Half Pint Kids by Charlene Chiguina

Image retrieved from: https://halfpintkids.com/ 

          Half Pint Kids (https://halfpintkids.com/) is a website where teachers and students can access a series of decodable phonics books. A kindergarten teacher who understood the beginning stages of reading created these books. Many of her students started by sounding CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words and wanted to explore reading real books. The kindergarten teacher started to write and illustrate these decodable books and noticed a progression in her students’ reading skills. These decodable books incorporate the five essential elements of reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension). Many students, speech therapists, and adult literacy have used Half Pint Kids decodable readers and gained much success. 

           Half Pint Kids have various products teachers can utilize in their classrooms, such as literacy centers, reading games, and multi-sensory lesson plans. The literacy centers are free to download and a great way to practice reading skills. Additionally, reading games and activities pair up with the Half-Pint decodable books. Some games include Snuggle Up, Rhythm and Rhyme, I Spy, and Phoneme Fun. These reading games are a great way to review and practice reading skills. Half Pint Kids also offers multi-sensory lesson plans where children can learn through discovery and play. Many activities cater to all learning styles; visual, auditory, and tactile-kinesthetic. Most of the materials are found in any household, and all children will find these lessons engaging. 

           Overall, Half Pint Kids is an effective literacy website because the decodable readers can read for free. I have used decodable readers in my classroom and found that it helps my students with fluency and reading comprehension. I would use Half Pint Kids for my students who are still struggling and working on their CVC words. I like how the lesson plans are engaging to every kind of learner out there. Overall, this website would benefit all students, especially those who need to build their confidence in reading.