Yes, it's hard to believe that summer is over, and school starts this week. I had a great first day back, seeing colleagues, preparing my room, and getting ready for students to arrive on Thursday. I even have a few book projects on display in the front of the school.
If your house is anything like mine, it's hard to get back into the swing of things. One thing that didn't change all summer, even on our campout under the stars, is a nightly bedtime story. It doesn't matter how many times I have read a book, somehow my kids still want to hear it again. Occasionally, I can get them to listen to a chapter or two in a longer book, but they still enjoy picture books. I'm fine with that, as long as we read every night. I am glad I was able to continue this throughout the summer. My daughter starts and ends her day with a book on her own. She's just at that point where she wants to read everything! If you skipped the daily reading for the summer, don't panic! Now is the time to get back into it. Set a timer for your older student, and/or tell our younger child to choose one or two books for a nightly read. It doesn't matter if you've got it memorized; rereading is good for them. They pick up on new things, and you can talk about the story in different ways. Ask questions like why did the author choose this character's name? What is the author trying to tell us or teach us in this story? What do you notice about the illustrations? Are there any words or pictures that are repeated? Why did that happen? Try to stay away from questions that could be answered only one way. I hope you have a great start to your school year. I hope to post helpful information here once a month. If you have any questions you want answered, please feel free to e-mail me: [email protected]. Have a great school year, and keep reading!!
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Last night, when I read a Lego book to my son, he asked me to change the character’s names to Daddy and other people Daddy works with. He thought it would sound more interesting with the names of people he actually knew. He was engaged and laughing the whole time. I just know I’m going to have to read it like this forever. I hope the babysitter can figure it out! It started me thinking, how can I make books more fun for my kids? Here’s what you can do.
One idea is to put on a play of the book. I remember doing this with the kids in my neighborhood, but you can do it with puppets, paper bags, or the stuffed animals in the toy bin. Have your child choose a character from his favorite book, and act out the story with the puppets. There are many commercially available stuffed animals from stories: Pete the Cat, Olivia, and even Fly Guy! Make the ending change, or mash two stories together, like the Big Bad Wolf from The Three Little Pigs hangs out with the three bears from Goldilocks and the Three Bears. What would their conversation be like? What would the bears offer the Big Bad Wolf to eat? Could they convince him that porridge is much better than bacon? Another idea is to find different versions of the same story and read them to your child and discuss them. Compare and contrasting stories is a way to practice your child’s higher level thinking skills. My favorite is The Three Little Pigs (the classic version) and The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig (Trivizas and Oxenbury). It’s just a different version of the same story you know and love. You’ll be interested in how much you can discuss the differences between the stories. There are tons of other examples. Just Google Cinderella books and you will find lots of different versions. For those children who like to write, they can write their own version of their favorite story. It can be in a regular book, or do something creative with technology! I also like to read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (Scieszka and Lane) and talk about point of view. It is told from the wolf’s point of view, and he was really only looking for sugar and had a cold. He didn’t want to huff and puff and blow the house down; he just sneezed an innocent sneeze. He was framed! That story can lead to a nice conversation about what framed means, and why someone would put a saw in a cake and bring it to a jail! Another idea came to me while my daughter had a fever and was doing nothing but watching movies. She chose an American Girl movie to watch, and we had just finished reading the book. As we watched it, we noticed things that were different from the book, and how it changed the story slightly. Not enough that she didn’t enjoy it, but enough where I noticed it and discussed it with her. This is really easy to do because movies are hardly ever exactly like the book. Your child can create her own movie version of the book, and film it using props or create it on an iPad! I’m sure there are tons of other ideas to change books and make them your own. Feel free to add your ideas in the comments section, so we can all share and learn with each other! Last week marked a momentous occasion in our house: we registered our youngest for kindergarten. Even though I work at the school my son will attend, I still almost cried. Who knows what I’ll be like next September!
In kindergarten, there is play time (both inside and outside) and work time. So much is learned through play at this age, and you can play like this at home to enhance your child’s reading, writing and math skills. Here are a few examples. I have an easel in my house, and it currently has a menu on one side. It was written by Lexi, my second grade daughter, when we were playing restaurant. My five year old son, Will, who was our server, had a pad of paper and was writing down my order. He would say the words, and write any sounds he heard. Sometimes he only heard the first sound; sometimes he heard more sounds. Whatever he wrote, I asked “Do you hear anymore sounds in bread?” “Do you hear anymore sounds in hot dog?” I would say the words slowly so he could hear more and more sounds. I only told him the letters if I could see he was frustrated with how to spell it because he looked at it and knew it needed more letters. Other than that, whatever he wrote was correct. That’s because it’s developmentally appropriate for him. This is writing as a game, but writing for a purpose. Writing should never be used as a punishment. Your child will start to dread it, and see it as “work” and not a daily necessity. I share my daily writing with my children. They see me make lists on sticky notes and write on the computer. I make the menu for the week and write out the grocery list. Often, they help with this chore by telling me what they want to eat that week, with mac and cheese being a weekly favorite! One of my kids crosses off the items as we put into the cart at the grocery store. Then, we estimate how much it will all cost when we check out. After everything is put on the conveyer belt, Lexi and I each take guesses to see how much it will cost. Sometimes we change our guesses half way through check out! It is showing her how math is used on a daily basis. I expect them to write thank you notes for gifts they receive. Lexi sits down and writes them by herself. She knows how to properly write a letter with a greeting and closing, since she has been doing this for several years. Will just tells me what to write, and signs his name. I ask for sounds for the words, and he tells me. We put things on the calendar together: important dates and appointments. Every now and again I get a love note taped to my bedroom door. I leave notes on their doors too. One of our favorite games to play is store. We set up the cash register, and take turns being the shopper and the cashier. When you are the cashier, you get to choose what’s in the store. Who knew you could sell a lion next to kiwi? Will enjoys punching in the numbers and telling me how much I owe him. Lexi has gotten to the point of using the money and giving the exact change, so we are practicing money too! It is important for children to see adults using reading, writing, and math in our everyday lives, so point it out to your child. If they see that it is important and valuable to us, it will become important to them. No, this is not a post all about my adventures flying solo with two children to visit my parents. Although, I could write about that, and it would be hilarious, this is about reading and writing. Our school has the opportunity to take a two-week vacation in the spring. This is a great chance for our students to experience something different, and take a bit of a break. However, some students really struggle when they come back to school because they are totally out of the reading and writing routine. How can you keep your child’s reading and writing skills up over two weeks? It’s really quite easy.
Students in our school are used to sitting daily for reading and writing for about 20-30 minutes, each. Some older grades read and write for longer periods of time! This is part of their daily reading and writing workshop. You mean my kid can sit and write for 30 minutes? How does this happen? Teachers give them lots of choices! Students choose what they want to write about, and what they want to read. Reading and writing over vacation isn’t very hard; it’s just about being prepared. Before every break, I make a journal for my kids. I take a few blank pages and staple them together, with a title that includes the date and where we are going. I then head to the dollar store for stickers and new pens, pencils, or crayons. When my kids were really young, they would scribble on the pages and put stickers all over. It passes the time in the car, train or plane quite nicely. My four year old has journals full of fire truck pictures, or boats on trailers, pulled by some vehicle. My second grader has journals full of stories. She writes down stories her grandmother tells her about growing up on a farm, or her grandfather’s latest adventures with his dog that doesn’t listen. She writes made up stories about fictional characters, (ironically with the same names as members of the family) or she writes about things she sees or does. This year, I am adding a reading log to my second grader’s journal. I want her to start keeping track of the books she reads, and books she wants to read. We have been logging the minutes she reads for Read Across America, and I’m going to continue this over spring break. She is very interested in how many minutes she reads, so I might as well jump on it! She has also graduated out of blank pages and into spiral notebooks (the more glitter and swirls on the front, the better!). Though they aren’t dated with the trip we took, they are full of stories, just like in writing workshop. Along with snacks to keep their tummies full for long periods of time, I bring books. When they were really little, it was hard because the board books weigh so much, but I brought them anyway! Now, it’s all about chapter books, and the largest books on trains and cars. If it fits in their backpack, they can bring it! Sometimes we go to the library and borrow books for the trip, but usually I buy a new book for the trip. I don’t give it to them until we get on the plane, or start the car. That way it’s something to keep them occupied while we travel. Once we get to our destination, our nightly routine of reading before bed continues. But this time, the grandparents get to read to them! It’s a great tradition for all involved! So, whether you stay or you go, create a little reading and writing space and time for your children. Break out the blanket fort with the flashlight, and have them read during the day. Go to the library and look for books that would go together. Pull out your childhood favorites and share some really good stories with your child. If you’re going to visit relatives, have them help your child write about their past. You will appreciate this later, and it will be something for your child to read over and over again! Safe travels and happy reading and writing! For some students, just saying the sounds in a word and trying to blend them together isn’t enough. They need to use more of their bodies to figure out words. Wilson Language System has a great way for beginning or struggling readers to figure out how to sound out words. It’s called tapping, or tap it out. We teach it to our kindergarteners when they are first saying sounds and blending words together.
It goes like this: If the word is cat, you take your index finger and tap it to your thumb and say /c/, then tap your middle finger to your thumb and say /a/, and finally, your ring finger to your thumb, and say /t/. Then, put your fingers together, and drag your thumb under all three fingers from index to ring, and blend the sounds together to make a word. It’s really that easy! It teaches students to put sounds in order and since they are using kinesthetic learning along with auditory learning, they are more likely to be successful. However, for some students, the tapping is too hard, so we resort to other ideas. This one is working for my active kindergarten boys right now. I have a paper with three squares in the middle, and they get three plastic chips to put above the squares. They look at a word, then drag the chips down as they say each sound. When all the chips are in the boxes, they run their finger underneath the chips, left to right, and say the sounds again to blend it together. Sometimes we have to say the sounds together several times before they hear the word. If you have a struggling reader who doesn’t understand how to sound out things, or has difficulty with left to right, try either of these ideas. They just might work on your beginning reader. What does beginning reading look like? What does it sound like? How do I know if my child is ready to read? What books should she read? I must say that most people think beginning reading books look like this: “The cat sat. The cat sat on a mat. The hat is on the cat.” If those are the words, this is what you hear readers do: “The c-a-t, c-a-t, cat. The cat s-a-t, s-a-t, sat. The cat sat.” What? Is this really a story? Who writes this stuff? When I was learning to read, the stories were terrible! The first story in the basal reader had all words with short a sounds, then the next story had all short e sounds. Ed sat on a bed with an egg (or something terrible like that). How many stories can you make with the short e sound that are exciting and authentic? For many students, this is the type of reading they are given, and it’s no fun. If all you can do is sound out the word, what do those students who struggle with this do? How do they feel? Will they ever have success with reading, or will they become frustrated and give up before they even start? What if they are looking at the picture, and then someone covers up the picture and tells them to only sound out the word? Imagine how that kid must feel, and how frustrating reading must be for her. How about we teach a few sight words and focus on these strategies first: Point to the words (known as one to one matching). Get your mouth ready. Look at the picture. Is this more authentic reading? Think about yourself as a reader. If there are pictures, do you look at them? Do you enjoy sounding out every single word, or do you use a variety of strategies to figure out unknown words? Model this thinking for your child. Remind her to get her mouth ready and look at the picture. How can you support at home? One of the most important skills for beginning readers is one to one matching. Can your child point to a word, keep her finger on the word, and say the whole word before moving to the next word? Does she know that words are just letters put next to each other, surrounded by white space? If so, she is ready to point and read. If not, start by writing out a sentence from a book, cut up the sentence and have your child put it back together to point and read. Point to the words when you read a story. Ask her to point to a word. Use two fingers to make a “word window” and ask her to put a word window around a word. Keep practicing these skills with books, and point out words all around you. Pretty soon you will have a child who is pointing and reading! Now, I get to brag a bit! My son is 4 years old, and read his first book two weeks ago. Not just memorized the words and recited it, like he did this summer to Richard Scarry’s A Day at the Firehouse, but actually pointed to each word and read it. His teacher had him highlight the sight word “the” during group time, and read it and point to the words. He came home, read it, and pointed to the words. He told me the letters in “the,” and now finds “the” in his reading. However, he got frustrated with me the other night and said, “I don’t want to read all the “the” words!” You can help your child by reminding her of the simple reading strategies and pointing out print all around you. Pretty soon, you’ll have a reader on your hands! Recently I tested my fifth graders on the day they returned from a 12 day winter vacation. Am I the meanest teacher ever? Probably! Don’t worry, it didn’t count for a grade. I was trying to prove a point, and I think I hit the nail on the head! Each Tuesday, affectionately known as “Testing Tuesday,” (thanks to Mrs. Moore for the phrase!) is the day when I have students read aloud to me to see if the instruction I am giving is working. Are my students progressing in reading fluency? Is their comprehension improving on short passages? My students have been doing this for so long, that they are smiling on “Testing Tuesday.” However, I changed it to “Testing Monday” on Monday, January 5. I wanted to see if they had actually read over vacation. They started to read the story, and circle the words to complete the sentences. They had three minutes.
Three minutes later, they scored their papers and graphed their results. They all tanked! Not by a few points, some dropped 10 or more points. They were sad and bewildered. Why did I go down? What happened? So, I posed this question: if your score dropped, ask yourself, did I read over vacation? Complete silence. Then the excuses: I had hockey. I forgot. My brother/sister was annoying me. Then, I let them in on my secret rule: you only have to read on days that end with y. They started thinking, and one student said, “But that’s everyday!” Ah! Bingo! Yes, my friends, you need to read every day. This is hard. If you are lucky enough to have a motivated child, she might get up in the morning and start reading. If you have a reluctant child, it might be like pulling teeth! If you don’t have access to books in your house, it makes it even harder. So, how do you get books? You’ve heard the usual suggestions: magazine subscriptions, scour the yard sales, and check out the give away books at the library. If your child is in my school, find the book that the Rotary Club of Lake Placid donated last summer. Each child in my school received a book in June to read and keep! Pull it out and reread it! I was recently told about a free program from Dolly Parton, for children under 5 years of age. If your county participates (and Essex County, NY does), you can sign up and Dolly Parton will send you a book in the mail every month until your child turns 5. If you sign up when you have a newborn, you will end up with 60 books by the time your child is 5! Imagine 60 free books! Not just any book, good quality books. My son’s first book was The Little Engine That Could. Today, he received If I Could Build a Car. It’s very easy to sign up. Go to www.imaginationlibrary.com. Scroll to the bottom of the page and pick your country. Follow the instructions. I had to print out something and send it to the Clinton County Literacy Volunteers (even though I live in Essex county). About a month later, a book arrived. Your best bet, however, is to go to the public library and make it a big deal to get a library card! As soon as your child can write his or her name, head to the library to get a card. We had been going to the library for a few years before my son got his library card this summer. It was a huge deal to write his name in pen on a card. He has a special bag to keep his books in, and we return them and get new ones. Sometimes, we just renew the same books because he loves them so much. As long as he is turning pages and looking at words, it counts! We spend time reading together as a family, every night before bed, and it shows my children that reading is important, and it matters! I know of one parent who read to her children while they were in the bath because they often were running late. Build forts out of blankets and get flashlights to read in the fort. Put on a timer and keep track of the number of pages your child read. Keep a chart of the titles your child read. Find a favorite author or series and ask around for copies of that book. Create a sharing library with your neighbors and trade books. I believe that reading is one of the most important things, and therefore it happens every day. If you want your child to be a better reader, the best thing you can do is read to your child. So, stop by the public library, check out a book, and start reading. Ask your child’s teacher for recommendations for books to read to your child. Pull out your favorites when you were little, and start reading. If you read to your child, and value reading as a family, amazing things will start to happen! If you are a parent of a two year old, you hear those words all the time. Not only are those the words to the beginning of the Richard Scarry’s Busytown Mysteries theme song, but the questions your child asks ALL THE TIME! Why? How does that work? Why? But how? It starts to make you crazy after a while. However, as a reader, these are good things to help you understand the story better.
When good readers read, they ask questions. They ask before they start reading, during the reading, and after the reading. They are constantly questioning the author, and wondering what phrases mean. Good readers are a lot like two year olds; they ask questions because they want to know more. To model this for your child, begin reading a book with a conversation. Yes, before you even start reading, start talking to your child. Say “I wonder…” By saying “I wonder …” before you start reading a book, you are preparing your child to begin thinking, even before the reading starts. I was reading a nonfiction book on rescue vehicles to my four year old the other night. I started out by saying “I wonder what this book will be about. I wonder if the rescue vehicles in this book are the same ones we have in our town.” His response was "I don't know. We have an ambulance like this one at the ambulance garage." I just got him thinking about things before we started reading. As we read, whenever he saw a vehicle that was like the one in our town, he got excited. “We have that pumper truck at the fire house! Daddy’s police car doesn’t look like that! That’s like my airport fire truck Lego set!” He was getting excited about learning new things, and making connections between what he was seeing in the story and things he sees in his daily life. Even at four years old, he understood the story better because we were asking questions about it. When you set up the thinking for your child before and during reading, it helps to guide their thinking. They are listening with a purpose to learn more while they read. My son is very curious. He will often ask "what this mean?" or "what means..." He wants to know the hard words and phrases. He is not content to just sit there and listen; if he doesn't get it, he asks for clarification. I think it's great! Questioning can also happen in fiction stories. You can start asking questions just based on the cover. If you look at Eve Bunting’s Fly Away Home (1991) you might ask are the man and child going on a trip? Why are they dressed alike? What airport is this? As you read further, you discover they aren’t going anywhere, so your questions change. How did they get to the airport? Are they ever going to leave? If you share these questions with your child while you are reading, it will prompt her to begin thinking about other questions she might have, and this will lead to new ideas and deeper understanding of the text. Who, what, why, how? Who, what, when, where, why, how? I know you know the tune! If not, search for it, and you will never forget a question word. So, here’s to acting like a two year old and asking lots of questions! Have you ever read a book, then seen the movie and it’s not what you envisioned? It almost spoils your opinion of the book, and makes you want to write to Hollywood and tell them how they messed it up! Don’t get me started on one of Nicholas Sparks’ books based in eastern North Carolina that was filmed in Maine. The background scenery wasn’t even close to what I had pictured! The reason I was so mad was because I had a very clear vision in my head, based on my background knowledge of eastern North Carolina, and the movie was totally different. Visualization, or getting an image in your head, is one strategy that comes naturally to some readers, and not so naturally to others. Think about your own reading. Do you do this naturally? Are you forming a movie in your mind while reading?
According to Susan Zimmerman and Chryse Hutchins, authors of 7 Keys to Comprehension (2003), if a child cannot put what she is reading into her own words, then she is not creating images. If she is not interested in how the story ends, or is unable to describe what’s happening, then she is not creating images while reading. Visualizing can really help readers remember what has happened in the story. It’s a way to put themselves in the story. When readers stop and draw a quick sketch of the story, they are able to remember what they read with more detail. Then they can take all the pictures and put them together to retell the story. It comes in very handy when you are confused about what is happening in the story. Today, I had a student stop at the bottom of a page, and say "I don't understand what happened on this page." Together, we went back and worked on her images. She read a sentence or two, and then stopped and talked about the image she had. Once she was more aware of the pictures in her head, she was able to understand the story, and continued reading independently. However, visualization isn’t just about the pictures. It’s also about what you hear, smell, taste and feel. You should really be using all five of your senses to visualize. Put yourself in the characters’ shoes. What does the character see? What might it smell like? What is the character feeling (emotionally and physically)? All these questions ask the reader to go deeper into the story and think about what’s happening. You can help your child by asking her to close her eyes while you read a few sentences aloud. Then ask your child to describe what she sees. If this is difficult for her, tell about the picture in your mind. After a lot of modeling and discussing the pictures, smells, and feelings, your child should be able to do this with little help, or even independently. It helps to continue to model images whenever you are reading, even with picture books. I know I have done a great job of modeling when I am reading to my kids and they say, “Mama, stop talking and just read!” So here’s to you and your children making movies in your mind this week, instead of watching them on TV! And maybe, just maybe, you too will have visions of sugarplums! Today I want to talk about one reading strategy that most students can do pretty easily: make connections. All children think about themselves, right? I can’t tell you how many times I have read a book to a group of students, and hands shoot up with another story they want to tell about what happened to them, that somehow connects to the story. They love to make connections, even when they don’t know they are doing it.
In the beginning of strategy work, I am excited that they are making connections of any kind. As the students get more sophisticated with this type of work, they will be able to dig deeper into their mind and think about whether the connection is helping them understand the story better or distracting them from the story. To encourage your child to make more connections, have a conversation about the story as you are reading. This should be happening with picture books, chapter books, poems, and articles. What does this remind you of? Did this happen in another story? Have you seen this in a movie? Was it the same or different? Some phrases you can ask your reader to help with connections are: That reminds me of… This made me think of… I read another book that… This is different from… You can also use this strategy to infer what characters will be like throughout a series of books. Take Henry and Mudge, for example. In looking at Henry and Mudge across the stories, students can begin make the connection between the stories in the series, and then find other characters that act the same way. Mudge always drools and tries to sit in Henry’s lap. We know this about Mudge from reading the first book, and can infer that Mudge will probably do this again in another book. When he drools all over Henry again, we stop and make a connection between the two stories. Are there other dogs in books that drool and want to be close to their masters? What about Carl from the wordless books? Does he always want to be with the baby like Mudge wants to be with Henry? Is their relationship similar or different? In what ways? When students make these types connections, their faces light up and they get very excited about their thinking. This tells me that they are really into the story and are thinking while reading! So, as you sit down and read your favorite holiday story tonight, see if you can discuss connections you have while reading. Does it remind you of another story? Does it remind you of something you saw on your travels today? Does it help you understand the story better? Reading should be conversation between you and the author. Help your child by having those conversations with him or her about the story before you close the book and turn off the light! Seasons Readings! |
AuthorMy name is Laura Coffin, and I am the reading specialist at Lake Placid Elementary School. I have a BA from William Smith College and a M.Ed. in Reading from Lesley University. I also hold a Wilson Language Level I certification. I teach reading, writing and spelling strategies to help all students! Follow me on twitter @lgaetacoffin Archives
December 2017
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