First grade has been very busy learning about short vowels, blends, and diagraphs. Blends and diagraphs are those beginning consonant sounds that can occur at the beginning of words such as "tr" in "truck" or "cl" in "clock." Diagraphs are also knows in school as the "h" brothers. This includes "ch, sh, and th" like in the words "chick, wish, and this." It's tricky learning all about these different letter combinations!
Why is this important? You need to understand how words work in order to read them! Many people think the English language is very hard to learn, but in actuality, there are more patterns and rules than exceptions. Learning these can be the key to unlocking reading!
In second grade, we've upped the ante by discussing all long vowel patterns including magic "e" words as vowel teams (such as "ea" in "team.") These changes make the vowels say their long sound. We've also spent a lot of time discussing syllable types and how to break words down.
Why is this important? Believe it or not, once you learn the seven syllable types (closed syllables show us the vowel is short like in the word "cat", and both the magic e ad vowel team syllable tell us the vowel sound is long....we have learned 3 of the 7 syllable types so far,) and how to break a word apart, you can read almost any word in the English language! Of course, we're also introducing prefixes and suffixes (which have Latin and Greek origin,) but with yearly exposure to all of these things, there is no word in the English language you can't read and understand! Really! It's true! As students learn this, they can read anything someday!
Both first and second grade students are reading non-fiction text, and working on finding the main idea, as well as comparing and contrasting two books on the same subject (eg. sharks.)
Why is this important? It's not enough to be able to read the words, but you also have to understand the author's message and be able to think critically about what you're reading. This is just the beginning of the reading journey!
