20 minutes of reading

Research shows that when children read or are read to at least 20 minutes per day, their oral and written vocabulary increases along with their knowledge of different topics. As busy parents, I know that it is hard to find times to fit these 20 minutes into our day. The list below shares ideas on how you can find time for those 20 minutes of important reading time! How Do I Get My 20 Minutes? • Read during snack time • Keep a few books in the car • Make a set time to read aloud to your child􀂊 even if its for 5 minutes! • Add reading into transitions􀂊reading while you clean up lunch or finish getting ready to leave • Read everything! Signs, food boxes, magazines, etc. • Keep books by their bed • Have a set time for your child to read quietly to themselves • Play reading games􀂊hangman, Brain Quest, etc. • Read while you wait at a restaurant or doctor’s office. • Listen to stories online. Try Storyline Online! • Read activity books, such as cookbooks for kids or Klutz books. ©Lindy Cranfill

Keep reading!

With spring break right around the corner, I wanted to encourage all of our hard working Jefferson bears to continue reading each night...and even over school breaks! I often tell the students that, just like baseball and basketball players have to practice every day to get better, in order to become a better reader, the students need to practice every single day! As a parent with a busy household, I understand how difficult it can be to fit reading into an already jam-packed day...even during school breaks. The following article from www.rif.org gives some great ideas on how for reading into your family's day: Advice & Tips: Incorporating Reading Into Everyday Life It’s hard to find time as a family to sit down and read. Just dealing with every day life — school, work, sports and activities, chores, and friends — can leave barely enough time to get everything done, let alone read a book. However, a busy schedule can include time to read, even if there isn't time to read an entire book. Read on for some tips on sneaking reading into your daily routine. Morning If your family eats breakfast at the table, divide up the newspaper so everyone can read their favorite section. If your children are young or find it hard to eat and read, read aloud headlines and stories to them as they munch. Many families eat breakfast on the go. If this sounds familiar, then encourage your children to read the back of the cereal box as they pour or the packaging on their food wrappers. No matter how your children get to school — on foot, on the bus, or in a car — there are ways to get some quick reading in. Walkers can listen to a chapter of an audio book on a Walkman. Kids who ride the bus or are driven can read a magazine or comic book. This reading can be quick and fun, since kids have little time and a school day to face. Afternoon Serve your children their after-school snacks in a space that’s designated just for reading. Let them choose a light-hearted book, magazine, comic book, or catalogue as they eat and unwind from the school day. On the way to sports practice or other after-school activities, read out street signs, billboards, or storefront signs. Or have your child read aloud to you in the car as you drive. While cooking dinner, read aloud the recipe. Have your child read a story to you, including ones that he or she has written. As dinner cooks, sit down and read a chapter of a book together. While you’re adding ingredients or setting the table, begin telling a story together, taking turns adding the next part. Movies and TV time Before turning on the TV or a video game, spend 15 minutes reading together. This could be something short or a chapter of a longer book that you read everyday. Continuing stories could keep kids interested day-to-day. Mute the TV during commercials and read short snippets of articles or comic books until the show comes back on. Buy or borrow books on video games tips or tricks. Have your child read it for 10 minutes before starting a video game. If your TV allows for closed-captioning, turn it on and encourage your children to read along with the text. When you get a movie a few minutes early, read aloud the ads that show up on the screen before the previews. Have your child read to you as much of the ad as possible before the next one shows up. Evening/Bedtime After dinner, take your dessert into another room and read aloud. This can become an after-dinner ritual for the family. Too tired to read aloud? Then get the family together in the living room and put on a book-on-tape for 15 minutes. After an intense homework session, take 10 minutes to read a silly humor book or comic book. Read aloud in the bath — either you or your children can do the reading. Turn off the TV a half-hour early and read one chapter of a book.

Read Across America

This week we are celebrating the great children's book author, Theodor Geisl, otherwise known as Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss books are filled with rhyming words, silly story lines, and colorful illustrations. Children of all ages can enjoy hearing these books read aloud (some of the words are so silly that even adults have to take a second glance at them in order to read the text correctly!) and also reading the simple, repetitive texts to themselves. The following tips for reading with your children come from: http://www.seussville.com/Parents/tips_reading_child.php Developing a love for reading begins at home, and Dr. Seuss’s words and pictures will make it fun for you and your child. Get started with the tips below. Pick a comfortable spot to read in - one with plenty of light. Make it a routine - whether it's right before the breakfast, or right before bed, set aside a special time every day. Give lots of encouragement! Read the words aloud to your child. Point to the pictures. Say the words together. Laugh with your child. It's never too early. Reading can be a bonding activity for you and your new baby. Introduce reading in the very beginning, keep books in the nursery and have your books out for baby and toddler to see! The fun continues after the last page! When you finish a story, ask your child about his/her favorite passages, characters, and illustrations. Imagine that! Encourage your child to make up another character that might appear in the book. What would it look like? What would it say? What would you call it? Letters and words are here, there, and everywhere! Dr. Seuss was a master of words, real and imagined. When you’re driving with your child along a familiar route, read the signs aloud. Make your next trip to the grocery store an interactive one—read the names of food items aloud with your child. Make up new ones! Age ranges on Dr. Seuss series are simply a guide that will get you started. Once you see what your child is comfortable with, pick new books as necessary.

What to say when kids make reading mistakes...without giving them the answers!

another resource from teachmama.com to help our little ones learn while they play. . . Please note: This is just a starting point, not to be used on every child in every situation. But it’s a place to begin for parents so that we’re not just ‘giving’ kids the words that they’re stuck on during read-alouds and we’re not just correcting kids in the middle of their reading. Any one of these ideas can be used alone or along with the others while listening to an emerging reader in action! When kids won’t even try to sound out a word or they won’t budge, say: • Think about the letters you recognize and the sounds they make. What sound does this letter make (point to first letter)? Let me hear you make the sound. Now what sound does this letter make (point to second letter)? Let’s put the sounds together. . . o This works for words with letter-sound patterns that are familiar or decodable to the child. • Look at the letters you know in the word and the picture on the page. The picture is here to help you. Think about the sound this letter makes (point to first letter of word) and what you see in the picture. . . • Think about what’s going on in this story. You just read, (read previous line). Look at the picture, look at the word, and think about what might happen next. • Skip the word you don’t know and move to the next word you can read. o Sometimes this will get the wheels turning and kids will go back to ‘selfcorrect’ and re-read this word; sometimes they won’t, and that’s okay. • You might not recognize this word, but I know you know this word (cover the first letter and let him read the part he knows—at from ‘bat’). Think what to say when kids make reading mistakes …without giving them the answers! another resource from teachmama.com to help our little ones learn while they play. . . about the sound that ‘b’ makes, put the sounds together, and you’ll have it! • You just read this word on the previous page, and you read it correctly. Use your detective eyes, find the word on the other page, and see if that helps. When a child makes an error on a page and moves right on by like nothing happened, even if what she read makes no sense: • Let her go! Don’t interrupt mid-reading; instead consider saying at the end of the sentence, phrase, or paragraph: o Are you correct? o Read it again and check closely. o Can you find the tricky part? o It’s in this line. o I’ll point it out and help you find it. • Use this prompt occasionally even when your child reads the words correctly! That way she’ll get in the habit of self-monitoring while she’s reading. • Use the above prompts in this order—it’s important that you give her an open-ended question (Are you correct?) initially so that she goes back and checks her reading without your help!

Kindergarteners begin to read!

Now that we are in the third quarter of school, I have begun working with the kindergarten students on a variety of skills to guide them to be readers. For the students that are learning to recognize the names of letters, I work with them on the skills below which are skills you can also work with them on at home: -sing the alphabet song daily, pointing to the letters as you sing them -teach the child the letters of his/her name -match upper case to lower case letters using letters written on cards -hunt for letters in books-example: "can you point to all of the w's on this page?" For students who are learning to match letters to their sounds, I have found the following activities to be helpful: -read abc books, find pictures that correlate with each letter -make your own abc book. Find pictures in magazines that begin with each letter, cut them out, and have your child practice reading their book! -write letters on cards, hold the cards up and ask the child to make that letter's sound And finally, for those students ready to read, here are some strategies to encourage them to do just that! -read to your child! This will instill a love of reading, a model of fluent reading, and is great binding time! -ask questions to develop vocabulary and comprehension -look for letters on signs, in magazines, on cereal boxes...all around you! Ask your child to say the first sound in these words and then tell you what they think the signs might be telling you (for example: stop is telling you to stop) Overall, my focus for these wonderful Jefferson bears is to expose them at a variety of books and to teach them how exciting reading can be! If you have any questions or need any other tips on helping your child to further develop their reading skills, I'd be happy to help! :)

Helping your child connect to the texts they read

Often one of the reasons our kids aren't willing to finish a book is because they say, "It's boring! I can't understand it. The characters are strange. It doesn't mean anything to me." But perhaps one of the reasons our kids aren't into the book is because they aren't connecting properly. Or connecting at all. When readers make connections to the texts they read, they're more likely to understand what they read, remember what they read, and enjoy what they read. It's a fact. Though it sounds like helping kids make connections to their texts is complicated and involved, it's really not. Strong readers make connections every time they read, and they do it without batting an eye. Connecting is natural and habitual for strong readers. They connect to characters and events in texts; they connect to settings, themes, and messages in texts. There are three main ways that readers make connections to texts: they make connections between the text and themselves or their own life; they make connections between the text and another text they've read; they make connections between the text and what they know about the world around them. How do we bring this connection stuff home for our kids? How do we gently urge them into making connections so that they become stronger readers? Simple. Whether they like the book or not isn't relevant. You can initiate the connection conversation any time you'd like, any day of the week. Consider using the following phrases to help your kids make text-to-self connections with what they read: Oh, it looks like Arthur is really trying hard to train his pet, Pal. What kinds of things do you remember doing to help us train Brady? Hey! Chrysanthemum loves her name now just like you love your special name. Harry is so nervous for his first day at Hogwarts. I know you felt just as nervous when you started your new school. The following ideas will help your child make text-to-text connections: Wow! We just read a book that took place in France like this book does. Can you remember the title? Oh boy. Brother and Sister Bear are not doing a good job of taking care of their things. Think back to the book that Nanny read you this weekend. Who else did you read about who was having a hard time being responsible? What did we read about in "Time: for Kids" last month about bats? Where do they find most of their food? And helping your children make text-to-world connections will also help them become stronger readers: What do you remember about how people get around in big cities? Can you imagine how it might feel for Trixie to live in her New York City apartment? This dog looks so much like President Obama's dog, Bo. What ways are they alike? Remember how some towns require that people recycle with those big blue bins? Looks like they're doing kind of the same thing in this book. Connections are easy once you get started, and your kids will love to share with you the connections they make on their own! (From:http://www.scholastic.com/parents/blogs/scholastic-parents-raise-reader/help-your-kids-connect-to-books-they-read)

What to say when your child doesn't know a word...

We are winding down the first semester of school and our Jefferson Bear readers are becoming more independent in their reading each day. However, there are still opportunities for parents to help out when your child gets stuck on a tricky word. The article below gives some handy tips on how you can help without having your child become to reliant on you for reading their take-home books:
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Reading Strategies for Unknown Words
Please take into consideration that the reading strategies you pick for your reader will totally depend on his reading development. For example, if a child is reading at a third grade level, the strategy of “look at the picture” may not be appropriate for him or the text he’s reading. At this point, he has most likely outgrown that strategy.

Think about the Meaning

Encourage readers to THINK about what they are reading. After all, reading=thinking! Here are some things you can say to help them do just that:

• What would make sense in the sentence?
• You read ________. Does that make sense?
• Look at the picture to help you read the word.
• Think about what is happening in the story right now.
• Go back to the beginning of that sentence and start it again.
• Skip over the word and continue reading until the end of the sentence. Now, go back to the beginning of the sentence and start again.

 Use Visual Clues from the Words

• Look at the first letter(s) of the word. Say the first sound(s).
• If the word is ____________, what would you expect to see at the beginning/middle/end of the word?
• Spell the word out loud. Look at each letter.
• We’ve seen that word before in this book. Let’s find it on the other page.
• Do you see a part of the word (word chunk) that you already know?
• Let’s cover up a part of the word and read the part we see. (For example, if the word is jumping, cover up the -ing)
• Sound it out. (This only works if the child has the word knowledge and/or strategies.)
• Do you see a prefix in the word that you know? (longer words)
• Do you see a suffix in the word that you know? (longer words)
• Can you break the word into syllables?

Relate it to Talking

• Does that sound right to you?
• Can you point to the word that sounded wrong?
• You read ______, is that how we say it?

 (from: http://thisreadingmama.com/strategies-for-unknown-words/#comment-24314)