Great Article: Three easy ways to get your kids to read better and enjoy it

Love this article by Ryan Spencer that I saw go by on my Facebook feed recently. I love it because it's a concise way of telling parents how to help their kids right now. I also love that he used the term "instant word factory." Do you ever find yourself doing that? Spitting out each word that your child has trouble with? I've definitely had my moments. Sometimes it becomes necessary, when I notice that a child is in a book that's way harder than either of us anticipated. Most of the time, though, I notice the power in staying quiet and seeing what happens. Sometimes it's harder, but it really is the best thing.

Parent Tip Sheet for Reading at Home

I've been using this parent tip sheet for my parent workshops and in my classroom. I love it because it is a very accessible way to understand how you can help your child interact and comprehend what they read. We had the discussion recently about how some parents want to read the entire book with no interuptions because that's how they think it "should"be done. It is in fact the opposite of what should be done. Educators researched what good readers do and they found that good readers are constanly interacting with their reading. If you pay attention to yourself while you're reading, you'll find that this is true. You ask yourself what a word means, you catch yourself if you're mind is wandering, you reread a part that was confusing. It's an interactive process. Hope you enjoy this handout! It's available for free download here at Teachers Pay Teachers. You have to sign in to get an account, but it's super easy. I encourage you to search for other fun free downloads at that site, too!! There are amazing treasures to be found!

Sharing Hilarious Parent Mistakes = Writing Motivation

Sometimes inspiration hits in the oddest of places. As there are many education blogs out there, I always get excited when I think of something quirky that you might not be able to find on ten other sites. Tonight while getting my son's bath ready, I was doing about ten things at once. I decided to fill the sink to soak a few things while filling up the bathtub while helping him clean up his unending Legos. The next thing we know, we're back in the bathroom and there is a flood going on. I had totally forgotten about filling the sink and/or had extremely underestimated how fast it would fill. Probably both. So water was flowing over the counter and spreading out along the floor. Joy of joys. What does this have to do with literacy, you ask?

My son's first question was, "Can I be the one to tell Dad?!?!" He assured me that he was not gleefully trying to get me in trouble but merely trying to transmit some information. Yeah, right. And so this became a great opportunity for using new vocabulary - flood, spilling, soaked, etc.- while practicing his skills of retelling a story in the correct order. Even if he just got to tell the story orally to his father, there would be some literacy merit. However, I would suggest taking it a step further and writing out a glorious and humorous tale of how mom almost flooded the bathroom. If your kiddo is too little to write out a whole story, have them dictate it to you or label and illustrate boxes with order words such as first, second, third, and finally. They just get so excited when we're the ones who mess up, don't they? I can see him being very engaged in this particular writing activity. Not to mention, what a great way to preserve these awesome family memories. He did say it was his favorite part of the day.  

Reading Comprehension 101 Series: Making Connections

This is the second part in my series of Reading Comprehension 101 posts. If you missed the first one about good readers making pictures in their heads, you can check it out here. Making connections is one of my favorite comprehension strategies because it is so easy for kids to do and understand. Basically, if you make a connection to a story, you automatically have a deeper understanding because you have attached it to knowledge that already exisits in your brain. I like to imagine that we all have tons of little files in our brains. Each file contains what we know about a certain subject. For instance, you probably have an "apple" file. If you grew up on an apple farm, your file is huge. You have pictures of apple trees, all different kinds of apples, the taste of them, the feel of them, etc. If you grew up in Hawaii, your file on apples might not have as much, but your pineapple file is probably pretty big. So if I ask you to read a book about pineapples, you are probably going to do really well because it will make sense to you and you can access the knowledge that's already in your brain about pineapples. For instance, you could fill in the sentence, "Pineapples grow on the ________." without having to even read the word. Whereas maybe some inner city kid who has never seen a pineapple is going to struggle with that sentence because his pineapple file has nothing in it. Are you starting to follow why it's important to be able to connect what you know to the book?

The good news for those of you with even teeny little kids is that the more you expose them to life and experiences, the more their files will grow. If they have lots of thick files, then it will be that much easier for them to read all sorts of things and undestand them.  

 There are lots of fancy ways to say it - using your schema or prior knowledge to enhance your understanding. The easiest way we would refer to it in my first grade classroom was as a "Text-to-Me" connection. So, a super simple connection might be that if you're reading a book about Biscuit the dog, your child might say, "I have a dog like Biscuit!" or maybe she'll say, "Biscuit is way nicer than our cat." If your child isn't saying these things, you can say it and model it for them. It's a magical thing to see how much more a child connects with a book if they have lots of knowledge about the subject. After going to a farm, they can read a farm book with much more interest and confidence. They might make a connection like "oh that little lamb looks like the one we saw today!"

Do you have to freak out and run to give your child as many experiences as possible right away to make them a good reader? No, don't worry. You will be amazed at the amount of information they have collected already. You can just deepen their experience with books by helping them make connections. The easiest books to do this with are books that have to do with real subjects that are close to their daily experiences. Little Critter books are good for that and so are books by Jamie Lee Curtis.

                       

So, once you graduate from "Text-to-Me" connections and feel confident with those, you can also try "Text-to-Text" connections. My son did these really easily, so you might be surprised at how easy it comes or how your kids might already be doing it. It's as simple as saying, "Hey, that Kissing Hand book reminds me of Love You Forever because the mommy loves the kid very much in both of them." or you can compare and contrast a book with the same character, "The Little Critter is thinks he can do everything himself in All By Myself and this other Little Critter book. This one only has his sister but that one has his whole family." 

Finally, for those of us who are a little older, there are "Text-to-World" connections. That means, it might not be something that happened to you directly, but perhaps is of historical significance or currently news. Maybe I'm reading a story with a tornado in it and it makes me think of the tornadoes that recently hit Oklahoma. These connections tend to be bigger ideas or a little farther removed from your life. I would mainly focus on the first two with your little guys.

I challenge you to pay attention now when you're reading to how many "Text-to-Me" and "Text-to-Text" connections you're making. In this day and age, you might even have "Blog-to-Blog" connections. You'll be surprised!

Here is a great post on connections and prior knowledge from This Reading Mama - Before They Read - Connecting New Content to Prior Knowledge.

Reading Comprehension 101 Series - Mental Images

Today, I am starting a series of posts on the reading comprehension strategies that good readers use. Many of us do these things when we are reading, but you may not be aware of what you're doing or why. That's what I'm here for! I want to help you to understand how to refer to these strategies when you are already reading. It doesn't take much extra effort on your part to squeeze in a reference here or there about what good readers do. You'll be surprised once you start paying attention at how many things your good readers already do naturally! A few teacher books that will help you if you want to delve into comprehension strategies further are:

Reading With Meaning by Debbie Miller

Mosaic of Thought by Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmerman

Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis

How do you "teach" something that good readers do? You become the good model first. You can model reading a book and think aloud. I know some people feel goofy thinking aloud, but it seriously helps the kids to understand your thought process.

                                                         

An example of modeling my mental images from Cynthia Rylant's The Relatives Came might be for me to say, "Wow, this page where she describes all of the sounds of everyone sleeping makes me really picture in my head all of these old and young family members lying all over each other sound asleep. It's dark and there's lots of snoring, but since it's in the country I think I can hear some crickets in the background too." Ideally, we might be listening to this book on CD so that we couldn't see any images in the first place.

So I am starting with visualization (some people know it as mental images) because it is a pretty easy concept to grasp. Good thinkers in general use this technique to help them understand what they are hearing. Imagine driving in the car listening to a baseball game. You are visualizing the game in your head to make it more real and understandable. For readers, being able to visualize what you read helps them to connect and remember. It's much easier to remember that in the book they visited a farm with cows if you had a picture in your head of that farm with cows. It's even easier to remember if you use your five senses to make that image come alive. In our adult lives, we check for comprehension by visualizing the book. If we realize that we can't see the picture in our head anymore, we go back to reread. It's really important when people are giving us directions, too. It helps to visualize turning left, then going around the fountain, and then stopping by the bike rack.

How to encourage your child to use the reading strategy of visualization:

*Teach them their five senses and help them to describe pictures with all of them. For instance, if they drew a picture of a flower, you might encourage them to describe how the flower feels, smells, looks, sounds, and tastes - if applicable. Then encourage them to use their five senses to create really vivid images in their minds.

*Talk with them when you are reading or listening to something on the radio. Ask them what they picture in their heads. Tell them what you picture in yours. It's important to note that there is not a "right" image for them to picture. Everyone's looks a little different and that's okay.

*Read a chapter book and have them describe certain scenes to you by what they see in their head. Explicitly say that good readers make pictures in their heads. If they're interested in sharing that image, they can draw you a picture.

*Play a "let's make pictures in our mind" game. You can do this on a walk, or in the car, or in the bath. Describe a silly picture and have your child practice picturing it in their head. If you have an older child, you can have them experiment with listening to you describe a scene one time without visualizing and one time with visualizing. Then see which one they remember better!

*Poetry is great for practicing visualization. Most of the time, each poem comes with little to no illustrations, so they are forced to create their own. The blog Fabulous in First has some great free worksheets and description to help with this. If you have more than one child, it's fun to have them each draw their mental images for the same poem. Amazing how different they can be!

*You can help your children discover that our mental images can change. I once read a poem that talked about a doctor who fixed broken things...so at first my mental images were in a doctor's office. As the poem ended, it talked about wooden legs and wobbly tables, so then my images changed to some kind of antique furniture store. 

Our friend from Fabulous in First also shared this excellent list of book suggestions for creating mental images. Usually they are books or poems with more descriptive flavor. My favorites are Cynthia Rylant books, Georgia Heard poems, and Rosemary Wells' Night Sounds, Morning Colors.

Some Picture Books from the list that I like for Modeling/Practicing Visualization
Aliki, Marianthe’s Story: Painted Words/Spoken Memories
Baylor, Byrd, I’m in Charge of Celebrations
Brinckloe, Julie Fireflies!: Story and Pictures
Brown, Margaret Wise The Sailor Dog
Bouchard, D. Voices from the Wild
Bunting, Eve Smoky Night
Carlstrom, Nancy White What Does the Rain Play?
Carlstrom, Nancy White Wild, Wild Sunflower Child Anna
Condra, Estelle See the Ocean
Cooney, Barbara Miss Rumphius
Fletcher, Ralph Twilight Comes Twice
Heard, Georgia Creatures of Earth, Sea, and Sky
Howard, Jane When I’m Sleepy
London, Jonathan Hurricane
London, Jonathan Into this Night We Are Rising
London, Jonathan Like Butter on Pancakes
London, Jonathan Puddles
Lovell, Patty Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon
MacLachlan, Patricia Through Grandpa’s Eyes
MacLachlan, Patricia Journey
Marshak, Suzanna I Am the Ocean
Marzollo, Jean City Sounds
Marzollo, Jean Close Your Eyes
Mazer, Anne The Salamander Room
McCloskey, Robert Time of Wonder
Merriam, Eve Quiet, Please
Munoz, Pam Ryan Hello, Ocean! Hola Mar
Murphy, Jim The Call of the Wolves
Navasky, Bruno Festival in My Heart: Poems by Japanese Children
Ryder, Joanne Winter Whale
Rylant, Cynthia Night in the Country
Rylant, Cynthia Let’s Go Home
Schertle, Alice A Lucky Thing
Shannon, David A Bad Case of Stripes
Thomas, Shelley Moore Putting the World to Sleep
Wells, Rosemary Night Sounds, Morning Colors
Williams, Vera A Chair for My Mother
Wood, Audrey The Napping House
Worth, Valerie All the Small Poems and Fourteen More
Wyeth, Sharon Dennis Something Beautiful
Yolen, Jane Greyling
Yolen, Jane Color Me a Rhyme
Zolotow, Charlotte The Seashore Book