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There’s no denying that kids these days are immersed in technology, sometimes to the point where we have trouble keeping up with them. While there are many online programs available for home use that are educational and entertaining, different priorities should be considered when purchasing resources for the classroom. Reading programs for kindergarten, like those developed by Essential Skills, will offer many features that are useful to classroom teachers.

The ways in which we help struggling students have been evolving and are now proving to be beneficial at preventing children from developing full-scale learning disabilities. Until recently, children were not given special help until fourth grade. It was thought that many children with difficulties would outgrow them. If a child was “identified” they were often placed in special classes and even received different curriculum.

Many people don’t even know what phonemes are, let alone the importance of phonemic awareness to young minds. The very first stages of language development in young children relies upon the awareness of differences in sounds. As children develop, phonemes combine to make meaningful speech patterns and eventually are teamed with letters to form written words. Essential Skills has developed phonemic awareness activities that can be used online with kindergarten students to help develop their phonemic awareness. In class, there are some other activities and tips to help young students with phonemic skills.

1. Give your whole class the same starting line. When working with children who have learning disorders, and especially those with autism, many teachers are tempted to create specialized curricula for them. All kids should be taught according to the curriculum used by the school. Those who need extra help or accommodations can be offered these as necessary or as specified in IEPs. Autism tends to largely impact a student’s ability to communicate, so the use of reading programs for special education from Essential Skills can enhance lessons learned in the classroom.

Today’s world is full of screens wherever we go. We use computers for navigation, communication, education, and entertainment. Most of our classrooms reflect this new technology, which is far from the overhead projectors and VHS tapes of the previous generation. While there are still teachers out there who believe computers belong in the library, most classrooms of today contain interactive white boards, tablets, and even cell phones being used for solo or group learning experiences.

The key to much communication and education is reading. In order for a person to communicate effectively and acquire new knowledge successfully, they must have proficiency in both written and spoken language. As we age these tasks become automatic, but there are many steps for children to take to gain the fluency they need to continue their learning journey. It is important for educators to be aware of student successes and areas of weakness, and work with every child to help them advance.

There are a number of lists of sight words (most commonly used is Dolch) that comprise up to 50% of the words we read. These words differ from others because they don’t follow standard phonemic rules, making them difficult to decode using methods commonly taught in primary school. In addition, many of these words are not nouns or verbs that can be easily illustrated or even explained. This can make it more difficult for young children to remember these words.

Everyone knows the importance of learning reading skills early in life. Most children begin formal literacy lessons in kindergarten, but many skills are picked up even earlier. Reading time and bedtime stories, pointing out examples of text in the environment, and educational TV and computer programs help to develop the pre-reading skills needed for young children to progress to reading. What many people are unaware of is that these skills will help to form cognitive pathways that will continue to develop as a child gains aptitude. 

The end game for teachers of literacy is to produce a good reader. Reading fluency is key in this goal, ultimately reading for meaning without getting distracted by the mechanics of it. When kids must stop and decode every word, they are bound to become frustrated and confused.

Learning to read requires a number of skills and is a complex task for every child. Because autism usually goes hand in hand with communication disorders, it can be much more challenging to guide children with any ASD spectrum issues through the steps to literacy.