Sorry about the cliffhanger there! I have been meaning to get back for weeks, but Christmas, renovations and life happened all at once.
So, how did we go from letters to words? Once Farm Boy was fairly confident with the names and basic sounds of all the letters I found my trusty index cards. Seriously folks, don't homeschool without them. On each card I wrote a single word. I made a card each for the words that he knew how to read in the reader and then I added some words that I knew he would like to read - like his name, his siblings names, the word "cow" seeing as he loves all things cow related etc. Then after we read his reader, we played the sentence game. I put out some words to make a sentence that he would be able to read (for example: The cat sat on the hat.). When he had read it, I praised him up and changed it putting in a few different words and removing others. It helps if the sentence is funny, something like "The cat sat on Farm Boy" or "Tool Man sat on the cat". Four year olds have a fabulous love of the ridiculous and I use this to keep Farm Boy interested.
As time goes on we added some other words and play the sentence game for a few minutes after we read. Some days we mix it up and I will write whole lot of "body part" cards and as Farm Boy reads them, he can stick them on himself or me (a game I got from a Peggy Kaye book called "Games for Reading") or we will walk around the house labeling things, people and pets. Farm boy gets to choose some cards to compose sentences for me to read too. It is invariably the case that a few of the sentences won't be grammatically correct and this is a great teaching point. First I will read the sentence exactly as it was composed "At the cat on sat" for example. Then I will screw up my face and exclaim "That doesn't make sense, that's SILLY!" After a giggle I encourage him to help me change it to something that DOES make sense.
Why do I think the sentence game is so important? Because it stops a child thinking they can read simply because they memorised a reader then getting frustrated when they find they can't read the books in their book shelf. Mixing it up, seeing the words in different contexts, experimenting with formulation of correct sentences and trying out the meanings of words really gives reading ability a good work out. Knowing that C-A-T spells cat in the reader AND on the card is a big step in learning how to read. I believe in making our resources for this game together because I can tailor make it to the child. Phonetically, cow is way beyond where Farm Boy is at but because I know he loves cows it makes sense to use it now. So I wrote it and explained that O and W fight and say 'OW!' and it is one word he can always read. Because it comes from what he loves. Princess Doc had body parts and medical terms and I suspect Tool Man will want cars and tools. A child will want to read about what they are passionate about and will put the work in to learn if they see it as worthwhile.
A Note on Writing:
I do not believe a child should be required to write until they have shown an interest in learning OR are a proficient reader. Writing requires the mental knowledge of letters, what they mean and how to put them together. It also requires fine and gross motor skills that many early readers simply do not possess. When Princess Doc wanted to learn to read I used a popular text to start her off and it required that she write a little each day. My training had taught me that you teach letter formation at the same time as you teach the letter. Away we went and I found I was killing her love of reading. She hated having to write the letters because she simply did not have the fine motor skills to do it "properly". And if you know Princess Doc at all, you know that "properly" is very important to her. So I let it go and we just read - and today I have and confident novel reading six year old who is just now perfecting her letter formation. Sadly, many children are prevented from surging on with their reading at school because they haven't learned to write well enough yet. I personally see this and a linked but separate skill which may form at a completely different rate.
Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Monday, October 11, 2010
Teaching Farm Boy to Read
I am not really into the whole "teach your baby to read" thing. If that's what boils your potato, go ahead, but it isn't me. I would rather just read them lots and lots of books than mess around with flash cards! I was quite content to leave it until my children were at least seven before starting to teach then how to read.
My children, however, had other ideas.
At age 3 and a half, Princess Doc started asking me to teach her to read. Daily. For weeks on end. So I did and she is currently (at age 6) working toward her aim of reading 100 books in 50 days to raise money for a chosen charity (more on that in a later post). She read 15 books this afternoon.
Thinking she was a bit of a freak, in the nicest possible way, I cautioned Papa Bear and various other friends and relatives not to compare the younger ones to her freaky deaky reading brilliance and let them learn in their own time - even if it wasn't until they were over the age of 7.
Sure enough, Farm Boy turned 3 and a half and what did he start doing?
Asking me to teach him to read.
Repeatedly.
For months.
So I thought we'd document how we are going about teaching Farm Boy to read.
The kicker with Farm Boy is that he did not yet know all of his letters when he wanted to start reading. I could have insisted that he learn letters first, but his passion was reading WORDS thank-you - specifically, reading the orange Fitzroy readers he saw his sister start reading. To me, insisting he learn ALL his letters was a little like telling someone that they must sing every note pitch perfect before learning to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep. Talk about killing the joy!
So we learned letters on the fly while reading words.
I read the reader to him, sounding out the letters. Then we read it together. After this, we got out some little cards with letters on them that are a part of a spelling game we have (scrabble tiles would work too) and made a couple of the words that are in the readers using the cards. We would name the letter, say the sound that it made then put it down in the pile. Then we would select letters from the pile to make words like "cat" and "hat".
All up this entire process would take about ten minutes a day.
I also made sure we caught Sesame Street each morning and added lots of alphabet books to our read aloud times.
When Farm Boy started to get more confident with this, I added a double page spread of the alphabet in lower case and a double page spread of the alphabet in upper case to his Chair Time Book (yet another post to be written there, suffice to say it is a display book that we look through each day as we snuggle in my Snuggle Spot) and he would sing the alphabet through as he pointed to the letters. I would then ask him to find three or four specific letters on the pages. Because Farm Boy seems to be predominantly a kinesthetic learner I would grab his hand and draw a giant letter in the air as I asked him something like "Can you find a wibble wobble W that says 'wuh'?" I'd also get him to make the sound too so the physical movement of 'writing' the letter in the air, the physical movement of making the sound and the movement of pointing to the letter on the page all engaged his brain in what was happening. Pretty soon, he was pointing out letters on signs, newspapers, shop fronts and magazines with great excitement.
I try to make sure he experiences some type of success every time we read together and praise up everything he achieves. This time is very positive, with lots of cuddles and kisses and positive touch. Touch is an incredibly positive teaching tool. There are about a bazillion studies on the positive effects of touch on the brain which I won't go into now. Suffice to say, positive touch releases lots of happy juice into the brain and a happy brain is a learning brain. I wouldn't really have minded if he had decided to drop reading, but he hasn't and is making slow but good progress. He was very proud the day he could sit and read that little reader to Papa Bear perfectly and excited to start the next one!
Next time, I will tell you how we progressed on to the next reader, words and my personal feelings on the links between reading and writing.
My children, however, had other ideas.
At age 3 and a half, Princess Doc started asking me to teach her to read. Daily. For weeks on end. So I did and she is currently (at age 6) working toward her aim of reading 100 books in 50 days to raise money for a chosen charity (more on that in a later post). She read 15 books this afternoon.
Thinking she was a bit of a freak, in the nicest possible way, I cautioned Papa Bear and various other friends and relatives not to compare the younger ones to her freaky deaky reading brilliance and let them learn in their own time - even if it wasn't until they were over the age of 7.
Sure enough, Farm Boy turned 3 and a half and what did he start doing?
Asking me to teach him to read.
Repeatedly.
For months.
So I thought we'd document how we are going about teaching Farm Boy to read.
The kicker with Farm Boy is that he did not yet know all of his letters when he wanted to start reading. I could have insisted that he learn letters first, but his passion was reading WORDS thank-you - specifically, reading the orange Fitzroy readers he saw his sister start reading. To me, insisting he learn ALL his letters was a little like telling someone that they must sing every note pitch perfect before learning to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep. Talk about killing the joy!
So we learned letters on the fly while reading words.
I read the reader to him, sounding out the letters. Then we read it together. After this, we got out some little cards with letters on them that are a part of a spelling game we have (scrabble tiles would work too) and made a couple of the words that are in the readers using the cards. We would name the letter, say the sound that it made then put it down in the pile. Then we would select letters from the pile to make words like "cat" and "hat".
All up this entire process would take about ten minutes a day.
I also made sure we caught Sesame Street each morning and added lots of alphabet books to our read aloud times.
When Farm Boy started to get more confident with this, I added a double page spread of the alphabet in lower case and a double page spread of the alphabet in upper case to his Chair Time Book (yet another post to be written there, suffice to say it is a display book that we look through each day as we snuggle in my Snuggle Spot) and he would sing the alphabet through as he pointed to the letters. I would then ask him to find three or four specific letters on the pages. Because Farm Boy seems to be predominantly a kinesthetic learner I would grab his hand and draw a giant letter in the air as I asked him something like "Can you find a wibble wobble W that says 'wuh'?" I'd also get him to make the sound too so the physical movement of 'writing' the letter in the air, the physical movement of making the sound and the movement of pointing to the letter on the page all engaged his brain in what was happening. Pretty soon, he was pointing out letters on signs, newspapers, shop fronts and magazines with great excitement.
I try to make sure he experiences some type of success every time we read together and praise up everything he achieves. This time is very positive, with lots of cuddles and kisses and positive touch. Touch is an incredibly positive teaching tool. There are about a bazillion studies on the positive effects of touch on the brain which I won't go into now. Suffice to say, positive touch releases lots of happy juice into the brain and a happy brain is a learning brain. I wouldn't really have minded if he had decided to drop reading, but he hasn't and is making slow but good progress. He was very proud the day he could sit and read that little reader to Papa Bear perfectly and excited to start the next one!
Next time, I will tell you how we progressed on to the next reader, words and my personal feelings on the links between reading and writing.
Monday, March 15, 2010
What: Teaching Poetry
Why:
I love poetry and always have. I read and write it myself and I want to pass that on to my kids. Poetry is writing at it's highest art form. The economy of language forces the poet to make each word count, using tricks like alliteration and onomatopoeia like a painter uses brush strokes. I can't help but get enthusiastic about it!
If my children love poetry, they will want to do the work later on to understand it, both the words and the historical context.
If you can read and write poetry effectively, you can read and write anything. And reading and writing is all about communication. And communication is all about reaching the hearts of another.
HOW:
The only 'formal' things we do is our 'refined afternoon tea' on Wednesday afternoon. We have something special to eat and cups of peppermint tea with honey at the table with a table cloth and POETRY. I have several books of it and we will each take it in turns selecting a poem - even Tool Man. At first they selected the illustrations that interested them (being non-readers) but now, after doing this for over a year, the older two are starting to ask for some of the poems by name. Princess Doc carefully reads each one in the book she has chosen before making her selection, so I get her to start choosing BEFORE the rest of us are at the table!
Nonsense verse and nursery rhymes are a large part of our poetry reading and sometimes the 'refined' nature of our afternoon teas go out the window with toilet training accidents, upturned tea cups and detours into "manners training" and sometimes we just take a quilt outside and make it a picnic. What I want to pass on in this session is a love for the art of putting words together. Nursery rhymes are the river stones of our language, smoothed and refined in the mouths of generation after generation. Nonsense verse makes us laugh and evokes vivid imagery. My own favourites make appearances even though they are "above" the children's understanding, but the sensation of the words still speaks to all of us. Each afternoon tea starts with a special grace where we thank God for beautiful things and beautiful words and pray that all beauty will point us toward Him. It is a high point in our week!
Rudyard Kipling's "If" and Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat" are equally adored in this house and it isn't unusual to have Wordsworth's "Daffodils" straight after "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". I am saving up to get my hands on a copy of "Unreal Banana Peal" and "Far Out Brussel Sprout" because of my own fond memories of the gross out humor in my own child hood and I think my own kids will be equally delighted!
I think the most important thing with teaching poetry is to get down and dirty, throw out all the preconceptions of what poetry 'should' be and let it MOVE you. If you laugh, if you cry, if you get mad at the words on the page - they WILL learn.
Why:
I love poetry and always have. I read and write it myself and I want to pass that on to my kids. Poetry is writing at it's highest art form. The economy of language forces the poet to make each word count, using tricks like alliteration and onomatopoeia like a painter uses brush strokes. I can't help but get enthusiastic about it!
If my children love poetry, they will want to do the work later on to understand it, both the words and the historical context.
If you can read and write poetry effectively, you can read and write anything. And reading and writing is all about communication. And communication is all about reaching the hearts of another.
HOW:
The only 'formal' things we do is our 'refined afternoon tea' on Wednesday afternoon. We have something special to eat and cups of peppermint tea with honey at the table with a table cloth and POETRY. I have several books of it and we will each take it in turns selecting a poem - even Tool Man. At first they selected the illustrations that interested them (being non-readers) but now, after doing this for over a year, the older two are starting to ask for some of the poems by name. Princess Doc carefully reads each one in the book she has chosen before making her selection, so I get her to start choosing BEFORE the rest of us are at the table!
Nonsense verse and nursery rhymes are a large part of our poetry reading and sometimes the 'refined' nature of our afternoon teas go out the window with toilet training accidents, upturned tea cups and detours into "manners training" and sometimes we just take a quilt outside and make it a picnic. What I want to pass on in this session is a love for the art of putting words together. Nursery rhymes are the river stones of our language, smoothed and refined in the mouths of generation after generation. Nonsense verse makes us laugh and evokes vivid imagery. My own favourites make appearances even though they are "above" the children's understanding, but the sensation of the words still speaks to all of us. Each afternoon tea starts with a special grace where we thank God for beautiful things and beautiful words and pray that all beauty will point us toward Him. It is a high point in our week!
Rudyard Kipling's "If" and Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat" are equally adored in this house and it isn't unusual to have Wordsworth's "Daffodils" straight after "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". I am saving up to get my hands on a copy of "Unreal Banana Peal" and "Far Out Brussel Sprout" because of my own fond memories of the gross out humor in my own child hood and I think my own kids will be equally delighted!
I think the most important thing with teaching poetry is to get down and dirty, throw out all the preconceptions of what poetry 'should' be and let it MOVE you. If you laugh, if you cry, if you get mad at the words on the page - they WILL learn.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
A walk through our day
I want to walk you through our day What! Why? How? style!
What do you do to start each day?
We sing! We start each day with family worship and the first part of that is always singing.
Why?
Lots of reasons!
First and foremost we do this to worship God and get our hearts and heads right with Him.
To write Eternal Truths on their hearts. While we sing various praise songs, scripture songs and hymns they are learning about God and how we relate to Him. God thinks songs are so important, He dedicated at least one book to them in the Bible!
We also sing together because it is hard to stay mad with someone you are singing with (scientific fact I'm sure!). Whatever scuffles have occurred as we started our day can be let go as we hit the "reset" button. If there have been no scuffles to smooth over, it still draws us closer together.
Lung capacity, blood oxygenation and heart rate are all improved by SINGING. This aids in improving concentration levels and productivity. True story!
Singing is wonderful speech therapy. While we haven't had any issues with speech difficulties (unless you count teaching how to keep quiet!) in this house, singing does serve to improve the kid's grasp of the physical actions of speech. They are exercising their speech muscles and controlling their breathing, clearly forming words and having a go at sounds that they may usually avoid in their normal speech.
Singing uses both the Left and Right brain, exercising it completely and creating neural pathways that will be used for language, math and all those other "academic" ventures. The link between math and music has been clearly made by scientists and it is pretty obvious when you think of all the patterns etc. we find in music.
How?!
We take it in turns to choose one song each, starting with the oldest child - youngest child then finishing with Mum. My choice is usually our Hymn of the Week. I randomly select a hymn that I know that I'd like to teach the kids (some weeks are more random than others, sometimes there is a hymn that fits in beautifully with another aspect of our life or schooling, other times it is just luck of the draw).
We always finish with two songs to prepare us for prayer.
The first is "I Have Hands" which ends with:
I have knees that bend by my chair,
I have knees that bend by my chair,
I have hands that fold in prayer,
when I talk to Jesus
Then in our "prayer stance" we sing Into My Heart
If I were to give ten tips for family worship with preschoolers and toddlers they would be:
1. Use the KISSS principle – Keep it Short and Simple, Sweetheart! One song and a prayer done well has far more impact than a twenty minute session which leaves everyone in tears – including Mum!
2. Keep things predictable. Have worship at a fairly predictable time. After breakfast works for us, everyone is awake and fed and linking it to a feed time means we don’t forget. We don’t forget to eat very often in this house! Also if little ones know what to expect, they will be more likely to cooperate.
3. Have REALISTIC expectations. You are not going to have the Von Trapp family singing harmony in your lounge room. Expect there to be disasterous days. Expect to be singing solo for the first year or two of worship (I did!). Expect to have to teach your children how to behave during worship. Then you are less likely to be disappointed!
4. Realise that teaching and training your children is in and of itself an act of worship. It is hard to feel worshipful when you have to stop “Jesus Loves Me” ten times to administer correction, but correcting and teaching your children IS an act of worship.
5. Stick with it. If you are having worship as a part of the rhythm of your home, it is because it is important to you. Focus on the long term, the ETERNAL, benefits of family worship. It makes it easier to start family worship yet again when it resulted in tears the previous five times.
6. Personalise it to suit your family. At the moment, we have one song each, our pre-prayers songs, family prayer and The Lord’s Prayer. Totally different to what we did last year and I dare say it will change again next year. Do what works, and if it doesn’t work, change it.
7. Have clear expectations. Before worship starts, tell the kids what you want them to do with their hands, feet, eyes, mouth etc. during singing time. Eventually, get THEM to tell YOU and their other siblings what the expectations are (firstborns especially love this in my experience!) then when those things are NOT done, it is clear defiance and it can be dealt with in the way your family deals with defiance. There will be no space for argument or compromise and kids respond to clear boundaries.
8. Include them in choosing songs. This gives a feeling of ownership. At the moment I could quite cheerfully NEVER sing “The Wise Man Built His House Upon A Rock” OR “Whose the King of the Jungle” but we sing them every day because the boys love them.
9. Don’t expect to see fruit straight away. My kids still go mute during worship, then the other week while he was wandering around the back yard Farm Boy belts out “How Great Thou Art” at the top of his lungs. It gets written on their hearts, even if you can’t see it.
10. Make A Joyful Noise! Find a reason to laugh during worship. “I have fingers that tickle, tickle, tickle” is a verse of our pre-prayer song and it always makes us laugh. You can take a moment to tell the kids one reason you are thankful for them, one thing that makes them special. Whatever it is, make worship a pleasure, not a chore!
What about you? How you start your schooling day? Why do you do things that way? What, specifically, do you do?
Leave a comment or blog about it and link back in the comments!
Come back next week for the next step in our walk through our day.
What do you do to start each day?
We sing! We start each day with family worship and the first part of that is always singing.
Why?
Lots of reasons!
First and foremost we do this to worship God and get our hearts and heads right with Him.
To write Eternal Truths on their hearts. While we sing various praise songs, scripture songs and hymns they are learning about God and how we relate to Him. God thinks songs are so important, He dedicated at least one book to them in the Bible!
We also sing together because it is hard to stay mad with someone you are singing with (scientific fact I'm sure!). Whatever scuffles have occurred as we started our day can be let go as we hit the "reset" button. If there have been no scuffles to smooth over, it still draws us closer together.
Lung capacity, blood oxygenation and heart rate are all improved by SINGING. This aids in improving concentration levels and productivity. True story!
Singing is wonderful speech therapy. While we haven't had any issues with speech difficulties (unless you count teaching how to keep quiet!) in this house, singing does serve to improve the kid's grasp of the physical actions of speech. They are exercising their speech muscles and controlling their breathing, clearly forming words and having a go at sounds that they may usually avoid in their normal speech.
Singing uses both the Left and Right brain, exercising it completely and creating neural pathways that will be used for language, math and all those other "academic" ventures. The link between math and music has been clearly made by scientists and it is pretty obvious when you think of all the patterns etc. we find in music.
How?!
We take it in turns to choose one song each, starting with the oldest child - youngest child then finishing with Mum. My choice is usually our Hymn of the Week. I randomly select a hymn that I know that I'd like to teach the kids (some weeks are more random than others, sometimes there is a hymn that fits in beautifully with another aspect of our life or schooling, other times it is just luck of the draw).
We always finish with two songs to prepare us for prayer.
The first is "I Have Hands" which ends with:
I have knees that bend by my chair,
I have knees that bend by my chair,
I have hands that fold in prayer,
when I talk to Jesus
Then in our "prayer stance" we sing Into My Heart
If I were to give ten tips for family worship with preschoolers and toddlers they would be:
1. Use the KISSS principle – Keep it Short and Simple, Sweetheart! One song and a prayer done well has far more impact than a twenty minute session which leaves everyone in tears – including Mum!
2. Keep things predictable. Have worship at a fairly predictable time. After breakfast works for us, everyone is awake and fed and linking it to a feed time means we don’t forget. We don’t forget to eat very often in this house! Also if little ones know what to expect, they will be more likely to cooperate.
3. Have REALISTIC expectations. You are not going to have the Von Trapp family singing harmony in your lounge room. Expect there to be disasterous days. Expect to be singing solo for the first year or two of worship (I did!). Expect to have to teach your children how to behave during worship. Then you are less likely to be disappointed!
4. Realise that teaching and training your children is in and of itself an act of worship. It is hard to feel worshipful when you have to stop “Jesus Loves Me” ten times to administer correction, but correcting and teaching your children IS an act of worship.
5. Stick with it. If you are having worship as a part of the rhythm of your home, it is because it is important to you. Focus on the long term, the ETERNAL, benefits of family worship. It makes it easier to start family worship yet again when it resulted in tears the previous five times.
6. Personalise it to suit your family. At the moment, we have one song each, our pre-prayers songs, family prayer and The Lord’s Prayer. Totally different to what we did last year and I dare say it will change again next year. Do what works, and if it doesn’t work, change it.
7. Have clear expectations. Before worship starts, tell the kids what you want them to do with their hands, feet, eyes, mouth etc. during singing time. Eventually, get THEM to tell YOU and their other siblings what the expectations are (firstborns especially love this in my experience!) then when those things are NOT done, it is clear defiance and it can be dealt with in the way your family deals with defiance. There will be no space for argument or compromise and kids respond to clear boundaries.
8. Include them in choosing songs. This gives a feeling of ownership. At the moment I could quite cheerfully NEVER sing “The Wise Man Built His House Upon A Rock” OR “Whose the King of the Jungle” but we sing them every day because the boys love them.
9. Don’t expect to see fruit straight away. My kids still go mute during worship, then the other week while he was wandering around the back yard Farm Boy belts out “How Great Thou Art” at the top of his lungs. It gets written on their hearts, even if you can’t see it.
10. Make A Joyful Noise! Find a reason to laugh during worship. “I have fingers that tickle, tickle, tickle” is a verse of our pre-prayer song and it always makes us laugh. You can take a moment to tell the kids one reason you are thankful for them, one thing that makes them special. Whatever it is, make worship a pleasure, not a chore!
What about you? How you start your schooling day? Why do you do things that way? What, specifically, do you do?
Leave a comment or blog about it and link back in the comments!
Come back next week for the next step in our walk through our day.
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