How Do I Teach My Child to Read?

Posted on April 24, 2012 by admin

When teaching emergent literacy skills be sure to:

#1 take the child’s lead!

#2 make it fun!

Knowing your ABCs, being able to identify uppercase and lowercase letters and the sounds they make are important early literacy skills. However, one of the best predictors of whether a young child is going to be a successful reader is his/her phonemic awareness skill level. Phonemic awareness is part of phonological awareness. This post explains what phonological awareness is and focuses on fun ways to help your preschooler or kindergartener develop phonological awareness. A future blog will focus on phonemic awareness, a higher-level skill.

Phonological awareness follows a developmental progression. It refers to skills such as the ability to identify final sound chunks as you would to rhyme, recognize distinct words in a spoken sentence, hear syllables in words and eventually identify distinct sounds in words.

Here are some enjoyable ways to help your child develop phonological awareness:

✴ Guess the Rhyme

When reading or singing, stop before you get to the second word of a rhyming pair to see if your child can guess it. At first, you can say most of the rhyming word. As your child is ready, simply say the first sound. Eventually your child will probably be able to figure out the word without any clues. You can make it “silly” and accept nonsense words that rhyme.

✴ How Many Words?

Count the words in spoken sentences. You say a sentence; the child builds a design with manipulatives (e.g., blocks, colored macaroni…) representing each word in the sentence. For example, if you have the sentence, “The girl went to bed.” The child would get to take 5 blocks or pieces of pasta to make a design. As your child gets more advanced at this task, you can have him/her take a different color for each sentence so he/she can build more elaborate structures or pictures. My daughter also likes to make trail mix with different ingredients and necklaces with different colored beads using the “How Many Words Game”. Click Here to Download possible sentences.

✴ Syllable Counting

- Syllables can be heard as a beat. You can march, jump, clap, drum….to the syllables.
- Counting syllables in names is fun.
- After your child is able to hear the different syllables, you can move on to more difficult games such as using compound words (e.g., sunshine) and asking the child to say, “Sunshine then say it again without the sun or without the shine.” It is more difficult to delete the final syllable. Click Here to Download possible words.

Phonemic awareness is the most demanding phonological awareness skill, which develops later. It has been most directly linked to subsequent reading ability and can be taught. Phonemic awareness focuses on the sounds a child hears without identifying the corresponding letter. Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes). Phonemic awareness and phonological awareness are often used interchangeably, but it is helpful to know the precise meaning of each.

Instilling a Love of Reading

Posted on March 23, 2012 by admin

Most parents want to raise a reader, but truly instilling a love of reading and teaching effective early literacy skills can be tricky. That’s why starting right from day one is key. Here are a few ways parents can plant the seeds for a love of reading in their child’s first few years:

✴ Sing, read books out loud and talk to your little one throughout the day, describing what you’re doing and seeing, to develop early language skills.

✴ Incorporate reading throughout your child’s day—not just at bedtime (while eating snacks, playing, taking a bath, using the bathroom, etc.)

✴ Create a print-rich environment (ABCs as decorations, magnet letters, label toys…)

✴ Have special reading events: flashlight reading, act out stories in books with costumes, play librarian, etc.

✴ Use reading or books as rewards to get children excited about reading

✴ Let your child pick out books at home, in the store and at the library

✴ Take your child to get his/her “own” library card and attend library story hour and other reading-related events

✴ Play rhyming games

✴ Robot Talk (say sounds that make up a word, sound-by-sound (like a robot) and have your child guess what the word is, e.g., “/B/-/U/-/G/” (bug), “/K/-/I/-/K/” (kick), “/U/-/P/” (up).

✴ Model the love of reading by reading yourself around your children!

✴ Design a special reading area with your child.

In order to create and keep a positive association with reading, it should always be fun and never be forced upon a child or used as punishment. It is extremely important to follow a child’s lead and look for clues as to when he/she is not enjoying reading activities.

6 Fun Ways to Celebrate Dr. Seuss’ Birthday!

Posted on March 1, 2012 by admin

#1 – Read, Read, Read!

From silly rhymes and counting to ABCs, kids gain a lot from Dr. Seuss books. So pick a few up and read with your little ones to celebrate this unique collection of children’s books.

#2 – Make a Cat in the Hat Hat!

Simply glue red strips of 3-inch wide paper onto a 11X17 white sheet of paper to make stripes. For the bottom stripe, glue or staple two red strips to make a circle around your child’s head. Your child may want to personalize it a bit by adding decoration. Once finished with personal touches, you may want to staple an additional red strip to make a circle (like you did on the bottom strip) around the top to make the hat stay rounded.

#3 – Enjoy a Yummy Breakfast of Green Eggs & Ham

Simply scramble up some eggs and add green food coloring (make sure you have a back up plan though if it’s serving as a proper breakfast!) Although I have to note this dish was always a HUGE hit with my class of first graders. ☺

#4 – Dr. Seuss Mural

Make up your own Dr. Seuss characters and put them in a “world of silliness.”

Roll out white paper to make a large banner and tape it to the floor. Then put out black and white photo copied pictures of characters from Dr. Seuss books. Cut out different images from these pages and add them to the mural. Add drawings of your own to make scenery. This was my favorite new Dr. Seuss’ project this year because it allowed my daughter to be as creative & silly as she wanted. It has also been fun because family members and friends have added to it when they come over. I have a feeling this will be staying up for a while!

#5 – Dr. Seuss Popsicle Stick Characters

I was inspired by Cat In the Hat popsicle stick puppets I saw on Pinterest, but my oldest daughter and I decided to make all different characters and put on a puppet show for her baby sister.

#6 – Ask your child, “What Makes You You?”

I love this Dr. Seuss quote: “Today you are you that is truer than true. There is no one alive that is youer than you.” I’ve always been sure to engage my children (and students) by asking open-ended questions and so in honor of Dr. Suess, I asked my four-year-old-daughter: “What makes you you?” and recorded her answer in the notebook we use to capture funny and thoughtful things she says. Me “What makes you you?” L. “Because that is just how it works.” Me “What is special about you?” L. “That I am nice.” “I think what makes me special is that I have a baby sister.” “B. is smaller and I am bigger.” ”I am good at summersaults.”

I hope you enjoy these activities with your child at home, or if you’re a teacher, with your class at school! Please comment with any links or share ideas you’ve been using to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday!

5 Snow-filled Children’s Books

Posted on January 12, 2012 by admin

It has finally started snowing—albeit just a bit so far—here in Boston, which has us very excited! The snow not only adds to the options of outdoor winter activities with our kids, it also gives us a great opportunity to read some of our favorite snow-themed children’s books.

Here are five of our favorites:

Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner is a fun, magical book about what snowmen do at night when no one is watching. Mark Buehner’s illustrations are amazing and there’s a fun little game you can play on each page. Be on the look out for hidden images in the snow!

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats is a wonderful book written in 1962 about a boy waking up to discover that snow has fallen during the night. It follows him in all his adventures. Again, illustrations are wonderful in this book!

Frosty the Snowman by Steve Nelson & Jack Rollins is not only a classic story, but it’s available in a Hallmark recordable version. It adds a special extra something to have relatives that live far away or a traveling parent “read” your child a bedtime story.

Stranger in the Woods by Carl Sams and Jean Stoick is a photographic fantasy story about animals discovering a snowman in the woods. At the end of the book you discover that two young children have been replenishing the snowman’s features as the animals eat them.

The Snowman by Raymond Briggs is a great book that even very young children can “read” because it only features pictures. Guide your child through each page while telling or prompting their imagination of a corresponding story—a wonderful pre-literacy skill. There is no right or wrong way to tell this story about a child becoming friends with a snowman.

Amanda and Sarah