Because of these challenges, parents should be ready to help their children make the transition to first grade by anticipating that children will come home quite tired for several weeks and by keeping teachers informed of any special concerns. By working together, parents and teachers can help children feel successful as they acquire the work habits and attitudes that become the foundation for future learning. Our first grade combines a Shared Reading Program with a Direct Teaching Technique. In a Shared Reading Program, we often use 'Big Books' so that all of the children can see the text and pictures and 'read along' with the teacher. At the beginning of the school year, children become familiar with reading from left to right, capitalization, punctuation, word spacing, and letters.
Independent reading is also a part of every day.
At the beginning of the school year, children are encouraged to 'read' books through their pictures, as well as reading 'stories' with the words or sounds they have been taught. They also have books available to them that the teacher has read to them. As the year progresses, they have the opportunity to select form a wide variety of books available to them in the classroom during the independent reading time each day. This tends to make children better listeners and enthusiastic readers and writers. By presenting whole books to children and allowing them to become very familiar with them, children will learn to recognize familiar parts in unfamiliar written matter and begin to pull the process together.