Posted on January 19th, 2010 by
tutor1235
It’s January, so that means that most of us are getting new calendars. The old ones can be a great source of reading, writing and math fun, so don’t toss them. This is the ultimate in recycling!!
- Cut the numbers apart and have your child build math equations
- Cut the days of the week apart and put them in order
- Cut the month names out and put them in order
- Tell or write stories about the pictures
- Put the numbers in order
- Find the numbers you need to count by 2′s (or 3′s or 4′s…) to 30
- Do some calendar calculations-how many days between Christmas and Easter? How many weeks is that? How many months?
- Which month has the highest numbered Tuesday?
You get the picture. Now it’s your turn-what creative educational idea can you share with us that uses an old calendar??
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Posted on December 30th, 2009 by
tutor1235
Hey everyone! If you teach an elementary class or work with a summer program and want to educate parents right along with the kids, you’ll want to get your free sample of the Parents’ Guide to Reading. This 2-page newsletter is great to duplicate and hand out to families because it’s full of ideas and information related to reading education. Look for fun ideas to share with kids, thoughts on the process of learning to read, and simple explanations of teacher-jargon perfect for helping parents understand just what to do to help support their kids’ efforts to improve reading. It’s a great tool to build a home-school partnership.
And parents, consider printing off this web address and the sample newsletter. Tell your child’s teacher about it!!
Get your free sample issue just by heading over to Free Sample: Parents’ Guide to Reading Newsletter!
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Posted on March 10th, 2009 by
tutor1235
Get your active young child engaged with learning basic sight words! Make or buy a set of flashcards that show basic words that every child needs to learn. These would be words like go, sit, up, down, run, and could. You can find complete lists by search key words like Dolch list.
Spread the words out around the floor of your play area. You’ll want several feet of space between each word. Now, call out a word and have your child run to find it. Call another word and let your child run to the new word. Keep going as long as excitement is there, and your active child will be practicing vital reading skills while burning up some energy and getting exercise!
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Posted on January 12th, 2009 by
tutor1235
Make the most of your read-aloud time by encouraging interaction! Here are some ideas:
- Ask your listeners to clap when they hear a secret word that you choose before you start.
- Leave the final rhyming word off the end of a line and have the kids fill in the blank.
- Have children join in repetitive sections of stories such as ‘the Gingerbread Man’ or ‘the Three Little Pigs’.
- Embed a nonsensical word into the story or rhyme and see if anyone notices.
- Pause at different points in a new story to predict what might happen next.
- Pause at different points in a familiar story to see if your audience can retell the next event.
When you involve children in the reading, you are building comprehension and memory skills, so try to do at least one of these activities every few days. Don’t make all of your reading sessions work for the kids, but instead, sprinkle these games throughout the week so they seem fun and challenging instead of dull and boring.
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Filed under: Reading Corner
Posted on November 20th, 2008 by
tutor1235
If your young or inexperienced reader has difficulty deciding if the letter is “b” or “d,” here’s a quick and easy tip! This will work for students who know the sounds of the two letters. Have the learner make a fist with each hand and hold both thumbs straight up (like a “thumb’s up” sign). Now, put the knuckles together, and with just a little imagination, you will see a bed. The fist on the left is shaped like the letter “b,” and “bed” starts with “b.” The fist on the right is shaped like a “d,” and “bed” ends with a “d.” With a little practice, a quick look at hands will help your youngster over this reading hurdle.
Need more ideas for struggling readers? Check out All Info About Reading!
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Posted on November 17th, 2008 by
tutor1235
I’ve had a number of parents recently who are struggling with the idea that their child is not a proficient reader. They hear the child read out loud, and because few errors of word recognition are occurring, they believe that the student is reading well. However, when asked to answer questions about the passage, put events into proper sequence, define unfamiliar words from the piece, or perform any number of other comprehension tasks, the student is totally lost. These children have mastered the fine art of word-calling.
Word-calling is very similar to the phenomenon that people refer to for listeners as “going in one ear and out the other.” You might say that the text is “going in one eye and out the other”! The reader can and does recognize the words, but is paying little attention to getting the meaning from the passage. This might happen for a number of reasons, and it’s up to us adults to sort out exactly where the process is breaking down.
Reasons that a reader might be a word-caller include:
- He or she might be unmotivated. If a student is unmotivated, then it is likely that he or she is not engaged with the text.
- He or she might be having trouble with decoding skills. Like a computer, there is only so much processing power in any given brain. If the brain’s energy is being taken up by working too hard on decoding, there may be little mental energy left over to comprehend the text.
- The reader might be going too fast. Our reading pace is often habitual, and if a reader habitually reads too rapidly, comprehension can suffer.
- The reader may not be expecting meaning from the text. Often struggling readers miss the message because they have totally divorced the process of reading from understanding. They don’t expect meaning so they don’t remember what they’ve read.
These are just a few of the reasons why some students have difficulty with comprehension even when their word recognition skills seem to be relatively intact. Take a close look at your reader, and see if he or she is truly understanding the text or if he or she is simply word-calling. If you find a word-caller, take action now! You want to help eliminate this habitual incomprehension so that it doesn’t have a chance to damage your child’s academic performance.
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Posted on November 5th, 2008 by
tutor1235
Get your reluctant readers in the mood by setting the stage with filmed versions of books. Most reluctant readers are quite willing to watch video versions of stories, and you can take advantage of this fact in several ways.
–> Watch First, Read Later:
Try having your student watch the film version of the story, then read the book. For many struggling readers, this is a must-do. It will boost comprehension and improve retention. Try encouraging your reader to read and discover details that the filmmakers left out of the story.
–>Read First, Watch Later:
If you read first, you can offer the reward of watching afterwards. Encourage your reader to visualize how he or she would create the film version of the story, then watch to compare their vision with reality. You can also set up a scavenger hunt through the movie by listing items or details to notice and see if your student can pick them out.
No matter which way you use them, movies can enhance your student’s reading experience. Put them to work in a positive way!
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