Literacy

Word Family Sorting-

I have been asked a number of times by parents about what they should work on with their children after they have mastered ABC recognition and letter sounds. The next step is putting together the sounds to form small words and this is easily done by building word family recognition.  Here is a link to a word family list at a favorite website of mine, www.enchantedlearning.com. Word families are basically common word endings that become new words by switching out the beginning letter/s.

An example word family for the word ending “-at”: bat, cat, fat, hat, Kat, mat, pat, rat, sat

Concepts and skills like this are easily turned into My Obstacle Course station activities. I introduced this with Andrew by using Scrabble or Bananagram letters, letter blocks and letter magnets to build this knowledge, allowing him to see how the word changes easily by replacing the first letter. As he got older, I used some calendar cutouts and created a word family sort.

I chose the word families he was working on in school at wrote the endings on a cutout.  (The photo above shows -it and -id word families and the photo below shows short “i” words so I chose -it, -id, -in and an oddball of -an endings.) I wrote the words that go with the endings each on their own cutout.  I mixed up the words, put them in a pile and set out the endings. (This also works great as a “Crawl and Sort” station activity.)

When he got to the station, he sorted the words, put them with their correct endings. He read the words out loud while sorting. If your child is ready for this skill but is not speaking yet, you can read the words out loud for them while they sort them. This helps give an auditory component to this activity so all learning modalities are used (visual, auditory and kinesthetic).

Another Self-Checking Activity:  I wrote the endings on the back of the cutout in order to make it a self-checking activity. Once the sort is complete, turn the cutouts over to make sure they match the ending on top.

Since spelling or word patterns are usually how students are taught in school, this is a great way to reinforce something they are already working on.  You can adjust this activity to fit with whatever skill level your child is ready for. Turning it into more of a game doesn’t take long and doesn’t have to be fancy but it sure helps to make practicing this skill more fun and engaging.

Heart Shaped Calendar Cutouts

Calendar cutouts are always on my list of things to get for My Obstacle Courses.  They are so helpful when working on different academic and developmental skills at home. Instant theme and so versatile! My favorite cutouts are from Creative Teaching Press. They are about the thickness of an index card and have a different color on each side. Click here for the direct link to the calendar cutouts on their site. I also get them at my local teacher supply store.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Sight words, also known as Dolch words, are specific words that are most common in reading materials at a certain reading level. They are also referred to as “the words you just have to know.” The other day I overheard some parents discussing how they needed to be doing more flash card work with their children to build knowledge of sight words. What struck me was that they both said that it wasn’t going to be fun, they knew their children wouldn’t enjoy it, but they were going to make them so they wouldn’t get behind. Does this sound familiar? I totally get this and was there years ago thinking that that was the only way to work with my child at home. He of course was having none of it which led me on this journey! 🙂

So, is there a way to practice these words at home in a way that is more interesting than sitting across from one another with white index cards? Absolutely! I have used several different ways with Andrew within My Obstacle Course, did not experience resistance and learned a great deal about which words he knew and which ones he needed more practice with.

Dolch Sight Word Lists

Most teachers will give parents these lists so they can practice them at home with their child (you may even have it under a magnet on your fridge!). If you do not have these lists or have a young child but are curious about them, here are two links to all of Dolch Sight Word lists (if you want to Google it yourself, type in “dolch sight word lists”).  They are usually divided by grade level (Pre-Primer (preschool) to 3rd grade plus nouns) but you can also print out a complete list of the 220 words.

http://www.learningbooks.net/whydolchwords.html#lists (scroll down to see the lists)

http://www.kidzone.ws/dolch/preschool.htm

Note: When I did this with Andrew I started with the pre-primer list just to make I wasn’t leaving any gaps.

My Obstacle Course Station Activities Involving Dolch Sight Words

My Obstacle Course Station Activities For Building Sight Word Recognition

Here are some ideas I have to make sight word recognition more engaging for you and your child. These activities can be done with children regardless of intelligibility because you are helping to expose them to language and literacy skills, they are getting this information through all learning modes – visual, auditory and kinesthetic (doing something to be involved with the words aside from seeing and saying them). If you have a young child or if this is too challenging, these can also be adapted by writing letters instead of words to build basic letter recognition. The most important thing is to start where they are with this skill so that you can build upon that knowledge.

Note:  With all of these activities, if your child is in the beginning reading stages, read the words out loud so they are hearing the word as they are looking at it.  If your child struggles with reading, go back to words that are easier to build confidence and gradually blend in words that are more challenging. This is an opportunity to build word recognition in a way that is playful and fun, without the stress of having to perform in front of teachers or classmates.

Sight Word Memory Match

Sight Word Crawl/Climb and Match

Sight Word Cards on Ring

I am not crazy about sitting and doing flash card drills but I know that some people swear by this method so I found these colorful circles with a binder ring and thought they would be perfect for practicing something like this.  Since they were set up as a station, they were not a random “Work with Mommy or else!” chore, but simply a quick activity within My Obstacle Course. He either knew them or he didn’t and because they are bound together with the ring, we could flip through quickly and when there were words he didn’t know, I would take note of them, remove the ones he struggled with and use those words in other activities to increase exposure.

Personal Note: Andrew was reading before he was talking (which I learned by doing My Obstacle Courses with him and providing activities for him to demonstrate his knowledge without needing to speak) so don’t assume that just because your child is not speaking that they cannot work on reading skills! Had I not learned this, he would have still been working on basic letter recognition, instead of reading at his appropriate level, because way too often people assume that if you are delayed in one area, you are delayed in all. I encourage you to provide activities for your child and find out where they are in each developmental and academic area so you can meet them there and help them progress, whether that area is considered a strength or weakness.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Andrew did not speak intelligibly until he was about 6 and to help him get his wants and needs met when around people who didn’t understand him, we had scripted some basic questions. He was quite a master at asking the question “Can I have ____?” and once he began speaking so others could understand him, I realized that it was time to start building his questioning skills (*please read my note at the bottom of this post). I thought about how to do this in an interesting way and had to look no farther than some magazines sitting on a shelf.

I flipped through and found some pictures that I could write questions for…

and cut them out.

I then printed out some questions…

and cut them into strips so they could be sorted and placed with the picture that they went with.

One Of My Favorite Things:  One Activity Targeting Many Skills

As I got working on putting this together I realized that this would also allow me to build on another important skill for him, reading other people’s body language and facial expressions. We could discuss how the people were feeling, tie in personal experiences and even add in some pretend play by acting like we were feeling the same way (“How do you feel when you get dirt all over your clothes?” and/or “Can you make a face like hers?”). Oh I just love it when something so easy and basic provides me with ways to build many different skills. The fact that it didn’t cost me anything extra is a complete bonus!

Here is how I set it up as a My Obstacle Course station:

Here are some other pictures and questions I have used in the past:

These pictures and question strips could be glued onto construction paper and turned into a question book. In my experience as a classroom teacher and at home with Andrew, children love books that they helped create. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, pages stapled together or hole punched and tied together with yarn.  I have found that it helps build reading confidence because they have the knowledge behind the pages so even if they cannot actually read the words, they can still “read” the words as they remember them, using the pictures to help.

As an extension of this skill, I would do the same type of activity but have him come up with questions to go with the picture.

Intelligibility Does Not Indicate Intelligence

Note:  If I had only known then what I know now! If I had known that Andrew was understanding far more than anyone had thought, I would have done something like this before his speech was intelligible. This activity did not require him to speak or read since I was there to provide the auditory information for him (reading the questions) but he could look at the pictures to find the match.

One of the reasons I am doing this blog is to encourage parents to try things and activities that allow children to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding without having to speak intelligibly. Intelligibility does not indicate intelligence!  Speech is definitely something that we work on but there is more to my son than the words he speaks that others are able to understand. It is my hope that the activities I share will help give you a more well-rounded picture of your child’s abilities, building on each developmental and academic area, whether considered a strength or weakness.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!