Literacy

Kindergarten Literacy Made Simple

Teaching literacy in kindergarten is no small task. Between phonics, reading strategies, writing development, and oral language, it can feel overwhelming to support every learner—especially when some students pick up skills quickly while others need extra time and practice.

That’s why I’ve created this one-stop shop for all things kindergarten literacy—so you don’t have to spend hours searching for the right resources, activities, or teaching strategies. Whether you’re looking for ideas to strengthen phonemic awareness, engage your students in writing, or build confident early readers, you’re in the right place.

Here, you’ll find:
✔ Practical blog posts filled with time-saving tips and strategies to improve literacy instruction.
✔ Engaging podcast episodes covering real-life teaching challenges and how to solve them.
✔ Classroom-tested resources designed to make reading and writing instruction both effective and developmentally appropriate.

From phonics instruction to decodable books, small-group interventions to writing activities, you’ll find everything you need to help your students grow into confident readers and writers.

Ready to simplify literacy instruction? Explore the sections below to find exactly what you need!

How Literacy Develops in Kindergarten

To help our students become confident readers and writers, we have to start at the very beginning and move through a progression of skills:

1️⃣ Phonological Awareness – The ability to hear and manipulate big sounds in our language (syllables, rhyming, alliteration). This is where it all starts!

2️⃣ Phonemic Awareness – The ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds within words. Before children can read or spell, they need to be able to recognize and play with sounds orally.

3️⃣ Letters & Sounds – Letters are just symbols that represent sounds. Teaching letter-sound relationships in a structured way helps students connect sounds to print. (Focus on hard consonant sounds first—cat, not nice; gate, not giraffe.)

4️⃣ Blending & Segmenting CVC Words – As students learn letters and sounds, they need hands-on practice blending them together and breaking words apart to build decoding and spelling skills.

5️⃣ Reading & Writing CVC Words – Once students have learned all their letters and sounds, they’re ready to read and write simple three-letter words using those sounds.

6️⃣ Reading & Writing Simple Sentences – By the end of kindergarten, students should be able to decode and encode simple sentences with high-frequency words and phonics-based spelling.

💡 The key to all of this? Always start with hearing first → speaking second → reading third → spelling/writing last. Literacy instruction should begin with oral language and sound awareness before moving into print-based skills.

How to Support Literacy Growth in Kindergarten

Literacy development doesn’t happen in isolation! In kindergarten, students need multiple opportunities to hear, speak, read, and write throughout the day.

✔ Phonological Awareness & Phonemic Awareness → Listening games, rhyming activities, segmenting and blending practice.
✔ Phonics & Decoding → Hands-on activities, decodable books, and structured literacy routines.
✔ Writing Development → From drawing and labeling to writing full sentences, writing instruction should support each child’s stage.
✔ Vocabulary & Oral Language → Rich conversations, storytelling, and read-alouds that build comprehension and background knowledge.

At first, reading will click before writing, and writing will feel challenging for many students. But the more they read, build phonics skills, and develop oral language, the easier writing becomes!