This Closed Captioning is Brought to You by….

September 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I read a story recently that grabbed my attention. Actually, it did a lot more than grab my attention. It sort of rocked my world and led to some changes in our household.

It was about a family that was affected by hearing loss. The parents were both deaf, but their only daughter was hearing. She was entering first grade. And her teachers were like, Great. This kid is not going to be able to read or speak. With two deaf parents, she is going to be so behind.

Seriously. That was their attitude. All they cared about was how much trouble this child was going to be for them to deal with.

This little girl started school and to everyone’s surprise, she spoke beautifully and was reading  two grade levels ahead. The principal called a meeting with the girl’s parents to ask them how in the world they accomplished this. And they had one simple answer. Closed captioning.

From the time their daughter was two years old, whenever she watched television, it was with closed captioning. She learned to speak clearly and read quickly because of closed captioning.

Because unlike adults, kids cannot block out of their vision the words on the screen. They always see them. And they see them as they listen to the words being said. Which helps their reading.

Obviously, closed captioning should not take the place of actual reading at home. Or speaking for that matter. But it is an awesome reading aid.

And now at our house, we watch TV with closed captioning.

 

Filed Under: Hearing Impairment, Homeschooling, Reading

Great First Grade Read Aloud Books

September 5, 2012 by 2 Comments

I did not love to read as a kid. I don’t remember hating it, but I don’t remember ever wanting to sit down with a good book and read. As I grew older, reading was required for school and during the summer. I pretty much only read what was required, unless my mother managed to convince me to read a book she thought was great.

It wasn’t until I was 16 years old, on a youth group trip, that it hit me reading might be fun. Or at least a good way to pass the time. I was on a bus with 50 other high schoolers trekking to some activity. It was an hour drive to wherever we were going. My friend Marly had a book with her. I think it was Hot Zone by Michael Crichton. And it looked like a really good book. She read it the entire time we were stuck on the bus. And I remember thinking that what she was doing looked like a whole lot more fun that what I was doing, which was nothing.

I came home from that trip and started reading. And ever since then, I have loved reading. And I always take books with me when I travel now. Except on my honeymoon. I did not pack a book. Which was a huge mistake because you actually do other things on your honeymoon other than just have sex. Like lay on the beach. And sit by the pool. Activities that definitely require a good book. I finally broke down and bought How Stella Got Her Groove Back in the gift shack shop of our hotel. We were in Jamaica. It was my best option.

My late bloom into a reader makes me thankful there is a lot of reading in our homeschool curriculum. Each day, there are multiple reading units built into our schedule. There is time for Lilla to read to me books that are at her current reading level. There is time scheduled for us to read together books that are beyond her level – to challenge her skills and introduce her to new literature. There is also about 30 minutes a day scheduled for Lilla to read alone. And then she listens to books on tape.

Below is a list of read aloud books that we will try to get through this first grade year:

The Magic Tree House Series

Nora’s Ark

Rotten Teeth

The Ugly Duckling

My Father’s Dragon

Shoeshine Girl

Charlotte’s Web

Stuart Little

The Trumpet of the Swam

The Little House on the Prairie Series

James and the Giant Peach

The Twits

George’s Marvelous Medicine

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Peter Pan

The Giving Tree

Ralph’s Mouse Series

Pippi Longstocking

Ramona Series

Wizard of Oz

The Water Horse

Mary Poppins Trilogy

Rapunzel, Zelinsky

Hansel and Greta, Zelinsky

Rupunzel, Zelinsky

Where the Wild Things Are

 

Of course, one of my favorite part of the day is when Lilla reads by herself, because it means I have 30 minutes all to myself.

 

 

Filed Under: Curriculum, First Grade, Homeschooling, Life, Reading

How to Teach Reading Whether You Homeschool or Not

August 7, 2012 by 3 Comments

My child loves to read. From her earliest years, she loved reading. She read in the house. She read in her crib. She read in the car. And if she ever saw a little board book anywhere, she would stop and read it.

And now, at six years old, she still loves to read. She can’t wait to pick out new books at the library. She loves story time every night. And she is always disappearing into her room to read.

But she also hates to read. She hates sounding words out. She hates not pronouncing the words perfectly the first time she says them. Small fits have been had by her after her first failed attempt to read a new word correctly. Which sometimes drives me insane.

All kids are different when it comes to reading. Not all kids pick it up at the same speed. And not all kids in the same age group read at the same level. Some kids love it. Some hate it. Some love it and hate it. Like mine.

Kindergarten is THE big reading year in school. It is the year when kids progress from reading single letters and simple words to actual sentences. It is the year they begin to put sentence after sentence together and understand stories all on their own. It is the year when their imaginations flourish and entire new worlds open up to them, all because of reading.

There are a lot of reading resources available, but in our journey to master reading, these are the ones I have found to be most helpful:

The Bob Books: I absolutely love the Bob Books, even though I did not understand them at first. They seemed just a little too simple, too easy. And the illustrations left quite a lot to be desired. But they are the best books to learn to read by. I swear.

Biscuit Series: The Biscuit books are Level 1 I Can Read Books and available at any bookstore. The main character is a puppy named Biscuit. And let me tell you, he is the sweetest, most adorable, and precocious puppy ever. The Biscuit books are not about introducing new reading concepts or rules, just about practicing reading on a very basic level. The books are wonderful because the new words introduced in each story are repeated over and over again so a new reader has plenty of opportunities to practice.

Little Bear Series: Once Lilla surpassed the Biscuit books, and was making consistent progress through the Bob books, we started reading the Little Bear books. The Little Bear books are a natural, next step after Biscuit. They are more advanced, with harder words and more involved stories, but not so much as to be discouraging to a new reader.

Fancy Nancy: We actually picked up a set of these books at Costco. And while the stories are fun and cute, there are a lot of very hard words in them. Words  that no new reader is able to read. But they are extremely helpful in teaching kids how to break down words into syllables and then sound them out. I am not sure if that is the intended purpose of theses books, but that is how we use them.

And for parents The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading is excellent. It is divided up into 200 systematic lessons. And each lesson teaches a new reading rule. Which was great for me because when I started teaching Lilla how to read, I realized I barely remembered any of the actual rules about reading. And even if I could muster from my memory a few rules to teach Lilla, I certainly didn’t know which order to teach them in. This book is an fantastic resource if you need a step by step guide about how to teach reading.

And I am always looking for new reading resources. If you have any materials or books you have loved, please leave a comment and let me know!

 

 

Filed Under: Curriculum, Homeschooling, KIndergarten, Life, Reading, Resources

Homeschooling: The Bob Books

April 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Can I just tell you how much we love the Bob books? We love love love them. They are the best books for learning to read with homeschooling. They come in little box sets and there are 8-10 books per box.

And all you do is take a book, work your way through it, over and over and day after day, until your child can read it all on his own, and then you move onto the next book.

The stories are silly and when we first started reading them, I would think, Wow, any idiot could have written this. And illustrated it. But now that we have made our way through a few boxes, I get it. I see how the authors laid a foundation for reading in the first books and then build upon it, book by book and set by set.

And it doesn’t hurt that Lilla and I usually read them curled and cuddled up on the sofa together.

 

 

Filed Under: Homeschooling, Reading, Resources

How To Encourage Kids To Read

August 26, 2011 by Leave a Comment

A big part of our home school curriculum for kindergarten is going to be reading, particularly reading aloud. And I stumbled upon a great craft idea for keeping track of reading progress at Martha Stewart. Just make a book worm!

 

For mine, I used white and color card stock. I drew out freehand my worm, which basically looked like a big S, cut it out, and then cut it down into smaller pieces. I then laid all the pieces out so they were spaced properly and glued them down one at a time. And the result was a blue book worm.

 

To encourage reading, we will write each completed book in a space, starting at the top. The first one will be Mr. Popper’s Penguins, which we are reading now. When every 5th book has been completed, the title will be written on a green square, indicating it is time for a reward for a job well done.

 

I am excited to see how we do and about all the fun books we will read this year. And no, my book worm is not as good as Martha Stewart’s, but then whose ever is?

 

Happy Reading!

Filed Under: Crafts, Homeschooling, Reading
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