1: Making Predictions
o Pick a book for your child to read.
o Have them flip through the book before reading
o Ask your child to make a prediction about what will happen in the book
Comprehension Activity 2: Comprehension
o Pick a story to read from the list
o Read the story and answer the questions that follow
o http://www.turtlediary.com/grade-1-games/ela-games/a-tigers-cub.html




References
PBS kids. (1995). Retrieved from http://pbskids.org/
PBS kids island. (2014). Retrieved from http://pbskids.org/island/about/partners.html
Turtle diary. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.turtlediary.com/
Vaughn, S., & Linan-Thompson, S. (2004). Research-based methods of reading instruction
grades k-3. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

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