Tommy was obviously a very bright first grader, but he was lagging behind his peers in learning to read. 

I was fortunate to get to work with him before he got far enough behind to become discouraged.

      At our first meeting together, I chatted with Tommy about school, his family, and his interests. Like many first graders at the time, Tommy was interested in Pokémon--those funny-looking cartoon and card game characters. We did a little bit of reading together, and it was apparent that Tommy was absolutely clueless about how letters can represent sounds.

      We played a picture sort game*, where Tommy could match the beginning sounds of words to their corresponding letters. That's all that we did during our first session--I had wanted Tommy to know that our sessions together would be fun and positive.

      After I left Tommy's school, I went to buy some Pokémon stickers.  Fortunately they are quite popular and I had no trouble finding them.

      At our next session, Tommy and I worked together to start an Alliterative Alphabet Chart of our own. Our chart was similar to our own selection of ABC Charts With Popular Children's Characters, only we used Pokémon animals. You can find a list of all the Pokémon characters' names at http://www.pokemon.com/ by clicking on the "Pokédex" button.

      I  had already selected which characters represented the sounds I wanted to work with the next day, and encouraged Tommy to guess at which letters might be used at the beginning of each Pokémon character's name.  The first day I selected "Pikachu,"  "Seel," and "Ditto."  I still remember Tommy squeal with delight,

"Seel!"  when I showed him his favorite character.  We worked with more picture sorts** to reinforce those sounds.

      We were later able to move on to more challenging letter combinations with the characters, "Charmander," "Snorlax," "Slowpoke," and "Squirtle."  We also did additional picture sorts* using those same letter combinations.

      Later, I encouraged Tommy to write out the character's names.  Fortunately, most Pokémon names are spelled fairly regularly, so Tommy was able to do this successfully with some guidance from me.  When students write, they are building reading, as well as writing skills.

      Of course, we also did other activities.  We always read from some easy books, discussing the plot and how it connected to the illustrations.  We also played a lotto game in which Tommy matched pictures that rhymed.  For example, he would match the pictures for "nail" and "pail."  At first, this was harder for Tommy than you might imagine.

      The rhyming activities were essential to Tommy's success.  After all, if he couldn't recognize sounds in spoken words, he certainly couldn't be expected to recognize sounds in written words, either.

      Before long, Tommy "got it!"  Once he learned to listen for sounds like initial letters and rhymes, he was able to use this knowledge to figure out new words.

      Before finishing first grade, Tommy was able to read enthusiastically along with his peers.  I wish that we could always assist struggling readers as early as first grade, and have such gratifying success!

*   Picture Sorts courtesy of Words Their Way