Keep Reading Over Spring

I hope you have a wonderful spring break.  Don't forget to keep reading during this well-deserved break! Here are some ideas to keep reading fun over break:


Making a Treat

Find a food/snack that your child likes to eat such as cookies. Together, find a recipe that your child wants to try. Have your child read the recipe to you and let your child read any text found on the ingredients. Go to your library and take out a book about cookies and read it together while you are snacking on some tasty treats!

 

Getting Down to Music

 

Help your child write the lyrics to a favorite song and then have your child read the lyrics (or sing!) while listening to the song

Book and a Movie
Rent or go to a movie that your child wants to see that is based on a book. Have your child read the book and compare the similarities and differences. Ask your child if he/she preferred the book or movie version. Another option, is to rent videos on a topic that your child is interested in and then finding books to read on a similar topic.

(from www.scholastic.com)

Bedtime books!

Each night, my son asks to be read two of the following books: "Curious George Goes to the Firestation," "Slowy, slowly, slowly, said the sloth," "Moongame," or "Where the Wild Things Are."  Any time I try to put a new book into the mix, he quickly tosses it aside.  He has his favorites. He thrives on a routine.  The more research I do, the more I find out that this is perfectly normal! What does your child's nighttime reading routine look like at your house?
_______________________________________________________
From: http://www.howkidsdevelop.com/speechReading.html

"Reading is a wonderful bonding and learning experience for children. How you approach and carry out your bedtime reading routine can enhance cognitive development."

1. Read with Your Eyes and Fingers
   
   • Run your finger under the words as you read.
   • Why? Running fingers under the text trains a child's eyes to follow words and symbols from left to right. Also, one of the first steps when learning to read is hearing sounds in the words. This teaches that speech is made up of different individual words and sounds.


2. Create a Bedtime Reading Zone
   • Read in your child's bedroom, surrounded by her favorite things: a blanket, stuffed toy, night-light.
   • Why? Being in a familiar place stimulates all the senses at once, making the experience pleasurable and memorable and creating positive associations with reading.


3. Get Close
   • Have your child sit next to you or on your lap to provide him with a feeling of security.
   • Why? When a child feels insecure, the body releases a hormone that can interfere with learning. Creating a warm, close bond makes the child comfortable and can help him learn.


4. Find Your Child's Pace
   • Start with short reading sessions and slowly build up to longer sessions.
   • Why? There is a difference in what a child can do with guidance (potential development) and what a child can do without assistance (actual development). Building up reading time keeps your child challenged and helps your child transition from reading with help to reading independently.


5. Act Out
   • Act out the characters and use variation in your voice while reading the story.
   • Why? This helps your child develop critical listening skills and makes reading time more fun.


6. Be Repetitive
   • Read favorite books more than once.
   • Why? When a child reads a book over and over, he can learn to predict the outcomes and recognize patterns. This helps your child learn and store new information and builds upon his memory.


7. Make a Point
   • Point out pictures, shapes, colors, and page numbers.
   • Why? This develops an understanding of printed material.


8. Word Power
   • Enunciate your words, but speak as normally as possible while reading aloud. Pay close attention to grammar as your child is paying close attention to you.
   • Why? When listening to a parent read, a child listens to spoken language. This helps his ability to express thoughts and communicate using correct grammar.


9. Share and Compare
   • Make comparisons as you read. For example, "Which tree is taller?" Or, "You have blonde hair. What color hair does Goldilocks have?"
   • Why? Comparing and contrasting helps children create connections and find meanings in these connections.


10. Play a Game
    • After finishing a story, ask the child what happened in the beginning, middle, and end.
    • Why? This stimulates higher-order thinking because your child has to analyze the story and tell you in her own words what happened. This will also enhance your child's listening and reading comprehension skills.

Shared Writing

Each day, my hard-working readers also practice their writing.  We often utilize a technique called "shared writing" in which we apply new learning of word families, spelling patterns, and punctuation that we read in text.  We might stretch sounds using sound boxes, assist one another in hearing beginning, middle, and ending sounds, or look back at the text to find out how to spell characters' names.
Below you'll see a picture of one of my fabulous readers' response to the text he read. You'll see how he did a great job paying attention to beginning and ending punctuation!

Reading around town with environmental print!

All about environmental print

Environmental print is the print we see all around us in everyday life - the print on commercial signs, labels and products we all use each day, whether it be McDonald's 'golden arches' or a traffic stop sign. Displaying environmental print in the classroom and in the home can help young children achieve early reading success, and these early breakthroughs may well motivate them to read more and more.

As parents you can use environmental print to your - and your child's - advantage. A child is particularly tuned in to environmental print related to their own interests (games and toys, or a movie, for example) so you really should make the most of this captive audience with different activities related to word and vocabulary building.

Environmental print is a great teaching medium as it bridges the gap between the functional print of school and the print of the outside world - and it doesn't cost a lot of money to use. The use of environmental print during interactions between parents and their children provides a way to expose children to letter shapes and letter sounds. The fact that environmental print is everywhere can gives lots of opportunities for spontaneouslearning experiences.

---

Some activities with environmental print to help a reader

Here are a few environmental print-related activities for you to try out with your child.

a. Shopping photos - Take your digital camera with you when you go out shopping with your child, and take photos of what you buy - particularly the packaging and the branding/logos. You can then use the photos to make bingo cards, games of 'snap', even scrapbooks. Your photos can be resized to fit your needs and are easy to get access.

b. 'What's for Breakfast' game - After your child has finished a packet of her favourite cereal, cut off the front of the box. Write "{Child's name} eats {name of cereal}" on a strip of paper and glue it on the bottom of the box. Make a cover for the book that says, "What's for Breakfast?", hole punch the cereal boxes together and bind with book rings. Trim the boxes to a standard size before making the book.

c. Road signs - Choose a simple road sign to focus on during a car trip like a stop sign, or a pedestrian crossing. Encourage your child to count the number of signs seen along the way, and then ask him to read the sign. See if he notices that the same sign says the same message each time. Talk about the sounds of the letters you can hear (for example, "the S makes the /ssssssss/ sound.")

d. Sort by syllables - Collect environmental print words with different numbers of syllables, and then ask your child to sort the words by number of syllables. Also, ask her to find words that have "ing" and "s" endings. She can then sort the word by how the ending of the word is changed.

e. Create their own - Encourage your child to create his own environmental print by labelling important areas and objects in the home. He can make signs for designated areas, such as the bookshelf, bathroom, or kitchen, and labels for supplies, groceries or everyday objects, such as the kitchen table or wall clock.

---

Environmental print resources

A few useful websites and resources on the subject of environmental print:

a. SharonMacDonald.com -
This site has a huge list of great 'EP'activities, divided into a number of categories including reading, math, writing, art and music. They are handy for both the home and the classroom.

b. Organizing an Environmental Print Games Night -
Everything you would ever need to organize an evening of environmental print fun and games, including the games themselves, instructions, and even invitations to the event!

c. Everyday literacy: Environmental print activities for children three to eight -
this book has over 150 activities that use ordinary everyday objects to help children build essential reading skills. Each activity has a brief description, learning objectives, theme connections, materials, and literacy interactions. Price is US$62.95.

d. Read Write Think -
This detailed lesson plan titled 'From Stop Signs to the Golden Arches' is more geared towards teachers than parents, but its information is extremely valuable for anyone looking for an in-depth instructional plan for using environmental print as a teaching aid.

e. A Review of Research on Environmental Print -
This long but informative article details the research that has been carried out on the links between environmental print and child literacy development. It particularly focuses on different stages of learning development.

---

---

From: www.improveliteracy.com

Copyright 2009 by Improve Literacy.
All rights reserved

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Emily L., Faith T., Aaliyah R.-S., Aliyana S.-R., and Ayla S. who have all finished Title One reading!  These fabulous readers have reached the middle reading gorup in their rooms and no longer need reading support.  Awesome work, girls!

However, just because these girls no longer need reading support, it does not need they can stop reading "just right" books every night.  All students should be reminded to use their reading strategies in their classrooms and at home and continue to read 10-15 minutes each night.  It's also important that students hear adults reading TO them so that they hear fluent reading modeled.