Assess each student's reading ability by giving him an oral test. Use a short excerpt from a storybook for the test. Have students read aloud the excerpts. If the student makes two mistakes every 20 words, consider the material too difficult. If the student makes one mistake every 20 words, the material is appropriate for reading instruction.
Select material according to the student's reading ability. Find interesting books, such as stories about the students' heritage, mysteries and adventures.
Present reading material on cards, pamphlets, games or charts. Have students read short passages from books aloud. Ask them to reread passages to boost fluency.
Introduce students to more challenging or unfamiliar text in shared reading sessions. Enlarge the text and place the material on an easel. Read the text to your students. Reread the text, encouraging students to read aloud with you. Engage students by asking questions about the stories. Teach students about the use of a period, a comma, quotation marks, a question mark, an exclamation point and words in bold type.
Create vocabulary lists from the stories you read with the children. Have children create flash cards from the lists, writing one word per card. Discuss high-frequency words with students, identifying the number of letters in these words as well as the first and last letters in each word. Note that kindergarten students learn one to three new words every week.
Use body movements, manipulatives or your fingers to teach phonemes awareness skills, which include the blending of larger sounds into words, segmenting words into syllables and knitting syllables into words, rhyming and alliteration. Have children engage with alphabet letters, such as coloring individual letters or playing with alphabet blocks.