Last week we learned our first vowel, Aa. We talked about how there are special letters called vowels. Vowels are found in every word and make at least 2 sounds. We talked about how the letter Aa makes two sounds, /a/ as in apple and /a/ as in apron. Sometimes Aa also makes another sound, like in the word astronaut. We made alligator puppets to go along with our Aa song. See if your child can teach you this song about a girl who was allergic to alligators.
During last week, we focused on our first word family--the AT word family. The boys and girls learned about how a word family is a group of words that all rhyme and usually have the same ending letters/sounds. We brainstormed a list of words in this family. After coming up words to add to the list, we orally put these words into sentences. See if your child can tell you words that are a part of this word family. We will be focusing on different word families each week. For the next few weeks, the word families we work on will have the letter Aa in them. This week (in small reading groups) we are working on the AP word family. In addition to working on rhyming with word families, we are focusing on the correct way to sound out a new word. The strategy we are learning is to point to each letter in a word and say the sound that letter makes. Then go back to the beginning of the word, say the sounds again but this time a little faster. It may take several tries going faster and faster each time before the word comes together and you can read it. This is known as "blending" or sounding out the word. With more practice, this skill will become more comfortable and automatic for most kids. 
