Although the focus in the early grades is often on teaching young children how to read, the ultimate goal of reading is to understand the text—whether to learn new information or simply enjoy a story. Building the groundwork needed for this understanding starts right from the beginning of life—and it’s essential from the beginning of school. This article from American Educator details the kind of instruction that should be occurring in kindergarten to second-grade classrooms to support children's language comprehension, especially understanding written language when it is read aloud.

This infographic details questions parents and families can ask about monitoring progress, sharing information, and understanding the intervention plan their child is receiving.

This infographic, developed in collaboration with the Rhode Island Parent Information Network, provides an overview of intensive intervention including who, what, where, when, and how.

Watch this video and discover how your 3rd grader can build knowledge and learn from reading.

Family Literacy Videos targeted for families with Kindergarten students. The videos show families engaging their child in evidence-based literacy activities. The video playlist and corresponding document outlining the topics align with IES Practice Guides "A Kindergarten Teacher's Guide to Supporting Family Involvement in Foundational Reading Skills" and "Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten through Third Grade."

Reading expert Linda Farrell works with Aiko on a common letter reversal — confusing the letters ‘b’ and ‘d’. Ms. Farrell coaches Aiko to look at the letters during b/d practice and to look at the words while she works with Aiko to read short vowel words accurately.

Reading expert Linda Farrell works with Reese to master the name of every letter. She helps Reese sing the alphabet song clearly and with no mistakes. She teaches him to look carefully at letters as he names them. Ms. Farrell also helps Reese identify every letter of the alphabet accurately, including differentiating between letters that look similar (in Reese’s case, ‘y’ and ‘v’). Learning the name of every letter is a critical pre-reading skill.

This is a sample lesson with the objective that students will increase accuracy and rate in identifying known letter sounds.

This is a sample lesson with the objective that students will increase their fluency at identifying known letter sounds.

This one-pager game helps a child practice letter sounds quickly to build the letter-sound fluency necessary for proficient decoding.

Dr. Louisa Moats, reading expert and consultant, illustrates the difference between a phoneme and a letter and explains why it is important to teach phonological awareness skills in addition to letter knowledge.

This video from REL Midwest discusses the most effective evidence-based practices for identifying and assisting struggling readers.

The PDF offers suggestions for how parents of students in grades K-2 might support their child’s reading development at home. The PDF provides suggestions for both reading literature and information text as well as foundational skills.

This quick reference draws on What Works Clearinghouse™ practice guides to identify research-based instructional practices for supporting beginning readers, along with the level of evidence behind the practices and core literacy skills to target for early screening and progress monitoring.

This resource from the Institute for Education Sciences helps teachers and parents build children's phonological awareness. In this activity, students will take apart and put together onsets and rimes by matching picture puzzle pieces.

Reading experts explain why parents should create opportunities for their children to write.

This journal article details the four phases that children move through on their way to becoming confident readers.

This infographic shows that phonological awareness is like an umbrella. Rhyming, alliteration, sentence segmentation, syllables, onset and rime, and phonemic awareness all exist under this umbrella, with phonemic awareness being the most advanced skill of phonological awareness.

University of Michigan's Dyslexia Help Center provides samples phonological awareness activities that can be utilized by parents at home.

Many striving readers struggle with sight words. Reading expert Linda Farrell suggests this teaching sequence: first, be sure your child knows all the letter names, then all the letter sounds — and then you can introduce a few short high-frequency words such as was. Choose words that don't have regular phonetic spelling. Words that do have phonetic spelling, such as in, did, and on can be folded into phonics lessons.