Last night in a group of parents of preschoolers we were talking about literacy - a topic that I love, obviously. It so happened that there were several parents in the group who had older children with learning disabilities. So as I'm going along talking about laying a foundation for early reading, they were there to remind me that all this stuff I'm talking about doesn't work for all kids. It was an important reminder and I immediately knew that I needed to share it here. There really are a LOT of things that can interfere with a child's ability to read that are entirely out of a parent's control. They are also beyond the scope of most classroom teachers. They require experts. Psychologists, special education teachers, or learning coaches can help remedy these issues or help children work with the skills they do have so they can be successful. So if you have a young child who has no interest in learning to read and you really think it should be coming by now or an older child who is very frustrated because they can't read as well as they want to, don't hesitate. Get an evaluation done. With a proper diagnosis of the problem, steps can be taken to help your child be successful. Trust your instincts as a parent and if something feels wrong, don't wait. Get it looked into. Push your school district for testing if you need to push, but you shouldn't need to. A parent expressing a concern and asking specifically for testing should produce immediate results. The sooner your child feels successful as a reader, the sooner they will be on the path to independent learning.
Special note to homeschooling parents: Please don't feel intimidated by your school district. They want to help all children learn. They may encourage you to put your child into public school. It may be very difficult to hear. But bring as much support as you need to any meetings and, as always, don't sign anything you haven't read thoroughly and feel comfortable with. As an educator, you understand that information is power. Get the information. There are a whole range of services available to your child. As your child's teacher, you choose which resources to incorporate into their education. Just as all parents do.
Showing posts with label homeschool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homeschool. Show all posts
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Monday, January 21, 2013
Happy Martin Luther King Day
I love Martin Luther King Day. While all the other kids in our area have the day off of school, my homeschooler announces to our pastor in front of church during children's message that homeschoolers never get days off. Good boy! Today is certainly not one that I want to take off. Celebrating an important historical figure and role model as Martin Luther King Jr. is something I want to concentrate on in our schooling. Today we read books about Martin Luther King. We took turns reading and listening. We learned a LOT of new vocabulary. Here are some of the titles I especially enjoy:
You can tell Dr. King was an inspiring man by the art work he inspired people to create. The illustrations in these books are incredible. The Story of Ruby Bridges is a powerful one for young children. She was a very brave little first grader during a difficult time in the civil rights struggle. Matthew and Tilly is a great book for young ones. This story is the realization of Dr. King's dream. A little black girl and a little white boy are best friends, but it talks about friendship, anger and forgiveness. These are all very immediate topics for young children when the issue of segregation is thankfully so foreign to them. Martin Luther King day is the perfect opportunity to talk about the many shades of skin color and how we should be kind to everyone and get to know them without worrying about what they look like on the outside. These books are very applicable to our lives today.
My eight-year-old learned a lot of new vocabulary words today when we read the I Have a Dream speech. I'm sure he has heard some of them before, but you need multiple hearings to really cement new words into your vocabulary. Words like emancipation, poverty, prosperity, segregation, negro, manacles, divinity and reverend are difficult words that he will very likely not see again... until next year.
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| Center book title |
You can tell Dr. King was an inspiring man by the art work he inspired people to create. The illustrations in these books are incredible. The Story of Ruby Bridges is a powerful one for young children. She was a very brave little first grader during a difficult time in the civil rights struggle. Matthew and Tilly is a great book for young ones. This story is the realization of Dr. King's dream. A little black girl and a little white boy are best friends, but it talks about friendship, anger and forgiveness. These are all very immediate topics for young children when the issue of segregation is thankfully so foreign to them. Martin Luther King day is the perfect opportunity to talk about the many shades of skin color and how we should be kind to everyone and get to know them without worrying about what they look like on the outside. These books are very applicable to our lives today.
My eight-year-old learned a lot of new vocabulary words today when we read the I Have a Dream speech. I'm sure he has heard some of them before, but you need multiple hearings to really cement new words into your vocabulary. Words like emancipation, poverty, prosperity, segregation, negro, manacles, divinity and reverend are difficult words that he will very likely not see again... until next year.
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| MLK timeline activity from the Mailbox |
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Comprehension strategies
I hear so many great things about Pinterest, but haven't joined. I just got on to look at what's out there today and found this cute video to demonstrate comprehension strategies of monitor, clarify and reread. I decided to share it here. As parents, we have the luxury of being able to work one-on-one with our children, enjoying a good book together. This gives us the opportunity to be detectives. What areas does your child need to improve? Do they need more sight words in their vocabulary? Are there certain sound combinations that are giving them trouble? Are they struggling with fluency? Without fluency it is difficult to hold concepts in memory and achieve comprehension or understanding. Reading programs can be helpful, especially in classrooms when you have many children to teach and can't sit down individually as much as you would like. But they cannot replace one-on-one time reading and enjoying books. This is also why classroom teachers utilize guided reading or small group reading so they can focus on each child, hear them read at their own reading level, and intervene exactly where they need help most in the moment. Maybe these comprehension strategies are what your child needs most. If not, there's always Pinterest :)
Updated to add: I should have used these strategies myself today. If it sounds too good to be true (monitor), it probably is. I should have clarified and carefully reread that recipe a little sooner to realize that my meat needed to cook for 50 minutes PER POUND, not just 50 minutes. Looks like it's tuna for dinner tonight. On the the plus side, dinner is figured out for tomorrow night, which never happens because I am obviously not much of a planner.
Updated to add: I should have used these strategies myself today. If it sounds too good to be true (monitor), it probably is. I should have clarified and carefully reread that recipe a little sooner to realize that my meat needed to cook for 50 minutes PER POUND, not just 50 minutes. Looks like it's tuna for dinner tonight. On the the plus side, dinner is figured out for tomorrow night, which never happens because I am obviously not much of a planner.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Homework is best
Why do schools give homework? Because they know students benefit from one-on-one instruction and parent involvement in their learning. This is the number one predictor of success. It is even the predictor before they enter school. Students who have vocabularies of 10,000 words when entering kindergarten are much more successful long term than children with smaller vocabularies. Children build their vocabularies by being read to, talked to, and played with by their parents. The amount of time does matter. The 10,000 word vocabularies are found in children who have spent an hour a day reading. And growth is exponential. The larger a vocabulary, the more it grows. It is truly exciting!
Friday, September 14, 2012
That Darn English Language
Have you been singing the ABC song since your baby could sing? Have you been looking for letters, pointing them out and naming them? How about practicing the sounds they make? Wonderful! This is beginning phonics! Maybe you've even been sounding out simple words: ME, CAT, DOG, MOM, DAD. Great! You can then look for those simple words in books and have your child read them. You can even find many books that are written almost solely with simple words that your child can sound out. (Often these books are terribly boring and make no sense, so beware!) These are very important reading skills. Your child may then begin learning combination sounds like TH, CH, SH, OO, and the silent E. Amazing! There is so much to learn!
Then come even more complicated rules and all the exceptions to those rules. Gee whiz! Could we have a more complicated language? English is one of the more difficult languages to learn because of its complexity and the sheer number of words that have variations in meaning, are spelled the same but pronounced differently, or sound the same but are spelled differently. I know you know all of these things because you are reading this right now. And you don't need to think about any of those rules, do you? That is because you are a fluent reader. You have been speaking and reading English long enough that you no longer need the rules. Your brain focuses mainly on the beginning and ending sounds and context clues when reading.
But back to our young readers... how do we help them with the craziness of the English language? I cannot recommend the "sound it out" approach. Yes, it can work. It is obviously helpful to know the general rules and sounds that letters make. But this strategy for figuring out unfamiliar words quickly becomes very frustrating for the child and for the parent or teacher! It is usually more effective to memorize some of the most common sight words (remember those books they memorized from infancy). Then when the child comes to a word they don't know, have the child guess, based on the beginning and/or ending sound of the word and, most importantly, the context of what they are reading. This means they have to be thinking about what they are reading and gaining meaning from the words, not simply decoding sounds. And gaining meaning is the entire goal of reading!
This is also why I advocate turn taking while reading. Remember round robin reading as a child when you went around the classroom taking turns reading a sentence or paragraph? Maybe you were the slow reader and hated reading aloud or maybe you were the fluent reader and wanted to read the entire thing so you didn't have to wait for the slower readers. Whichever child you identify with, the idea behind this approach is that the more fluent readers will model for the others. They will keep the flow of the text moving and hopefully everyone is listening and gaining meaning. The slower readers still get practice reading aloud without the frustration of having to read the entire text. Parents can take turns reading with their child to gain the same effect in a more safe, comforting environment.
There are huge benefits to continuing to read more challenging material aloud to your child for many years to come. In college, I loved when our Children's Literature teacher would sit us all on the floor and read wonderful picture books to us. I remember the tears in my eyes as I listened to her read books like "The Dead Bird" and "Pink and Say." Aside from sheer enjoyment, listening expands a child's vocabulary as they hear unfamiliar words. When they encounter these words in their own reading, they will be prepared for them. Audio books can be a nice tool if you do not feel comfortable or confident reading aloud. You can also take advantage of story time at your local library or bookstore.
Heading to your library or bookstore can double as an outing that will bring up topics for conversation. Talking with your child is just as important to reading success as reading aloud. The reason reading to children is so powerful is that books tend to use new words that we don't encounter in everyday situations. So in that vein, you can help your child's reading success by bringing different vocabulary words into conversation or imaginary play. Explore the world, get into new situations, visit unique places: museums, fairs, fire stations, the post office... exposing your child to new terminology and giving them hands-on context for these unfamiliar words. Have them tell someone about their experiences to reinforce their learning. Later, when they are reading to themselves, they will know those words based on their beginning and ending sounds and the context in which they appear.
Then come even more complicated rules and all the exceptions to those rules. Gee whiz! Could we have a more complicated language? English is one of the more difficult languages to learn because of its complexity and the sheer number of words that have variations in meaning, are spelled the same but pronounced differently, or sound the same but are spelled differently. I know you know all of these things because you are reading this right now. And you don't need to think about any of those rules, do you? That is because you are a fluent reader. You have been speaking and reading English long enough that you no longer need the rules. Your brain focuses mainly on the beginning and ending sounds and context clues when reading.
But back to our young readers... how do we help them with the craziness of the English language? I cannot recommend the "sound it out" approach. Yes, it can work. It is obviously helpful to know the general rules and sounds that letters make. But this strategy for figuring out unfamiliar words quickly becomes very frustrating for the child and for the parent or teacher! It is usually more effective to memorize some of the most common sight words (remember those books they memorized from infancy). Then when the child comes to a word they don't know, have the child guess, based on the beginning and/or ending sound of the word and, most importantly, the context of what they are reading. This means they have to be thinking about what they are reading and gaining meaning from the words, not simply decoding sounds. And gaining meaning is the entire goal of reading!
This is also why I advocate turn taking while reading. Remember round robin reading as a child when you went around the classroom taking turns reading a sentence or paragraph? Maybe you were the slow reader and hated reading aloud or maybe you were the fluent reader and wanted to read the entire thing so you didn't have to wait for the slower readers. Whichever child you identify with, the idea behind this approach is that the more fluent readers will model for the others. They will keep the flow of the text moving and hopefully everyone is listening and gaining meaning. The slower readers still get practice reading aloud without the frustration of having to read the entire text. Parents can take turns reading with their child to gain the same effect in a more safe, comforting environment.
There are huge benefits to continuing to read more challenging material aloud to your child for many years to come. In college, I loved when our Children's Literature teacher would sit us all on the floor and read wonderful picture books to us. I remember the tears in my eyes as I listened to her read books like "The Dead Bird" and "Pink and Say." Aside from sheer enjoyment, listening expands a child's vocabulary as they hear unfamiliar words. When they encounter these words in their own reading, they will be prepared for them. Audio books can be a nice tool if you do not feel comfortable or confident reading aloud. You can also take advantage of story time at your local library or bookstore.
Heading to your library or bookstore can double as an outing that will bring up topics for conversation. Talking with your child is just as important to reading success as reading aloud. The reason reading to children is so powerful is that books tend to use new words that we don't encounter in everyday situations. So in that vein, you can help your child's reading success by bringing different vocabulary words into conversation or imaginary play. Explore the world, get into new situations, visit unique places: museums, fairs, fire stations, the post office... exposing your child to new terminology and giving them hands-on context for these unfamiliar words. Have them tell someone about their experiences to reinforce their learning. Later, when they are reading to themselves, they will know those words based on their beginning and ending sounds and the context in which they appear.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Thank God for two parent households
I am very thankful that we have two parents in our house. I primarily stay home with our two children. Homeschooling our oldest necessitates that he and I spend a lot of time together, and sometimes Mom needs a break! But what does this have to do with helping a child learn to read, you ask? A lot! When it's Dad's turn, and he is reading to the kids, he has a completely different approach. While I tend to ask questions like, "How does that character feel?" and "What do you think will happen next?" He tends to ask, "How many apples are on this page?" and "Can you find the frog?" In fact, research shows that children whose dads read to them tend to do better in math.
I'm also thankful for Dad because he has different interests than I do. When my son was two, his favorite book was the Home Depot Big Book of Tools. Lord help me, I hated reading that book. So it quickly became a father-son thing. Dad is a woodworker; that book was perfect for him to read. I refused. If I were the only parent in the house, I wouldn't have been able to hand off that task. And it is important to follow the child's lead and find books that interest them.
Funny books are always a hit with the kids in our household and they are my favorite to read. I love getting into character and using lots of expression to make my kids laugh. Oftentimes I end up laughing so hard that I can't get out the words. That is the sign of a really great book. There are no better books for giggles than Mo Willem's Elephant and Piggie series. The kids ask for them so often that I watch for sales and now we own many of them. They are always checked out when we look for them at the library and we can never read them too many times. Another bonus is that they are easy readers written all in speech bubbles (what kid doesn't love speech bubbles?) We like to take turns being Elephant and Piggie. Check out all of Mo Willem's titles at http://www.pigeonpresents.com/books.aspx
Both of us read chapter books with the kids. We are on our second time through the Junie B. Jones series. There is something about her tendency to spout off and get herself in trouble that really resonates with four-year-olds. The stories bring up all sorts of topics that we can address before they get in a similar predicament, like cutting their own hair. Sometimes I make my son listen to a couple chapters of a book that he doesn't want to read, just because I want to read it. I let him make the decision after I read those chapters. I got him to read How To Eat Fried Worms with me that way. But he has refused to read Geronimo Stilton books. I figure at least I'm exposing him to different genres. He doesn't have to like them all. And neither do I. If I don't like it (think Bakugan or Lego Ninjago), he can read it on his own... or with Dad.
I'm also thankful for Dad because he has different interests than I do. When my son was two, his favorite book was the Home Depot Big Book of Tools. Lord help me, I hated reading that book. So it quickly became a father-son thing. Dad is a woodworker; that book was perfect for him to read. I refused. If I were the only parent in the house, I wouldn't have been able to hand off that task. And it is important to follow the child's lead and find books that interest them.
Funny books are always a hit with the kids in our household and they are my favorite to read. I love getting into character and using lots of expression to make my kids laugh. Oftentimes I end up laughing so hard that I can't get out the words. That is the sign of a really great book. There are no better books for giggles than Mo Willem's Elephant and Piggie series. The kids ask for them so often that I watch for sales and now we own many of them. They are always checked out when we look for them at the library and we can never read them too many times. Another bonus is that they are easy readers written all in speech bubbles (what kid doesn't love speech bubbles?) We like to take turns being Elephant and Piggie. Check out all of Mo Willem's titles at http://www.pigeonpresents.com/books.aspx
Both of us read chapter books with the kids. We are on our second time through the Junie B. Jones series. There is something about her tendency to spout off and get herself in trouble that really resonates with four-year-olds. The stories bring up all sorts of topics that we can address before they get in a similar predicament, like cutting their own hair. Sometimes I make my son listen to a couple chapters of a book that he doesn't want to read, just because I want to read it. I let him make the decision after I read those chapters. I got him to read How To Eat Fried Worms with me that way. But he has refused to read Geronimo Stilton books. I figure at least I'm exposing him to different genres. He doesn't have to like them all. And neither do I. If I don't like it (think Bakugan or Lego Ninjago), he can read it on his own... or with Dad.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
The inspiration behind this blog
The human mind is truly a miracle. Learning to read is a magical process that begins long before a child is able to open a book and continues throughout their lives. I have had the pleasure and privilege of watching this process unfold with my two young children and the children I have worked with in schools. I love to see the pride on a child's face when they realize that they can read! When this realization sets in, it begins an amazing process, much like learning to walk and talk. It is purely the human mind making connections. These connections will form a solid foundation for academic success. In this blog, I hope to share ways to encourage this process along with love and confidence. I write for all parents of young children, but especially for homeschooling parents who might be feeling ill equipped. Parents, you are your child's perfect teacher.
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