Teaching Reading Level 3

Once children can recognize and say the names of all the letters, make their primary sounds, and read one- letter words (A, I) and two-letter lowng-vowel words (be, he, me, we, go, no, so), they are ready to learn some secondary letter sounds and begin putting two- and three-letter short vowel words together.

Use the color coded system found in the files here. Using color, rather than symbols, to differentiate between long and short vowels is a much more natural method for young children.

Continue to use the hard C (cat, not circle) and G (goat, not giraffe) sounds only.

The goals at this third level are for children to be able to:

❖Name the lowercase letters when pointed to and say their sounds

❖Locate a named letter within a group of lowercase letters (Where is w?)

❖Copy their own first and last name when written with initial capital and lowercase letters

❖Recognize and read two-and three-letter short-vowel words in texts

Sight Words:

If teaching in a classroom setting, try this schedule:

Week 1: Review Level 1 & 2 Words

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Week 2-5: Short A Words/Sight Word AND

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Week 6-9: Short E Words/Sight Word THE

Week 10-13: Short I Words/Sight Word YOU

Week 14-17: Short O Words/Sight Word TO

Week 18-21: Short U Words/Sight Word HAVE

Week 22-23: FLOSS Words/Sight Word OF

Week 24: Hard S/Sight Word WAS

Week 25: Adding -S/Sight Word WAS

Week 26: Adding -ES/Sight Word WAS

Week 27-28: Ending CK/Sight Word SAID

Week 29-30: CH/Sight Word SAYS

Week 31-32: SH/Sight Word DO

Week 33-34: TH/Sight Word DOES

Week 35: Hard TH/Sight Word WHAT

Week 36: QU

Week 37: WH

Week 38: Sight Word Review

“You are a reader now!“

Together, hunt for new words in your child’s books and highlight them as they are learned. When you read to your child, point to the words and each time you reach a highlighted word, say, “Look, it’s yellow. That means this is a word you know. You can read this word.” Help your child to sound out the word and give lots of praise. Continue in the same way each time a new word is added. To make it easier to identify sight words, consider highlighting them: Sight Word Review in a different color than sound-out words.