Posts Tagged ‘Early Reading’
Grace Geller on June 3rd, 2010
The final part in our series by our guest author Sharon Alm
Let’s talk about the part television and computers are playing in your young child’s life. Both can be wonderful resources! Both can also be mindless noise-boxes. Hopefully, you are guiding the Technology Department in your household.
Ideally, you will coordinate the language and vocabulary with what you present via technology. The best part is that you, the parent, can and should always be with your child when either TV or the computer is “in charge” of your child’s attention. Delayed recordings of children’s shows provide you with the ability to show selected parts of a show that your child would especially enjoy. Attention spans are short, and viewing should be, as well. There’s always another day and another time. More is not better.
Sesame Street has been a favorite for many years. The big, purple Barney seems to be especially loved by pre-toddlers, simply for its simple songs and rhymes and colorful
activities. You’ll have to decide what is best in your home for your child.
Books you read with your child can guide your selection of television or computer experiences. A book about the ocean might suggest a technology experience to share a specific “critter” or to expand something else in the book. The same might apply to an Arthur book, followed by and Arthur cartoon story.
Computer software can also provide continuation of book subjects. I taught at a private school in Florida where three-year-olds were quite adept at inserting the disc needed for their pre-reading software. Technology is everywhere…..please, use it wisely.
Continue talking, talking, talking (and singing) to your child in every situation. Don’t forget to stick in those rhyming words as you go through your day (bread /head; sock /rock; chair /hair; cup /pup; bug /rug). Things will be “connecting” inside of your little one‘s brain, and you will begin to see the results of your consistency.
Peace & Light,
Grace
Technorati Tags: Early Childhood Education, Early Reading, preschool, reading
Grace Geller on May 27th, 2010
Continuing with our series by our guest author Sharon Alm
Over the years of opening the world to your child, there will be so many things that you can do to connect the books you read, to your child’s reality:
I’ve mentioned the plastic magnetic letters for the refrigerator. One of the most important first words on the refrigerator should be your child’s name!
Using the letter M as my example, you can conveniently think of lots of words, beginning with that sound, as you go through your day. Emphasizing the letter sound, as you say and shape the words, connects them in your child’s brain.
Find that visible letter as you shop or ride in the car: Mommy, morning, and M at the local McDonald’s, of course. Use capital letters, including words that you create on the refrigerator.
Write your chosen letter for your child in soapsuds at bath time in the tub; make it from PlayDoh as he/she grows into that activity. Create a collage of a few pictures from magazines that show M things in your child’s world. Post it where your child will see it to point out M pictures during a diaper change, for instance. (Don’t let your child see you cutting up a magazine for this, however. Save that for later, when you can teach scissor-cutting and the chosen old magazine to help with the posters.) Remember those lessons on respect for printed materials.
If your book is about a farm, you can visit a local petting zoo, when your child is old enough to handle the experience. Repeat this type of activity by visiting: an annual fair, the beach etc. Each experience connects something new in that little brain.
Find incidental ways to remember things from books your child has read over the years. These don’t have to be “dog and pony show activities.” Just a quiet walk in the park can recall trees or fences or fountains seen in a story. Little things mean a lot when they are discovered in the average day.
As you read the same books over and over, you’ll remember certain parts to recall at the opportune time for silly moments, too! Dr. Seuss often creates those times with “I do not like them (or that), Sam I am.” This can be a silly reminder of a funny story, and can also correct some behavior that is unfavorable to you at the time.
I would also like to recommend two books for you to read. Both cover the subject of reading aloud to your child, but are written in delightfully different ways. Each book contains lists of suggested books for various ages. The books also make great gifts for new parents!
Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives
Forever by Mem Fox
Mem Fox is also the author of several wonderful children’s books!
Read to Me: Raising Kids Who Love to Read by Bernice e. Cullinan
I hope you will delight in watching your child grow and blossom with the reading aloud of wonderful books. Making your child a book lover will be one of your greatest achievements as a parent. Reading aloud bonds parents and children in so many ways. Don’t assume that your independent reader won’t want read-aloud time with you. Chapter books provide wonderful opportunities for some great reading—only without as many pictures to explore. Your child will be older, and chapter books can provide age-appropriate life lessons, too.
Peace & Light,
Grace
Technorati Tags: Early Childhood Education, Early Learning, Early Reading, family life
Grace Geller on May 20th, 2010
Continuing with our series by our guest author Sharon Alm
Your reading aloud continues as you watch your child grow by leaps and bounds! He/She is reacting to and responding to your familiar words during routines, your rhyming fun, and the naming of the items in each book’s pictures.
It’s time to share another step along our journey to reading. This concerns the realization of the strange looking “marks” on some of the pages in your books. These marks are the keys that open and share each book’s story. Your child needs to know that reading is talk, written on the page. Each book is telling you something to share with your child….not just words. This is the guiding step to reading comprehension. Understanding and remembering what the words tell us is the meaning of reading. It’s why we read.
It starts with naming the words and emphasizing the beginning sounds. As you do this, make sure that your child looks at your mouth, when you isolate a word for him/her to learn. Seeing your mouth change shape makes him/her aware of how words begin.
Hearing and watching you make the correct shape of each beginning sound teaches the correct way to say it. Lips together for the “mmmmmm” sounds when something tastes good, or lips together then apart for the “bye-bye” words visually teach the M and the B consonants. Imitations will soon follow, and you are on your way to teaching your child the letter sounds heard in our language.
Relating the sound and the written symbol for a word is a definition of Phonics. Phonics is one way to actually teach reading. But my belief is that relying on learning words by letter sounds alone will make your child a word-reader. He/She will miss the message of the story if focusing on individual letter sounds of each word. Most children learn to read by recognizing a whole word by sight, not individual sounds.
I also, strongly believe that every child must know the sound / symbol relationship. The real study of Phonics is best left to classroom teachers. Our written language is very complicated, with many pronunciations, blends, digraphs, base words and endings, etc. Teachers are trained to present our confusing written language in an orderly manner.
Your child should know the alphabet letters and sounds by kindergarten time. It’s an important part of teaching reading. To help you as you begin to tackle this part of reading, have one or two sets of magnetic alphabet letters for the refrigerator. Perhaps Grandma has a set or two left from your younger days! They are wonderful! Keep them in a container (aside) so that you can isolate the one or two letters that are used most often, at the beginning, for a teaching time period until the imitating begins and the connection is made.
Begin your consonant challenge with “Buh,” “Fuh,” “Muh”, “Puh”, “Vuh,” and “Wuh.” These have the most obvious mouth movements youngsters can handle. The other letters include “inside-the-mouth-and-throat” sounds that are developmental. The vowels are the letter sounds that change, in our language. You’ll catch those as your child grows.
You have more of this wide, wide world to share and lots of talking to do before you need to worry about your child learning “c/kuh” and “guh” and “juh”, or individual vowel sounds. Remember that your child is learning a whole word now, and the vowels are part of that whole-word learning. Each word comes as a package—-and if you outline it, by the way, each word has a shape that is also helpful to your child’s young eyes.
Peace & Light,
Grace
Technorati Tags: Early Reading, family life, preschool
Grace Geller on April 14th, 2010
The small bundle in your arms is growing quickly! By now your child knows your voices, your faces, and some daily routines. Smiles appear! Parenting is wonderful (overlooking the messy and cranky parts, of course). Those smiles melt your heart and erase the messes. Books also help with the cranky times. Your calm voice and the rhythm of your words are comforting for many situations. Try it! Books in that diaper bag can work wonders in many “waiting times” during a day.
Reading aloud is not difficult. Your child, liking the routines in his/her life, will also like you to read the same books the same way each time. (Sit in the same places at home, with favorite pillows or blankets or stuffed friends nearby, too.) So comforting.
Use various pitches in your voice to match the story. Make some sounds for the surprises in a story, even when the surprises aren’t surprises any longer. Your child will anticipate those surprise sounds anyway! This doesn’t necessarily mean LOUDNESS.
Remember, at bedtime you want a calming story.
Don’t go to extremes with the stories. After all, you’re not on stage. Your face and your eyes share the story’s events. You are going with your child through this tale. Relax and enjoy it yourself. Take time to look at the pictures and point out some things, for enjoyment, not “teaching.” Relate them to the child’s life and to the story. Riding in the car, for instance, you might see a barn or a fire truck just like the one in the story you read yesterday.
Reading aloud with your child is the most important thing you can do to help your child read. Be satisfied that you are taking steps toward independent reading each time you share a book aloud. You are beginning at infancy and you will continue for many years. Children who are older and can read independently still enjoy read-aloud time at home (and at school). There is always a book to share, too.
Submitted by Sharon Alm, guest author
Peace & Light,
Grace
Technorati Tags: Early Childhood Education, Early Learning, Early Reading
