Reading

Personalized ABC Book

A few years ago I decided to make my super-amazing niece a personalized ABC book for Christmas.
To start, I wrote out the ABCs in a powerpoint document (one letter per slide) and then I inserted pictures that I had of my niece and her loved ones in front of the letter that corresponded to the beginning sound, like this:

A – picture of Kaylee at an “Astros” Game

B – picture of Kaylee with her “Becca”

C – picture of Kaylee with her Uncle “Chris”

D – picture of Kaylee with her “Daddy” and so on.

I put the book to a song so that Kaylee could read it and develop fluency independently. The song was Dr. Jean’s “Who Let the Letters Out” to the tune of “Who Let The Dogs Out?” For each letter the page read “Who let the “A” out? /a/ /a/ /a/ astros and you simply replace the letters like this “/a/” with the letter sound. Then,I printed the pages onto colored cardstock, laminated them, and bound them together with a spiral.

Kaylee called my husband “Patrick Uncle” when she was two.

This would be a great book for you to make for your little one because it really makes the letter-sound associations so meaningful.

My sister, Ali (the beautiful “Mommy” on the letter M page), had a GREAT idea…. When she went to re-create the book for a friend, she started a digital book (examples are shutterfly, mypublisher, or snapfish).

Here she added a dedication and a title page with the instructions.

And here she added the words in ABC order in the user friendly way that you would read/sing the lyrics. She was going to add pictures of the word associations in the drop-boxes after she received them.

This method of making the book is really practical because these companies make it pretty foolproof and they send you the bound book which looks very professional. So, it is up to you – if you are the type of person who likes to make things by hand or if you are the type who likes to save the time and make it online! Either way, if you make one, send me a picture or attach it to the Mommy Teacher Page to share with other mommies!

April 11, 2011 by Jessica | 1 Comment

Begin With Vocabulary

Do you remember the rhyming tree from Casey’s Playroom?

I love this tree and think that if your little one is READY for this skill, then it is a great space to create. Creating spaces for interactive learning is so beneficial for your little learner, but making those spaces age-appropriate and developmentally-appropriate is MUCH more beneficial. Your child may not be at an age where the rhyming tree is appropriate for him/her; maybe your little one still needs to work on the bulk of their oral vocabulary. Think about it….if you are trying to teach your child that “king” and “ring” rhyme but you haven’t introduced those words with pictures first then your little one is going to have a hard time understanding what you are asking of them.

So, I am suggesting that you take some time to figure out what type of information to display for your little one:
1. Start with just the pictures of shapes, colors, animals, people, places, things, etc. (NO WORDS)
2. Letters –upper and lower -they can match them 🙂
3. Pictures of opposites (Big & small, open and closed, etc.)
4. Pictures of rhyming words
5. Environmental print (Burger King, Cheerios, etc)
6. After introcuding vocabulary start to include pictures combined with the words for colors, shapes, animals, opposite words, rhyming words, etc. So, an example would be a picture of a cat with the word cat written on it.
7. Sight words
8. Spelling words

Casey with Kidspired Creations shared yet another variation to her playroom Tree….an Easter tree!!! Because another GREAT way to introduce RELEVANT oral vocabulary is by displaying SEASONAL pictures and words. This gives you so much material to talk to children about the season, the holidays, and to introduce a world of knowledge that pertains to their world. Casey came up with the idea to make an Easter Tree so that she could introduce all of the vocabulary that James would be exposed to over the course of the next few weeks. So not only did Casey share her picture, but she decided to make it super-easy for you to re-create….she shared her images: Click here to get them!

Here is how she modified the tree for Easter.

And here is the close up!

And a word from Casey:

“James and I brainstormed different words that are associated with Easter and we discussed what they mean. We read “The Jesus Storybook Bible” about the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. We then wrote down our new words and searched for clip art on the computer to match. I wrote the words on word strips, and James glued the pictures with the corresponding word.
This activity is a great way to build ORAL language. I used the words and pictures of the word to help James create a visual association to what the words mean. The goal of this activity was not to have James learn to READ the words and SPELL the words, but to have him be able to understand the words, use them correctly in a sentence, and explain what they mean. Visuals help kids to learn oral vocabulary because they can now relate the oral word to a picture.”

We expect children to understand everything about the language and culture they were born into, but it takes time and there is so much to learn. Mommy Teachers have the opportunity to shape our little one’s understanding of their world, one word at a time!

Please share your variation of the vocabulary tree on the Mommy Teacher Facebook Page!

April 8, 2011 by Jessica | 0 comments

Find Your Rhythm

My 10 month old loves to drum on everything. If he gets a hold of any object that resembles a stick, he will bang it against the ground, a chair, or even my head. He dances to music and he even sings a note or two with his eyebrows raised as if he is trying to hold the note as long as he can. There is so much brain research that links music and movement to better storing and recalling of information. And it is amazing how the love of music is ingrained in children, from the time they are born!

So, today we are going to talk about a simple activity that falls on the 3rd step of the reading ladder….Syllables.

Compound words are the easiest syllables to hear so we should start there: like foot-ball (football), ice-cream, space-ship, and other fun words to break apart and put together.

Then, there are short 2 and 3 syllable words like “prin-cess, ti-ger, di-no-saur.”

Finally, there are longer words that have more syllables and can be harder to stay on track when you are clapping or tapping these 4+ syllable words: “cat-er-pill-er,” “cin-der-el-la,” etc.

So, all that being said, this is going to help your little one start the process of hearing parts of words and playing with words which is going to pave the way and help your little reader develop an awarenss of sounds which will eventually help them sound-out words….are you with me?!?

When I teach this I find two stick-like objects I can click together (spoons, chopsticks, drumsticks, or in the picture the student is holding wooden dowels I bought for Super-cheap at lowe’s). Then I start by letting my little one play with them because otherwise they will never pay attention. So at first I give about 5 minutes of chaotic free play (with safety boundaries of course). Then, I say I am going to tap my sticks together to hear all the words in the word “ice cream.” I tap during the word ice and cream and then say ooohhh- listen again and tell me how many words you hear in the word ice cream. Hopefully they hear 2 haha unless counting is something that you really need to start working on 🙂

Then I will do this same thing a few more times with compound words, letting them tap with me. I repeat this little activity with “how many parts are in your name?” Then mommy’s name, daddy’s, etc. And keep going until your little one is ready to move on to something else 🙂

Have fun!

March 30, 2011 by Jessica | 2 Comments

A Careful Look At Speech

Chatting with so many moms of 3 year olds I realize a lot of moms have concerns about their child’s speech. They say “I can understand her but I know that she doesn’t say everything clearly.” Well, I speak VERY little Spanish but I can tell you, I know I don’t articulate the sounds correctly. There are so many sounds that I say incorrectly and inarticulately, but if I had someone consistently working with me, one sound at a time, for a period of time, I would eventually get to a point where you would think that I was raised in Mexico.

I am NOT a speech expert by any means, but I will tell you that I have seen what skilled speech therapists can do to help a child’s verbal communication grow to a place of confidence, and that is something worth fighting for when you have seen children so frustrated that they can’t be understood.

Not only is speech therapy beneficial for children who might have trouble with deficiencies in their speech, speech therapy is GREAT for ALL young children to develop clear, articulate oral language. And on top of that, the way that speech therapists work with children by “studying” letters is a great way to STUDY letters in line with nurturing brain development like we talked about yesterday.

Okay, okay, I know what you are thinking: are you telling me that I need to go hire a speech therapist?
Not necessarily, FIRST you should READ about one and learn a thing or two from an expert:

Here is her archive I think is the best place for moms to start!

For a glimpse into this site, start by reading this post:
It was the first one that I read and it hooked me all the way!

In this post, Mommy Speech talks about using a lollipop to elicit the “l” sound. I have a feeling your little one wont complain about this activity.

Heather Burbrink Photography captured this sweet picture and I had to share!

So, Today’s activity is to choose one of Mommy Speech Therapy’s “Improving Articulation” letter-sound lessons with your child just to see what fun it can be to focus on one letter-sound at a time in an age-appropriate way. This is such a good pre-reading and pre-writing experience.

Start listening carefully to your child’s speech and try to observe if they are omitting any sounds and where in the word the omission occurs (beginning, middle, or end). For example, I was recently working with a three year old that had a hard time saying the “L” sound, another who was having trouble saying the “P” sound (but only as the end of words), and many kids that have trouble with the “S” and “R” sounds. Mommy Speech has activities for all of these sounds 🙂

March 10, 2011 by Jessica | 0 comments

What’s Normal?

I was talking to Casey the other day about the reality of reversals that children have when learning letters, learning to read, or writing words like their name. I know, how many people talk about this kind of stuff on the phone? I can name two.

But the truth is that when children are writing their letters backwards when they already “know” the “right way”, it can be very frustrating for parents and even teachers who are not aware of typical brain development. Reversals such as writing “b” when trying to write “d” or writing the name Jessica “acisseJ” or some form of mirroring the name is NORMAL. Why is that normal? Because the brain makes some of the greatest changes in children throughout their early years. The brain has a lot of maturing to do in the way that children process information, store it into their brains, and recall the info from memory.

But there is hope…here are some of the ways that you can help your kiddos get through this process: 1) teaching pre-reading skills in sequence, 2) teaching letters and numbers using hands-on forms of the letters so children can use more than one of their senses, 3) repetition of one letter at a time instead of introducing “d” and ‘b” together, etc., 4) NOT getting frustrated when they make mistakes or have reversals 5) helping the process of maturing the brain through exercise and interactions.

You want your little one to enjoy the process of learning and a big part of their brain development includes your POSITIVE GUIDANCE. I want you to imagine if you were in China tomorrow, with no one who spoke English. As different as the oral and written language is from your own, can you imagine if your teacher was getting frustrated with you while you are trying to learn such a foreign language. You will naturally have to study the basics over and over again, and even after studying, you will still mix things up a bit when you are writing.

So, I hope this gives you a little more insight into your child’s learning struggles that are natural and normal and all that good stuff.

Today’s “assignment” is to be gracious as you practice the basics today!

*This article shares about some typical writing behaviors to expect from a young child. but if you have serious concerns about your child’s learning abilities then consult a specialist.