First Grade Reading Curriculum

If you’re looking for the right Atlanta, Georgia private school for your first grader, one of the first things you should ask about is the reading curriculum. Perhaps more than any other aspect of education, reading matters. And studies show that early, systematic reading instruction can have a tremendous influence on a child’s overall academic success.

The Crucial Year

Although many parents don’t consider first grade to be a crucial year, an article in American Educator clarifies this misconception. It states, “Children who are destined to be poor readers in fourth grade almost invariably have difficulties in kindergarten and first grade with phonological skills.”

The article goes on to explain how the spiral deepens with each passing year, hindering a student’s ability to build vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency. It concludes that “children who are poor readers at the end of the first grade almost never acquire average-level reading skills by the end of elementary school.”

Beyond that, reading can affect a child’s overall well-being. Reading difficulties are associated with lower self-esteem, and studies have even shown that those with low literacy reported poor physical health at twice the rate of those with adequate literacy.

These findings can be alarming to those who focused on social and emotional development in those early years. However, it is not too late to catch up. We want to prevent this reading gap from widening to the point where it is irreparable.

If you haven’t joined The Academy of Scholars for the Pre-K and Kindergarten years, now is the time to join. We understand how crucial first grade is in building strong readers, and we’ve designed our first-grade reading program accordingly, placing a strong emphasis on foundational reading skills.

Signs of a Strong First Grade Reading Curriculum

So how do you find a reading program that will keep your child out of the bottom two-thirds? Don’t compromise on the following features. We’ve seen these reading interventions for first graders work wonders at The Academy of Scholars as we’ve helped countless students become capable and confident readers.

An Early Emphasis

Whether or not the reading process is a natural one, it can be taught, but early instruction makes all the difference. Researchers suggest that 95% of children can learn to read by the completion of first grade with the right type of reading instruction.

Reading can be taught later, but according to Louisa Moats, former site director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Early Interventions Project, teaching children to master reading later involves significantly more “time, effort, and emotional strain” (for both the pupil and the teacher.) A strong reading curriculum values these consequences and focuses on cultivating proficient readers from an early age.

Systematic Instruction

Ever heard that more reading produces better readers? Perhaps in some cases, but in general, there’s much more to it than that. There’s overwhelming evidence that students need systematic instruction on phonemic awareness (the separate sounds within words), phonics (phoneme to grapheme), and common spelling patterns.

When these common skills are explicitly taught, students can apply them when decoding words while reading or spelling. This also diminishes the likelihood of students memorizing or guessing unfamiliar words.

Research-based Instruction

For a long time, many educators embraced an approach to reading known as “whole language.” This approach flies in the face of phonics, encouraging students to make sense of words “holistically” by assessing them in context. It pushed back against the idea that students must systematically decode words by seeing their smaller parts and sequencing them together.

The whole language method of instruction encouraged guessing and memorization, which are not beneficial skills to apply when encountering new words or texts. Some people still embrace whole language instruction, even though research has discredited it.

Research matters, and the preponderance of research shows that phonemic awareness/phonics-based reading programs at the earliest ages open the greatest opportunity for reading success. Schools that operate on “tradition” or “assumptions” rather than scientific research will likely miss the mark. At The Academy of Scholars, we rely exclusively on research-based reading instruction methodologies.

Attention to All Aspects of Reading

Some programs drill phonemic awareness so that students can identify sounds in isolation. This is a crucial first step, but just because a student can recognize the different sounds within a word doesn’t mean they can sequence them together properly. There must be an emphasis on sound sequencing, recognition of common spelling patterns, direct instruction on recurring units of language, and practice in order to achieve optimal reading accuracy and fluency.

Beyond that, students need plenty of exposure to reading content to become proficient readers. They also need to build vocabulary, learn sentence structure, and deepen their subject matter knowledge. Without these reading comprehension strategies for first graders, students will lag in deriving meaning from text.

Reading is a whole package, and if you neglect part of it, reading skills will suffer. Look for a comprehensive first grade reading curriculum here in Decatur, Georgia, that hits all the bases.

Teacher Training

Although it is a great start to have a comprehensive reading curriculum, it is not sufficient to develop skilled readers. You also need skilled teachers.

At The Academy of Scholars, our teachers receive intensive training in the most cutting-edge methods for providing daily, explicit, evidence-based reading instruction. The methodology includes phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, comprehension building, grammar, fluency practice, writing, and more.

Shifting to Phonics

By first grade our goal is to have created early readers. This means we have set a strong foundation in their phonological and phonemic awareness to the point that this emphasis could shift to phonics.

Since we raised the expectation bar in kindergarten, we are able to continue having higher standards in the grades that follow. This means that students in first grade can apply their phonics skills when reading and writing. It also creates more autonomy because they can read more texts independently and express themselves clearly through their writing. Throughout their first grade year, we are preparing them for the upcoming years.

Key Concepts for a Successful First Grade Reading Curriculum

Here are the skills we focus on during the first grade year to foster accurate and fluent reading:

Phonemic Awareness

We do not generalize or assume that all students magically master their phonemic awareness the day they enter first grade. Phonemic awareness is an ongoing practice skill. Some students do not master rhyming words until the second grade. The amount of time dedicated to practicing phonemic awareness naturally declines in first grade because we have already placed such a heavy focus on it in the earlier years, but we give all students the opportunity to continue strengthening it.

Phonics

Phonics is the gateway to fluent reading. Phonics is where we tie sounds to corresponding letters. We allow students to review spelling with their short vowel sounds in consonant-vowel-consonant words. Throughout the year, students are exposed to more complex phonetic patterns such as long vowels, digraphs, and vowel teams. This is how students can quickly decode words (especially those that follow the same phonetic pattern) when reading and writing instead of relying on memorization.

Irregular Words

With the whole language approach, students were encouraged to memorize a long list of words often referred to as sight words. They explained that these words appeared frequently in text and did not always follow a phonetic pattern, so it was easier to just memorize them.

After many years of research, this approach has been discredited and associated with reading difficulties. The reality is that a large chunk of these words can be decoded.

At The Academy of Scholars, we focus on teaching simple words that follow a phonetic pattern and build up to more complex ones. We offer multiple opportunities for students to encounter and practice these words through multi-sensory activities to ensure that the words are stored in students’ long-term memories. These words then be easily decoded, which contributes to students’ reading fluency.

Fluency

If a student reads in a slow, labored way, the flow of understanding will be interrupted. That’s why fluency is so important for comprehension. Fluency development involves both reading familiar texts and being read to. Storytime helps students grasp the cadence and flow of fluent reading.

When building reading fluency, we are not only focusing on how many words students read per minute (rate), but also their accuracy and prosody (patterns of stress and intonation). When these elements work together, the meaning of the text will be clearer to the student.

Comprehension

At The Academy of Scholars, we build new skills upon the ones we’ve already strengthened. We understand that, above all, students need to be able to draw meaning from reading, and we make that happen through our first grade reading comprehension program.

To boost comprehension, we teach skills like predicting outcomes, sequencing events, summarizing, connecting cause and effect, prioritizing the most relevant information, drawing conclusions, inferring, and discerning the author’s purpose.

We also help students develop their vocabulary. No matter how well you can sound out a word, if you don’t know the meaning, your understanding of the text will suffer. Strong reading comprehension begins in first grade.

Library Science

Students will be more motivated to learn to read when they see what’s in it for them. Libraries are the perfect place for making that happen. From the youngest grades on up, our students are exposed to the magic of the library and immersed in books and publications that show how reading connects us to the outside world.

Students in first grade visit our school library weekly to check out or renew a book of their choice. Our media specialist helps guide each student in finding the right fit book, one that will challenge them without leading to frustration. At the end of the week, they can complete a 3 to 5-question comprehension activity to assess their understanding of the book they read.

We help our students learn all the fundamentals of books and research publications, from tables of contents to charts to glossaries. We expose kids to all kinds of written communications, from emails to web pages to news articles to encyclopedias. This variety opens up a world of possibilities and incentivizes students on their journey to master reading.

Why Not Wait?

First grade is the final opportunity to lay the proper foundation in early readers. In first grade, we still have time to help students develop good habits to become exceptional readers. The stakes are high when it comes to teaching our children to read. First grade is not too early for strategic reading instruction—it’s the prime time.

Contact us today to learn more about our first grade reading curriculum at our Atlanta private school.