Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
What is the Origin of America's Annual Thanksgiving Day?
Here is a link on the origin of Thanksgiving Day...
Monday, November 16, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
How to Beat Those Tricky Vowels by Sarah Major
I have taught children of all ages with a wide spectrum of learning strengths. What I've found from working with those who struggled to learn to read is that what kindergartners have a hard time with, third and sixth graders also often have problems with. It really does make a lot of sense. After all, if you don’t get something in kindergarten, merely getting older is not going to suddenly fill in that gap in understanding.
One weakness shared by many struggling readers is in identifying short vowel sounds. Many of the children I've worked with had a hard time memorizing word spellings, and because they were very weak on vowel sound discrimination, spelling tests were torture for them. It followed that reading was torture for them as well.
The first thing I did with these children was show them visuals for the vowels. We talked about how A looks like an anthill that's been tunneled through, I like a Native American headdress, E like a little girl reaching her arms out in front of her, O like a child's wide-open mouth, and U like an upside-down umbrella. Having introduced the vowel sounds and related them to the symbols (letters), I taught a hand motion for each vowel. (See visuals for both the vowels and hand motions here. Then we moved on to actually using these newly-acquired tools! We played little games together to practice listening for the vowel sound in words.
Listen for the Vowel
I would call out a list of words, and for each word, the children would do the hand motion for the vowel they heard. A sample word list follows:
Sand, tent, with, bus, off, Tom, bat, best, sun, shop, west, fun, fin, pen, pun, pan, pin, hop.
Quick Draw
To practice listening for sounds in words, and especially for distinguishing between vowel sounds, I found playing Quick Draw to be very helpful. In this game, your child will have a whiteboard behind her, marker ready, and then listen while you say the following:
• “The word is CLASS.”
• “Sound it with me.” Have your child sound with you as you segment the word for her, “C-L-A-SS.” Use the motion for A as you sound in order to give her a visual cue for the vowel. I also used fingermapping, which gives children an instant visual map for the structure of the word.
• “Sound and Write!” This is the cue for your child to quickly turn, and write her word as she says each sound. This part is critical. She needs to say the sounds out loud and hear herself saying the sounds at the same time she is seeing her hands write the sounds.
• Do a quick visual check for accuracy and then move on to another word. If your child makes an error, do not say the name of the missed letter, rather SOUND OUT the word as she looks at the word she wrote so she can identify the missing sound and make the correction.
The Important Connection Between Sounds and Reading
While vowels represent only a handful of the sounds used to make our words, they are so important to get right. Within a year, my children who were lagging behind were reading at expected grade level. What made this remarkable change in their performance? We started to focus totally on the sounds that they could all hear in words. Instead of spelling and writing words, or trying to memorize lists of words, we just relaxed and listened to the sounds. While there are thousands of words in our language, there are only a relatively small number of unique sounds. The children could learn how to spell the sounds and conversely they learned to read those same sounds. The outcome? Success in reading.
Sarah Major, CEO of Child1st Publications, grew up on the mission field with her four siblings, all of whom her mother homeschooled. As an adult, Sarah homeschooled a small group of children in collaboration with their parents, and has taught from preschool age to adult. Sarah was the Title 1 director & program developer for grades K-7, an ESOL teacher, and a classroom teacher. As an undergraduate student, Sarah attended Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill. where she received a B.A. in art. Sarah then received her M.Ed. from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI. In 2006 Sarah resigned from fulltime teaching in order to devote her time to Child1st. More information about Child1st Publications is available at www.child-1st.com. In her spare time Sarah enjoys gardening, cooking, pottery, quilting, and spending time with her family.
One weakness shared by many struggling readers is in identifying short vowel sounds. Many of the children I've worked with had a hard time memorizing word spellings, and because they were very weak on vowel sound discrimination, spelling tests were torture for them. It followed that reading was torture for them as well.
The first thing I did with these children was show them visuals for the vowels. We talked about how A looks like an anthill that's been tunneled through, I like a Native American headdress, E like a little girl reaching her arms out in front of her, O like a child's wide-open mouth, and U like an upside-down umbrella. Having introduced the vowel sounds and related them to the symbols (letters), I taught a hand motion for each vowel. (See visuals for both the vowels and hand motions here. Then we moved on to actually using these newly-acquired tools! We played little games together to practice listening for the vowel sound in words.
Listen for the Vowel
I would call out a list of words, and for each word, the children would do the hand motion for the vowel they heard. A sample word list follows:
Sand, tent, with, bus, off, Tom, bat, best, sun, shop, west, fun, fin, pen, pun, pan, pin, hop.
Quick Draw
To practice listening for sounds in words, and especially for distinguishing between vowel sounds, I found playing Quick Draw to be very helpful. In this game, your child will have a whiteboard behind her, marker ready, and then listen while you say the following:
• “The word is CLASS.”
• “Sound it with me.” Have your child sound with you as you segment the word for her, “C-L-A-SS.” Use the motion for A as you sound in order to give her a visual cue for the vowel. I also used fingermapping, which gives children an instant visual map for the structure of the word.
• “Sound and Write!” This is the cue for your child to quickly turn, and write her word as she says each sound. This part is critical. She needs to say the sounds out loud and hear herself saying the sounds at the same time she is seeing her hands write the sounds.
• Do a quick visual check for accuracy and then move on to another word. If your child makes an error, do not say the name of the missed letter, rather SOUND OUT the word as she looks at the word she wrote so she can identify the missing sound and make the correction.
The Important Connection Between Sounds and Reading
While vowels represent only a handful of the sounds used to make our words, they are so important to get right. Within a year, my children who were lagging behind were reading at expected grade level. What made this remarkable change in their performance? We started to focus totally on the sounds that they could all hear in words. Instead of spelling and writing words, or trying to memorize lists of words, we just relaxed and listened to the sounds. While there are thousands of words in our language, there are only a relatively small number of unique sounds. The children could learn how to spell the sounds and conversely they learned to read those same sounds. The outcome? Success in reading.
Sarah Major, CEO of Child1st Publications, grew up on the mission field with her four siblings, all of whom her mother homeschooled. As an adult, Sarah homeschooled a small group of children in collaboration with their parents, and has taught from preschool age to adult. Sarah was the Title 1 director & program developer for grades K-7, an ESOL teacher, and a classroom teacher. As an undergraduate student, Sarah attended Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill. where she received a B.A. in art. Sarah then received her M.Ed. from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI. In 2006 Sarah resigned from fulltime teaching in order to devote her time to Child1st. More information about Child1st Publications is available at www.child-1st.com. In her spare time Sarah enjoys gardening, cooking, pottery, quilting, and spending time with her family.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Homeschool Mom
Here is a link to the Homeschool Mom. Sorry I haven't posted...just got a new computer..not sure if that's good or bad..still thinking!
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