Practice Readers Books Blog — Learn to Read

Celebrate I Read Canadian Day with a reading of Letter Sounds Abound by author C. S. Young!

Originally posted July 11, 2022 on Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers My favorite words for a beginning reader would be the ones that allow them to practice the alphabetic knowledge they have (decode) to develop fluency, and those words that help them unlock a new aspect of the alphabetic code. The term ‘beginner reader’ is pretty general and can mean a lot of different things to different people. When writing books for beginners I often lean on Linnea Ehri’s phases of word learning, as the phases are readily recognizable and help me imagine how a book will be read. I believe...

Elkonin boxes feature prominently in many of our books.  But why?  Are they designed to create the next generation of Wheel of Fortune contestants? Elkonin boxes are used to help people (especially early readers) think through the sounds in words and how they connect to letters. The visual support of the box typically represents a sound in the target word (the corresponding sound may be represented by a single letter or combination of letters). If the target word is ‘cat’, for example, three empty boxes would be provided. A child can then think about what letters would make the corresponding...