Littles Love Learning Podcast

In order to become strong readers and spellers, kids need to learn to blend and segment sounds within a word. But what words should we use when doing these blending and segmenting activities with our beginning readers? Keep listening to learn about how to use VC and CVC words with your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten littles to help them become strong readers and spellers. Want to learn 3 diffe...

Teaching kids their names is one of the most important things we can do for preschool & pre-k littles to prepare them for kindergarten. We want them to recognize their name, spell their name, and write their name independently. But how can we accomplish this goal in a play-based way? Keep listening because this episode gives you 10+ fun, hands-on, and engaging ways to practice names with your...

One of the most important steps when teaching students to read is teaching them HOW to properly blend letter sounds. This starts with LOTS of oral blending (phonemic awareness), and then we introduce students to blend when reading printed words. Keep listening for some fun, hands-on, and engaging activities you can use when teaching blending to your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students to h...

One of the most important steps when teaching kids to read is teaching them how to blend properly. This starts with LOTS of oral blending (phonemic awareness), and then we introduce how to blend when reading printed words. Keep watching to learn about three types of blending you can use with your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten littles to help them become strong readers. These blending ideas ar...

Do you know the difference between continuous sounds and stop sounds when teaching students to read? Knowing the difference is SO helpful when you start working on blending with your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten littles. Keep listening to learn all about these two types of letter sounds and why they're important when teaching reading. >>> Would you rather watch this information as a...

Do you know the difference between consonants and vowels? While this may seem like an easy question, there's actually A LOT more to know about consonants and vowels than most of us were taught in school. In today's podcast, I'm sharing with you: How many consonant sounds there are (hint: it's not 21) How many vowel sounds there are (hint: it's not 5) How to categorize these sounds How to use this...

As a former 1st & 2nd grade teacher with my master's degree in Early Childhood Education, I thought I knew how to teach kids to read. But I was wrong! Today I'm sharing how I got started on my journey learning more about the Science of Reading, and I'm sharing helpful podcasts, books, and trainings for you to learn more and join this movement! EMILY HANFORD ARTICLES: 1) Hard Words 2) At a Loss...

To theme or not to theme? That is the question! There are many preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten teachers who love teaching using themes, and there are many who don't. Which one are you? I personally LOVE using themes to teach, and today's podcast shares my top 5 reasons why! *Download the FREE Editable Themes printable on my website . *You can see all of the theme resources from my shop here . &...

It's back-to-school time again, which means many kids will heading off to preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten for the first time. How exciting! Whether your little one is new to school or not, check out these 5 tips to help them have a wonderful first day of school (which will lead to a wonderful first week & entire school year!) *Looking for more tips for the First Day of School? Check out this...

It's back-to-school time again, which means many kids will heading off to preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten for the first time. How exciting! Whether your little one is new to school or not, you'll want to establish these 5 back-to-school routines BEFORE their first day. I promise these routines will help the first day (and the rest of the year) run more smoothly! *Looking for more tips for the Fi...

Ready to help your little one become a strong reader? Then it's time to focus on Phonological Awareness . Research shows that having strong Phonological Awareness skills at the end of pre-k predicts future reading success in kindergarten and beyond. Keep watching to understand more about Phonological Awareness and how it can be broken up into two separate categories: 1) Phonological Sensitivity 2)...

As a preschool / pre-k teacher and literacy specialist, I see so many parents and teachers VERY focused on having kids memorize "sight words" in order to help with reading. But research is telling us that memorizing words as whole words is ineffective and NOT helpful to our kids. Instead, we want to pull apart the sounds in words and map those sounds onto letters, which is called phoneme-grapheme...

As a preschool / pre-k teacher and literacy specialist, I see so many parents and teachers VERY focused on having kids memorize "sight words" in order to help with reading. But sight words are ANY word we can read by sight. What most teachers are referring to as "sight words" are actually "high-frequency words," which can be broken up into two categories: 1) Flash Words 2) Heart Words Keep listeni...

As a preschool / pre-k teacher and literacy specialist, I see so many parents and teachers VERY focused on having kids memorize "sight words" in order to help with reading. But research is telling us that memorizing words as whole words is ineffective and NOT helpful to our kids. Instead, we want to pull apart the sounds in words and map those sounds onto letters, which is called phoneme-grapheme...

As a preschool / pre-k teacher and literacy specialist, I see so many parents and teachers VERY focused on having kids memorize "sight words" in order to help with reading. But research is telling us that memorizing words as whole words is ineffective and NOT helpful to our kids. Instead, we want to pull apart the sounds in words and map those sounds onto letters, which is called phoneme-grapheme...

As a preschool / pre-k teacher and literacy specialist, I see so many parents and teachers VERY focused on having kids memorize "sight words" in order to help with reading. But what are sight words, and how are they different from high-frequency words? Keep listening to learn more about sight words vs. high-frequency words, including some myths that we've all been taught that are totally wrong! &g...

Ready to help your little one become a strong reader? Then you need to know & understand the 4 Factors of Future Reading Success: 1) Oral Language 2) Phonological & Phonemic Awareness 3) Alphabetic Principle 4) Concepts of Print Research shows that having a strong foundation in these four areas at the end of pre-k predicts future reading success in kindergarten and beyond, which is why it'...

As early childhood educators & parents, it's our job to understand how our little ones learn to read so we can teach them correctly from the start of their journey! Keep listening to find out why I think Littles Love Learning shares a similar mission with Zillow & Expedia (it's probably not what you think!) >>> Would you rather watch this information as a video? Click here ! >&...

Ready to help your little one become a strong reader? Then it's time to focus on Phonological & Phonemic Awareness. Research shows that having strong Phonological & Phonemic Awareness skills at the end of pre-k predicts future reading success in kindergarten and beyond. But do you know the BEST order to teach these skills? Keep listening to hear what the latest research says on how best to...

As preschool and kindergarten parents and teachers, we want to teach our little ones how to read correctly right from the start. According to The Simple View of Reading , Reading Comprehension = Decoding x Language Comprehension. You can learn more about The Simple View of Reading in this video . To work on the Language Comprehension piece of The Simple View of Reading, you want to help facilitate...

As preschool and kindergarten parents and teachers, we know how important it is to incorporate literacy throughout the day to set our kids up for reading success. But we're already so BUSY! How do we fit it all in?! This episode includes 5 tips for adding more literacy to your day without taking up more time...these are quick and easy routines you can implement this week! >>> Would you ra...

As early childhood educators & parents, it's so important that we're introducing the alphabet correctly to our little ones right from the beginning. There's a common phrase that many people use when teaching the alphabet that maybe you've heard or maybe you've said yourself..."Letters make sounds." Teachers & parents say things like, "A says /a/" or "B says /b/" But is this true? Do letter...

As a preschool & pre-k teacher and literacy specialist, parents will say to me..."My child knows all of their letters and sounds...now what do we work on?" To answer that question, I created an acronym for the word P.L.A.Y. to help parents (and teachers!) focus on the most important skills our little ones need to become strong readers (that goes WAY beyond memorizing the alphabet). Keep listen...

As early childhood educators & parents, it's SO important that we're introducing the alphabet correctly to our little ones right from the beginning. But what's the BEST order to teach the ABCs? Keep listening to find out what research says about introducing the alphabet. I also share with you my two favorite ways to introduce the alphabet to my students. Spoiler Alert : I don't recommend intro...

As preschool and kindergarten parents and teachers, we know that reading aloud to our little ones is one of THE most important things we can do to set them up for reading success! But what do you do when your little one won't sit still long enough to listen to a book? Keep listening to get 5 great tips on how to read to your wiggly kids and still make sure they're still hearing those important rea...