Parent Resources

K-5 Essential Skills Brochure - Reading, Writing, and Math
Kindergarten   1st Grade   2nd Grade  3rd Grade   4th Grade   5th Grade

The following resources were collaboratively created for parents and students in by Donnie Thomassen and the staff of Scott Elementary School. You will find valuable resources to assist your child in the areas of reading, and writing.

Sight Word PowerPoint:  Basic sight word recognition is essential for reading fluency and comprehension. This PowerPoint Slides will be a quick way to practice 220 essential high-frequency words with your child. Sit down and challenge your student by asking him/her how many words he/she knows. If they do not know these words yet, it will be a fun way to start.

Sight Word PowerPoint with Sentences:  This presentation includes the 220 essential high-frequency words and an example of those words used in context. This will be a great way for children to practice sight word recognition within the context of a basic sentence.

Audio Sight Word PowerPoint Slides Slides:  The following link will allow your child to work with smaller amounts of the 220 sight words children need to master by the end of third grade.  The links are divided into groups of 20 (11 lists in all).  Start with List 1 and work through List 11.  When you feel your child has mastered all 220 words (with 90%) accuracy, try out the PowerPoint Slides presentations found in slots 1 and 2. The PowerPoint Slides Slides in slots 1 and 2, however, do not have audio support. 
Sight Words Part 1   Sight Words Part 2    Sight Words Part 3    Sight Words Part 4    Sight Words Part 5
Sight Words Part 6    Sight Words Part 7    Sight Words Part 8    Sight Words Part 9    Sight Words Part 10
Sight Words Part 11

The King of Soundsound:  This challenging reading activity provides access to all 44 phonemes (sounds) that our language provides. By reading this story and practicing it with your child, you will ensure that your child is exposed to the multifaceted sounds our language makes. At the end of this story, you will also find several phonogram poems that will improve your child's fluency. Read these with your child and have a blast!

Phonogram PowerPoints:  A phonogram is a word part that contains a group of letters that are often found together (ight, ell, ought, ook, oop, ump, uss). It is important for children to recognize phonograms as part of their phonics training. These PowerPoints will provide easy access to over 200 different phonograms you can practice with your child. The more phonograms they can pronounce, the more words they will be prepared to read and sound out.

Fluency Poems:  Enjoy reading these fluency poems with your child.  After each reading, practice timing each other to see how long it takes to complete the poem.  When you read the poem again, try and beat your previous time.  Practicing the same text more than once increases fluency speed, word recognition, and reading confidence.  There is a fun writing activity you may complete towards the end of the packet if you print out the necessary pages.  

37 Phonogram Poem PowerPoint: Enjoy reading one or more of these poems with your child each day.  When your child masters all 37 of these phonograms, your child will, according to research conducted by Wylie and Durrell, be able to sound out and pronounce approximately 500 primary words.  These poems were written so that your child can enjoy learning the phonograms within the context of fun poetry, rather than in isolation.  At the end of each poem, you will find good practice words you can work on with your child.  These words can be used by your child to write his own fun phonogram poems.  If you would like your child to have independent practice on an individual phonogram poem with audio narration, simply click on the phonogram poem link and have your child listen to the poem being read aloud.  Challenge your student to practice the poem until he can keep up with the narrator.  

Fluency Suggestions Page:  This page provides seven powerful ways to improve or enhance your child's reading fluency.  Reading research states that slow, word-by-word reading hampers word recognition and all but destroys comprehension.  Practicing these strategies will improve your child's fluency and provide valuable one-on-one time with your child.  
    -Paired Repeated Reading
    -Fluency Intervention

Student Reading Graph:  This page will provide a visual (mathematical) representation of how much your child is reading outside of school.  Students who score in the 90th achievement percentile read approximately 40.4 minutes per day (Anderson, Wilson, and Fielding, 1998).  Your child will enjoy creating their own bar graph using real personal reading time data.

Letter Sound Association PowerPoints:  This link will provide students the opportunity to learn the names of the letters, the sounds they make, and a picture association for each letter.  The mastery of these skills is essential for early reading development.  Research has shown that children need between 70 and 170 repetitions to learn information to the level of automaticity.

• Letter Sound Association PowerPoint with Narration:  Students will watch and listen to a quick Letter-Sound-Association tutorial of the entire alphabet.  This presentation will advance automatically.

• Letter Sound Association PowerPoint (student advances):  After children have practiced listening to Link 1, they may practice giving the letter name, picture, and sound independently (with an adult present to encourage and correct mistakes).  This presentation will advance by user control (hitting the right arrow key).

• Letter Sound Association PowerPoint (automatic advance): 
  After children have practiced Links 1 and 2, they may practice giving the letter name, picture, and sound independently while the slides automatically advance.

Silent e (magic e) PowerPoints: These PowerPoints will reinforce the silent e reading rule (usually, when there is a silent e at the end of a word, it causes the vowel to make the long sound—say its name). These PowerPoints advance using the right arrow key.  This way, students are able to work at their own pace.  There are four PowerPoints with voice narration so students can listen to the proper pronunciation of words with and without the magic e. The remaining four PowerPoints do not have voice narration; therefore, students can practice applying the silent e rule independently.
Silent E PowerPoint 1    Silent E PowerPoint 1 with Narration
Silent E PowerPoint 2    Silent E PowerPoint 2 with Narration
Silent E PowerPoint 3    Silent E PowerPoint 3 with Narration
Silent E PowerPoint 4    Silent E PowerPoint 4 with Narration

Nonsense Word PowerPoints: These PowerPoints will reinforce using letter-sound associations to sound out nonsense words.  Nonsense words are important because students must apply phonic letter-sound associations to sound out new and unfamiliar words.  There are several nonsense word PowerPoints that focus on essential phonic skills.  You will see two PowerPoints per skill listed.  One PowerPoint provides practice with voice narration, and the other PowerPoint is for independent practice.  Next to each PowerPoint link you will find a brief explanation of the specific phonic skill that is in that slideshow presentation.

• Short Vowels (3-letter words):  These PowerPoints focus on sounding out words containing short vowels.  These are great PowerPoints for beginning readers as well as those who have not yet mastered their short vowel sounds.

• Silent e:  These PowerPoints focus on applying the magic e rule that makes the vowel sound long in these words.

• Blends/Digraphs:  These PowerPoints focus on sounding out longer words containing blends (bl, st, br, etc.) and digraphs (ch, sh, ck, etc.).

• Double Vowels:  These PowerPoints focus on applying the following skill:  When two vowels appear together in a word, the first one is long (says its name) and the second one is silent.

• R-Controlled Vowels:  These PowerPoints focus on applying the knowledge that when a vowel is followed by the letter r, it changes the sound. There are 5 r-controlled vowels in the English language (or, ar, er, ir, ur).

• Diphthongs:  These PowerPoints focus on reading words with diphthongs (the two vowel letters are
  both heard and make a gliding sound—owl, boy, oil).

• Long Vowels:  These PowerPoints focus on applying all of the skills practiced in the previous PowerPoints.

Fiction and Nonfiction Retelling Hands:  When students read it is important that they can retell what they read. It shows they are comprehending the material. These retelling hands will guide your students so that they are sure to include all the important details. Please encourage your child to speak in complete sentences when retelling!

Fiction Retelling Hand:  Fiction selections contain story elements (characters, setting, problem, sequence of events, and solution). When students retell a fiction selection, they should include all the story elements. Instruct your child to begin at the “thumb” and go in order to the “pinky finger”. Doing this will ensure they include all the important details of the story. Make sure your child speaks in complete sentences!

Non Fiction Retelling Hand:  Non-fiction selections can be retold using these simple question words: Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? Not every non-fiction selection incorporates all of these; therefore, encourage your child to answer as many as he/she can. For example, if the book is about reptiles, there probably won’t be a “who” but there will be a “what” to retell.  Encourage your child to speak in complete sentences and use vocabulary from the text when retelling!

R-Controlled Vowel Narrated PowerPoint: This PowerPoint presentation will provide a narrated tutorial of words that have r-controlled vowels (a blended vowel sound that is neither the short nor the long sound of the vowel).  Enjoy listening to and practicing these fun poems.

Parts of Speech Rap:  This rap will teach your child the names, definitions, and examples of all eight parts of speech. 

Consonant Blend PowerPoint Interventions:  These PowerPoints are designed to assist emerging readers with the numerous consonant blends they will encounter while reading.  Your child can listen to the correct pronunciation of the blend followed by several examples of how that blend is used (click on the narration blend links for a narrated session).  After several practice rounds, your child can test him/herself by going to the blend PowerPoint that is not narrated.

Vowel Combination PowerPoint Interventions:  These PowerPoints are designed to assist readers with the numerous vowel combinations they will encounter while reading.  Your child can listen to the correct pronunciation of the word by using the PowerPoint with narration.  Next, your child can test him/herself using the PowerPoints that are not narrated.

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