Work on phonological awareness with kindergartners. Hold up a letter of the alphabet and ask them to say the sound(s) that the letter makes. Some letters make more than one sound, depending on the vowels or consonants that follow them. For instance, the letter "c" can sound like "k" or "s" in a particular word.
Introduce the concept of stringing together letters to form words. For instance, c-a-t is the word "cat." Educate students on how to sound out the letters when the letters are put together into a word.
Teach kindergartners words by showing them pictures. Write the word on the board and then show them an accompanying picture, or ask them to practice writing the words on their own. For instance, start with the word "dog." Show the students a picture of a dog and then have them practice writing the word "dog" on paper. Introduce short words first.
Give students simple sentences to read and ask them to identify the words that they learned. For instance, if you teach the kids how to read and write the word "dog," give them a sentence like "The dog went for a walk," and ask the kids to circle the word "dog." This helps them practice identifying words in a sentence, which is critical for reading.
Teach students sight words. Sight words, such as adjectives and verbs, are main elements of reading, but they cannot be taught visually. Design games for teaching sight words, such as index card games, tracing activities, matching games and word puzzles.
Put everything together by reading beginner's books. Read a book together in class and have students take turns reading one sentence at a time. Show students that reading moves from left to right on a page, and from top to bottom. Help them sound out the individual words as they go. Tell students to keep their fingers underneath the words as they read them.