The Rewards Star Readers

Hi! We're learning about reading using the Rewards Reading Program. To tackle words, we break them down into syllables.  One strategy we use is to look for prefixes and suffixes. So far, we've studied 18 prefixes and 35 suffixes. We also look for vowels and vowel combinations. An example would be when there's an "e" at the end of a syllable, the "e" might be silent and the vowel before it might be long. We would mark the long vowel with a macron. We also learned we can try two ways to sound out a vowel. First we try the sound, then we try the name.

Here are a few more interesting things we learned:

• A "g" can sound like  /j/ when it's followed by e, i, or y-- like gymnasium
• A "c" can sound like  /s/ and  /k/- like cycle or cat
• Words can have more than one prefix or suffix-- unintentional has the prefixes un and in, the suffixes tion and al

Check us out later! 

Dawud, Jakwana, Jamal, Marquise, Najmah, Nayir, Siani, Tyreese, Vickie, Zaire

Wilson Rocks!

Wilson is a special reading program and it helps us to read better. We tap out the sounds in the words. That's called decoding and encoding. Our group has been working on this for over a year. When we first started using Wilson, we didn't know how to sound the words out, but now we can sound out multi-syllabic words. Did you know that every syllable in the English language has to have a vowel? That's why we look for the vowels first. Then we look to see if there are consonants or digraphs or blends in between the vowels. That helps us to find the syllables. Here are some of the rules we learned:

• If the word only has one consonant between the vowels, close in the first syllable.
• Divide between two consonants.
• Keep digraphs together.
• Watch for digraphs, blends, and welded sounds; divide between them.

If you don't understand, ask us! We are: Neique, Tavon, Leslie, Taz, and Terry.