Reading is an important part of a person's life that is used daily in our lives for many things, whether it is reading an electricity bill or to read a recipe book to help him prepare a meal for dinner. This is why it is necessary to help students learn to read, because people will need it for many things. There are five basic elements to teaching children to read: phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency. It's important that the children you teach learn these basic elements because it's what helps them become good readers. (Phonemic Awareness) Phonemic awareness is the building block of reading that concerns a person's ability to recognize, hear and manipulate. sounds in spoken words. This is very important as children will need it to be able to read and spell and this should be taught to children from the early years of school. According to the manual, "children develop phonemic awareness by identifying sounds in words, categorizing sounds in words, substituting sounds to create new words, mixing sounds to form words, and segmenting a word in sounds” (Tompkins, 2014). Another thing children should learn in this year is sight words, as they will see them in their reading materials. To effectively teach first graders phonemic awareness, I would definitely start by trying to make sure they understand what phonemic awareness is (like sounds) before introducing them to anything else. To help them identify sounds in words, I would start by saying words and have them listen for the first sounds of the word while asking them which of the words start with the same sound, like (d) in dog or pad. They would...... middle of paper ......ns. I know that students will have to hear how this word is used several times before they remember it, whether it is heard at home or at school. Even if they are first graders, I would introduce them to the dictionary and explain that it contains the meanings of the words. I chose two vocabulary words per week to teach them from the book I was reading to them that week. I would also provide them with worksheets and ask them to write short sentences with the words to help them learn the meaning of the word. In conclusion, I believe that reading is one of the most important skills that a person will use throughout their life. To teach these building blocks, I would definitely use oral, written, and hands-on activities because we all learn things differently. I will do my best to make my teaching interesting so that students want to engage in learning..