Here’s a fun game you can play with your children when practicing reading books starts to get old:

Tell your kids you’re going to try something different while you’re reading together today. Have a spare piece of paper and explain that you are going to make a word list while he or she reads the book. Make the list based on the predominate phonics word pattern that’s being featured in the book. For example: in a book called “Jake’s Cake” you’ll be finding a lot of words with a silent ‘e’ which makes the ‘a’ in the word have a long sound.

As your child reads the book, make a list of words that fit the phonics criteria that you’ve chosen.

When your child finishes the book, go through the list of words you’ve made you’re your child and see if they understand the phonics pattern.

Next, choose a similar book and tell them it’s their turn to write the list. Go through the list together and make any corrections if need be. Once this game becomes too easy, have your child make more than one list with each list having a different phonics pattern

When I talk about “making books” with your child it may not be exactly what you’re thinking. I’m not suggesting that you write your own reading books , rather you should compile words together that your child commonly reads, staple covers on them, and have your child read them to friends and family to anchor their newfound knowledge.  For example, as your child finishes learning short vowel words you can make a separate list for each vowel “a, e, i, o, u”, compile those five pages together, and title it something like “Short Vowel Words by (insert child’s name here)”.

To add to your child’s anchoring of reading skills, have them write the words out all by themselves. This will be a major confidence boost when they can tell everyone they read the book to that they made it all themselves! Continue this trend as they move on from short vowels to long vowels and eventually diphthongs. For tips on what words to include in the word lists, please check back for information on an upcoming phonics book being released!

A really important activity you can do with your child is to teach them how to write and send a letter. In our fast paced internet-centric society it’s easy to forget how important writing a good letter is. I don’t know about you, but I still love getting an old fashioned handwritten letter from someone I love every once in a while. So pass the tradition on to your child!

Teach them the standard form of a letter “Dear____, {body of the message}, Love, _______”. Show them how to properly address and stamp an envelope, and have fun waiting for a reply… I’m sure Grandma and Grandpa would be happy to be pen pals with their little star grandchildJ Of course this is an activity you want to start around first grade or when your child has a lot of confidence in writing full sentences.  Eventually, you can take traditional letter writing to the computer and show them how to send emails as well. Happy writing! 

Quick tip: Always encourage your child to visualize what they are reading. Mental images help make connections between words being read and the ideas and pictures they communicate. Teach your child to think of stories almost like mini movies in the head so that as the plot develops, the imagery becomes more and more vivid. Once they learn this it’s easy for them to recall images when they begin to read the same book again, as well as develop new images as they are introduced to other books. As in the last post, making predictions about stories becomes easier when your child can imagine what’s going to happen when they are reading a story. You’ll find that when you can engage your child’s mind they’ll enjoy reading more and thus become more likely to be avid readers in the future. That’s a win-win situation for everyone!

Plus, when you introduce story writing to your child, it will be all the more simple for them to be able to illustrate the pictures from their mind onto paper!

Sight words are something we covered in an earlier post, but something we should revisit. We established that sight words (aka Dolch words) are words that have to be taught to be recognized by sight and can’t be phonetically sounded out. Because sight words don’t fit the rules of phonics, they must be taught by rote memory through a variety of methods such as games, flash cards, and practice through reading books. There is discussion, however, as to which words should be considered sight words and which words can actually be phonetically sounded out. The Dolch word list outlines 220 words that should be memorized by children for speedier reading skills. Some of these words, some argue, can be ‘sounded-out’ though and should not be considered sight words by definition.

Some of the words up for debate include:

AND

IT

IN

IS

Others say the definition of a sight word has nothing to do with whether they can be sounded out; rather it has to do with the frequency they are seen in written works or their “commonality”.

Where does you opinion lie with the sight word debate?

Once your child has a firm grasp of what makes up a story- introduction, main theme/story, and ending- have them begin to write short stories of their own. When you’ve taught them the word drop game that I discussed in a recent post, they’re going to learn how to write a proper sentence. The only thing you have left to introduce to them to is how to group together sentences to make a story. This begins early when you read them their bedtime stories! It doesn’t take long for kids to recognize the sequence of characters being introduced, the characters having some adventure or solving a problem, and the resolution and end of the story.

Encourage your child to draw a picture and then tell you a story about it. Once they’ve done this, you can suggest that they write the story down. Give them lots of help the first few times they do this exercise and then let them fly free!   Be sure to provide them with large pieces of paper that have a space on the top for their drawing and then pre-printed lines for them to write their story on. You can find sheets like this at any teachers supply stores or anywhere office supplies are sold.

The more ways you introduce your child to language, the better they will be able to grasp an understanding of the spoken and written word and how language works as a whole. This is why from birth it is so important to talk to your child, ask them questions, answer their questions and really develop their speaking skills in the process. I know it’s easy to get bogged down with day to day responsibilities, but remember that your child is a sponge wanting to soak up all the information around them. Don’t let the TV become a replacement for real interaction.

Here are some things all parents should do with their kids to immerse them in language early on and subsequently help them academically before they even make it to preschool:

Read books and encourage them asking questions and predicting the course of the story, sing songs, teach them rhymes, play interactive games like “I spy” and “Memory”, start to teach them letters and sounds, point out signs when your out driving to introduce word association, and so on…

Any other suggestions out there? Please drop a line in the comments!

Now, you guys are probably wondering right now when is the best time to teach your child how to write their name… Most names are not phonetic, but that doesn’t mean you need to wait later in your child’s reading development to teach them how to spell and write their name. In fact, you should do this early on as a confidence booster and a great introduction into proper writing skills. There are many resources you can find on the web or in teacher’s supply stores that contain writing hand-outs where you can copy letter worksheets and have your child practice them to learn and/or reinforce their skills. Just make sure that the style of writing you teach your children is the same as what they are learning in school. Most schools teach denelian style letters, but be sure to check with your child’s teacher first.

Have them complete the entire alphabet over time and don’t be afraid to have them do it over and over again in order for them to learn really learn how to properly write letters. In today’s world with computers and text messaging dominating the written word, good handwriting is becoming a thing of the past. So while it’s important that your child have good computer skills, it’s also important that you give them a solid foundation for their handwriting skills. So make it easy and start with name writing! Once they learn how to write their name on their own you can have them write it on the cover of all their phonics books that they compile their word lists intoJ Before you know it, they’ll want to write their name at every given opportunity!

We always want to challenge our kids to have the greatest understanding possible in all of their lessons, –especially in reading lessons. Any way you can strengthen their skills is a plus and today I have a fun idea for you to try to do just that! The game is called “Rhyme-time” and the way you play is:

1)   Choose a word ending such as “-at” (if you are working on short vowels for example)

2)   Tell your child that you are both going to come up with words that end in “-at”. Explain that because the words sound alike, they rhyme.

3)   Start making up words: bat, cat, fat, rat, sat, mat, pat, hat, etc.

4)   Have your child repeat the words with you and ask if they can hear how they sound alike.

5)   To take the game to the next level, challenge your child to see who can make up the most rhyming words!

Go through this game with all the short vowels and then move on to long vowels. Something to remember is once you get to long vowels you should point out that just because the words rhyme doesn’t mean that they are spelled similarly. For example, ‘rain’ and ‘lane’ rhyme but they display two different long vowel lessons: ‘ai’ makes the long ‘a’ sound and the ‘e’ makes the ‘a’ say its name.

Here are some hard facts presented by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in its literary report of 2003:

ü  About one in 20 adults in the U.S. is not literate in English

ü  85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate

ü  More than 60 percent of all prison inmates are functionally illiterate

ü  One child in four grows up not knowing how to read

ü  90% of welfare recipients are high school dropouts

Scary stuff, huh? That’s why I think it is so important to take whatever steps necessary you need to in order to increase your children’s likelihood of academic success early on. Phonics has been proven time and again to be a helpful reading method to teach basic reading skills to all ages. As the saying goes: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Use what you know works!

*Thank you to http://www.begintoread.com/research/literacystatistics.html for the statistics.