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.

Post Discovery: Great Struggling Reader Tips

A fabulously written post about helping your reader! Find it here on IThinkWeCouldBeFriends.com. I love the author's suggestions, especially having kids read to younger relatives or friends. It's great to have a baby around and have them read board books with simple words and pictures. They get the words solid in their learning memory while having a fun interaction with someone little. Great confidence builder! I know some libraries have programs where you can go read to dogs now, too!

Finding Books for Beginning Readers

One of my own personal struggles as a teacher was to find easy books for my beginning readers. Even books that usually say "Level 1 - Beginning Reader" are way too hard for actual beginning readers. I just found this great post from www.123homeschool4me.com that has a good list of books for our young readers. Some of these books are not necessarily so easy that you could just hand them over to your reader and expect her to be able to read it on her own, but after a few readings together she could easily manage it.

Though parents are sometimes worried kids have just "memorized" the book, it is not something to be concerned about. They need to see themselves as readers and see and say those words over and over again before they are cemented in their minds.

Anna over at The Measured Mom has solved the problem of finding easy books by creating a ton of fabulous FREE printable books for beginning readers.You can find those here.

Happy Reading!

Great Deal on National Geographic Little Kids Magazine!

I love to encourage parents to get magazine subscriptions for their kids. It's a great exposure to non-fiction plus all of the comprehension strategies like questioning and predicting. I find it's a nice way to force myself to read a different kind of book to my son every month or so. Reluctant readers also seem to respond better to fun magazines and comic books sometimes. Plum District has a great sale right now for a $12 year long subscription to National Geographic Little Kids and you can get another 20% off if you enter the code NovBestsellers. You can go to Plum District or click here to find the deal. We really like this magazine. It's nice and short for younger readers plus it comes with collectible animal cards in the middle of each one. It's also a great idea to ask for a magazine subscription for the holidays from relatives. It is so fun to get kids excited about receiving something to read in the mail! Amazon can also be a good place to get good deals on magazine subscriptions.

Some other good choices for younger kids are:

Babybug - great for little fingers because it's made of tougher paper
High 5 - younger version of Highlights
Ranger Rick Jr. - younger version of Ranger Rick
Turtle
Lego Club Jr. (free!! if you sign up at Lego.com)
Sports Illustrated for Kids - not super exciting for us and written for a little older than kindergarten level, but great if you have a really big sports fan in your family!

Happy Reading! Please share if you have other favorite magazines that I missed.

Excellent and FREE Printable Packs for Learning

I may have mentioned these packs before because they are so great. Wonderful for parents who only have a few minutes but want to do something valuable with their children to keep those brains thinking. I love these packets because they are extremely high interest. There was one on Angry Birds that I did with my 5 year old and he practically begged to get started. Plus, it takes advantage of the prior knowledge kids already have on these subjects, so they are automatically more confident and motivated to learn. I especially like the kindergarten packs I have tried because she includes an easy reader and cut-and-paste activties so we're not just doing worksheets. There are Tot, Preschool, and Kindergarten packs depending on what level you need. Click here to see 1 Plus 1 Plus 1 Equals 1's blog about all of her printable packs. Enjoy! 

Nursery Rhymes for Beginning Readers

 

I am so excited to find a new site that has great resources for early learners! It's called PreKinders. I just love, love, love when teachers and bloggers so generously make printables that all of us can use. As busy parents we all appreciate it so much! So, over at PreKinders, the author has made many printable nursery rhymes available. I love these because they are perfect to put in a three-hole punched folder. Hopefully your little learner already knows most of these rhymes by heart. If not, start there without any visual aids yet. Then you can share one rhyme at a time as they're learning to track print (touch their finger to each word while reading). They already know the words, so it's easier for their brain to concentrate on the actual letters and words. Help them through it the first few times if you need to and then they will be good to go! They will see themselves as readers in no time! Click here to get the printables. There's also a great game you can play with them, too!! Thanks PreKinders! If you need more reminders about why nursery rhymes are so helpful when teaching a child to read, click here.

5 Things to Never Say to an Emerging Reader

Love, love this post by Teachmama.com! Such good information, I wish I'd written it myself! The basic idea is to respect your emerging reader as they read. Just as you would like someone to listen to you read and not interject with corrections or comments every few words, they like the same. Click here to read it and check out all of the other good stuff she has to share!

                                                 

More Friday Freebies!

I just learned about this great website - How Does She? and they have a fabulous free giveaway Summer Reading Star packet. You just have to sign up for their email newsletter (you don't have to keep the subscription if you don't like it) and they give you access to some beautiful free printables. I also like their dinner conversation starters. I'm going to try those out tonight! 

Free App Friday - Sight Words Hangman!

Time for another App review! This one is good because you could actually (gasp!) do this the old-fashioned way with your sight word flash cards, pen, and paper. However, if you have an iPhone or iPad, by all means, download it for FREE today!

The reason a sight word is called a sight word is because usually you just have to memorize it. Once you get it and it's automatic, reading becomes much easier. I would recommend this App for kids who seem just about ready to read and beyond. It will definitely be frustrating for those who do not have a start on reading. But you could do it together if they like the game. It's a super cute little game that lets you choose the difficulty level of sight word lists and then asks kids to pick the sight words out of a group of words. If they get it right, they go on to the next one. If they get it wrong, the hangman gets a part drawn on him. They also have a flash card option where the kids can hear the words read to them, or you can turn the sound off and they can try reading the words by themselves.

As always, if you want to check out the other free apps of the week, visit BestAppsForKids.com. Sadly, they just updated their review of Endless Alphabet to reject it. Apparently, they've started putting ads in the app and you have the option to pay to get the ads removed. Bummer!

Environmental Print Reminder

Top Ten Wordless Picture Books by Kristen Remenar

I am just so impressed with the content I am seeing on websites lately about helping your child to read! Saves me a lot of work:) So, The Nerdy Book Club blog has brought us an excellent article about using wordless picture books. Please check it out here. It would be a great goal to check some of these out the next time you visit the library. They are such interesting books that they get the kids excited about looking at all of the pictures and developing the story in their heads.

These books are especially great for your early readers because you can help give them the confidence that they need by "reading" these books! I had one parent share that she struggled immensely with reading until someone shared a wordless picture book with her in third grade. I will also add some personal wordless picture book favorites - Tuesday by David Wiesner (there are frogs everywhere!) and Good Dog, Carl by Alexandra Day (who couldn't love a sweet story about a dog?). There is a slightly longer recommendation list at Children's Books and Reading if you get really excited about wordless picture books.

                 

Great Resource for Parents - Especially for Reluctant Readers

  

Wow! I found another great resource site today. It's called Imagination Soup by Melissa Taylor. She has the same goal that I have - helping parents learn and grow so they can help their kids. She's also written what looks like a fabulous book (pictured here). I love her post on Guerrilla Tactics to Get Your Child to Love Reading.