Reading Rockets offers a wealth of reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. Our reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in working with struggling readers who require additional help in reading fundamentals and comprehension skills development.
Speech Sounds: Watch & Learn
The following are four short video clips that offer you the chance to watch and learn effective speech sound activities. The video clips are from Reading Rockets' PBS television series Launching Young Readers.
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To watch a video online without downloading it, click on the "watch video clip" option.§ To watch or download the videos from Google, click on the "download video clip" option.
The Importance of Visual Input
Dr. Louisa Moats demonstrates to kindergarten teacher Virginia Campbell how modeling sounds can help children distinguish between letters. (1:00)
Letters vs. Phonemes
Dr. Louisa Moats explains to a kindergarten teacher why it is critical to differentiate between the letters and sounds within a word when teaching children to read and write. (1:30)
Phonemic Segmentation
At J.C. Nalle Elementary School in Washington, DC, a kindergarten teacher learns a technique for teaching students how to identify the individual sounds within a word. (2:00)
The Alphabetic Principle
In Houston, the teacher of an advanced kindergarten class connects letters and sounds in a systematic and explicit way. (3:00)
§To play this clip, you'll need a copy of the free RealOne Player. Most computers already have it installed, or you can download it now.
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