Ideas
Writing: for my students who are writing like she is, I do this. I ask them to tell me what they want to write. Encourage them to keep it simple at first. For example, she may want to write, "I ride my bike." I then put 4 lines on her paper, each line representing a word. Then I help her write the sentence. Help her hear the sounds in the words. Talk about the difference between letters, words, and sentences. Assuming she doesn't have a learning disability, if you use this technique, she should catch on fairly quickly about how to write. One thing first graders get caught up on are how to spell words. Do you have a word journal she could use to assist with writing? My kids do and each week we highlight the sight words for the week. They use it when writing to help them spell. I will also write in a word if they don't know how to spell it. Another tool I use is a word box. Before we write, the students brainstorm a list of words they might need spelled when writing. I write each word in a different color.
Reading: she sounds like she has been read to at home. She is probably trying to use the pictures to help her read. A great strategy but early readers depend on it too much. When I have kids do what she does, I simply point to the words and say is that word ___? Does that word begin with that letter? Let's sound it out. Then we sound it out together. If it is an irregular word, we sound it out then I say, "That's how it sounds, here's how we say it." (ex. what) We repeat it several times. I would use a lot of predictable texts with her - help her see the patterns until she gains confidence and skills as a reader. Teach her different strategies to use when she comes across a word she doesn't know besides sounding it out.
1. Say the beginning sound. Finish the sentence. Go back and reread the sentence. What makes sense?
2. Skip the word. Finish the sentence. Go back. What would make sense? Does the sentence make sense without the word. (Not every word is necessary to understand).
3. Is there a pattern? Rhyming?
4. Look at the pictures. Clues about the word?
There are more strategies but these are all I can think of right now.
Make sure she learns her sight words well. Then work on reading those words in simple sentences.
Another activity I use to help kids think about sounds in words is to fold a paper into thirds. Give the kids some sort of marker (rock, penny, etc.) Tell them the sound to listen for (ex. /k/). Then say a word. They put the marker where they hear the sound, beginning, middle, end. Words to use: kitten, taken, pick, etc. Very hard for poor readers but a great way to build phonemic awareness.
I'd also do lots of making words activities with word families. Help her see the patterns in words. My kids use cookie sheets from the dollar store and the magnetic letters from the dollar store. I write the word family on an index card, they use the letters to practice making the different words. Make sure she understands the difference between a real word and a word that is not real.
Good luck with her and keep us posted. Hope this helps!
