Your kid learned the ‘science of reading’ this year. Here’s how to help it stick.

Just after 8 a.m., the kindergartners at KIPP Baltimore were having a dance party.

A YouTube video guided them through the alphabet, pairing letters and words with dance moves. “A” got alligator and a hand chomp. “D” stood for dancing dinosaur, paired with the Thriller dance. The kids’ favorite was “R,” which had them and their paraeducator Irika Ford jamming out with an air guitar for “rockstar roll.”

“Do your best every day! Tell me what sounds the letters make!” the kids sang along.

This is what the “science of reading” looks like — learning letter sounds, “sounding out” words, and pairing repetition with joy. As of this school year, all Maryland schools must use these brain science-backed principles in reading instruction as the state seeks to boost literacy rates.

“It seems so basic in some ways. ‘Put these three sounds together, blend this word, put these four sounds together.’ But the more practice, the better,” said Mary Gittens, the director of literacy at KIPP, a charter school in West Baltimore. “The more practice outside of school, inside of school, the stronger you’ll get.”

At school, kids pick up skills parents can reinforce intuitively and formally at home. Here’s how.