This morning my son was reading aloud to me from the Star Wars Craft book I had picked up at the library (that book could be an art curriculum for an entire school year) and he got to a step that included "Bee Gee" fabric. Hmmm... I thought... quickly ruling out the idea of 60s rock band patterned fabric, I realized he meant BEIGE! Oh, yes, good old beige. We've had to drill this new word all morning, as he'd obviously been reading it wrong to himself for a while. This reinforced to me the idea of having your child read aloud to you or to their siblings while you are listening, even when they are fluent readers and it seems easy enough to let them read silently to themselves. And proves once again that sounding out, while helpful, has its limitations.
Dictionary skills can come in very handy when children get to higher reading levels. When they are reading more complex texts, they will encounter difficult words that are unfamiliar. A lot of online dictionaries even have an audio pronunciation that you can listen to if the dictionary symbols are difficult. Reading is a great way to expand vocabularies at a higher reading level because books and news articles often use words that are not used in ordinary conversation.
Here is a handy resource if you'd like to know more about phonemic awareness (knowing the sounds that are made by combinations of letters). There are 26 letters in the English language, but check out this list of sounds. http://www.edalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/BTRS-Phonemic-Foundation.pdf
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