Because Sean Patrick is so into tracing right now (and because he is a perfectionist), I decided to make him a book that he could use dry-erase markers and Mr. Clean magic erasers to practice his tracing over and over again without getting frustrated about markings on his paper (courtesy of his little sister).
I printed the pages of my tracing book onto card stock and laminated them with my inexpensive laminator that I bought at WalMart.
We work on it a little each day and I encourage him to do whatever letters he would like to practice making, but I always try to make the formation fun for him. For example, when we were writing “A” I told him to slide down this slide (the left slanted line) then to slide down that slide (the right slanted line), and then to climb across the monkey bars. He said exactly what I said as he traced A the next few times. And for lowercase “a” we rode around the merry-go-round and then climbed down the ladder.
“Slide down, slide down, climb across the monkey bars”
If you don’t have a laminator and you don’t want to get it laminated you can also just print it and let your little one trace the pages individually with crayons 🙂
/c/ /c/ crawl around the /c/ /c/ curve to see the /c/ /c/ cow
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I have had many parents come to me worried that their preschool or kindergarten aged child may be dyslexic* after he or she continues to spell and write words/letters backwards, upside down, in mirror image, or mix up letters within a word.
Let me say now that this writing behavior is totally normal at this stage in your child’s pre-writing and pre-reading development and in most cases* is not indicative of a learning disability.
Let’s think about this…
We, the smarter-than-the-average-preschooler mommy teachers, see a triangle. 3 sides + 3 points = triangle no matter how you look at it.
(Technically that last one is a pyramid says my 5year old, but you get my point.)
What, then, is the letter A?
It is but a mere visual representation of a sound in a word… a symbol… or simply, a shape, not unlike our friend, the triangle. We recognize this shape no matter the direction, font, size or color. Our brains are hardwired to group these similar shapes together so we can recognize them even though they may look slightly different than the Times New Roman capital letter A.
Our kids are naturally doing the same exact thing which is why they can still find the letter A in a pile of letters, even though some of the As are upside down.
To help teach correct directionality (the direction in which we read and write in English), use your index finger to guide reading: top-bottom, left-right. This is a learned skill and will become ingrained through repetition and practice. In Leyson’s case, if he knew that he should have spelled the letters out from left to right, the word would have actually spelled JAMES instead of SEMAJ – but with a sideways S and an E for an M… babysteps.
When Leyson spelled James’ name backwards, I then modeled how to spell his own name as he said the letters out loud to me. Leaving those letters in place, I then pulled a second set of letters for his name and asked him to put them in order directly under the one I had done.
“Which letter comes first? Which comes second?” Etc.
To fix his sideways S, I lined up a few of the same letter and laid them out right side, upside down and sideways and we chose the correct letter. This taught him that it DOES matter which way a letter is written… BAM! Epiphany.
Back to his spelling of James’ name:
Me: “Now, if we spelled the name LEYSON with the L over here on the left, what is different about how you spelled JAMES?”
Leyson: “I used an upside down E as an M!”
Epiphany x2.
* Dyslexia is a Developmental Reading Disorder (DRD) which is one of the most common learning disabilities. A small percentage of those with this type of DRD actually see and write letters backwards or upside down. Most often dyslexia is diagnosed within the critical beginning reader years (kindergarten – 2nd grade) if a child of normal intelligence still has difficulties with visual and/or auditory reading comprehension, spelling and phonological awareness.
If after age appropriate and developmentally appropriate reading and writing strategies have been correctly taught to your school-aged child and you find he or she is still struggling with reading, begin to log your perception of your child’s reading abilities and share it with your child’s teacher or doctor so they can determine if your child may need further evaluation.
I just have to share a funny moment between my 3 year old and myself today…
I have been working on blending sounds with Leyson and today I wanted to test his understanding…
Me: “/b/, /a/, /t/. Put it together…”
Leyson: silence
Me: “/b/, /at/. Put it together…”
Leyson: silence
Me: “/b/, /a/, /t/. /b/, /at/. Put it together…bat. Let’s try another.
Leyson: “No. /t/,/A/,/k/,/i/,/t/,/u/, /p/, /ar/, /t/. Take it apart!”
I don’t think he likes blending, but at least he figured out segmenting on his own! And it’s pretty obvious that despite my classroom background, my own kids aren’t always receptive to my teaching efforts.
However, when they ARE excited about learning, how do I teach about blending and segmenting? Blending is taking separate sounds and putting them together to make a blended sound and segmenting is taking them apart, separating the sounds. That’s easy to remember, right?
I blend and segment a LOT as if it’s perfectly natural to do in conversation. My kids and I will be talking about baseball and I will say something like, “Don’t forget your baseball bat! /b/ /a/ /t/ put it together… BAT!”
(Letters inside of / / represents the sound those letters make.)
When I say “put it together” I take my two index fingers and bring them together to add a little visual to our blending efforts. And would you believe that to “take them apart” I touch my fingers together and move them apart from each other? I’d like to take credit for that simple little trick, but alas, someone got to the wheel before me.
When playing I also use toys to help me sound things out as well. Today I used Hot Wheels to help me blend the sounds together. I grabbed three cars to segment DOG – /d/ /o/ /g/ – and each time I said a sound, I moved a car up an inch. This allows your child to visualize how many different sounds are within one word. Three cars = three different sounds.
Kids really pick up on this repetition, and through that they begin to do the same thing in their heads. They can better hear the differences between the sounds in words and how sounds work together to make words. This is beneficial for when we sit down with written words and can break them down sound by sound then piece them back together. Blending and segmenting are essential skills to learn in order to be able to READ! This is also a skill that is often looked over in early reading programs that teach reading through visual repeitions such as flash cards.
Even after all this talk lately about putting sounds together and taking them apart, Leyson still missed the mark completely when showing off his baseball trophy with his name on it…
Leyson: “L…e…y…s…o…n. That spells ‘mine.'”
So just because he’s blending and segmenting does not mean that he’s reading quiet yet, but baby steps!
Side note: your child does not have to know all 26 shapes of letters and their sounds for you to begin the habit of blending and segmenting sounds in everyday conversation. Your goal for this is EXPOSURE… and through repetitive exposure, your child will begin to grasp the CONCEPT of phonemic awareness: letters make sounds, sounds when put together make words, words are separated from other words and when put together they make phrases and sentences which make up our thoughts and conversations on and on and on! When we understand this concept, we are ready to learn how to READ!
Hi! I’m Casey from Kidspired Creations! I have been a guest blogger a few times on The Mommy Teacher am very excited to now be co-blogging with Jessica! I am a former Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten teacher and am currently a stay-at-home Mom of 3 little ones ages 5, 3 and 10 months.
I have to admit that despite my best attempts, not all of my Mommy Teacher moments get the best reception from my kids. I think if I say, “Let’s make a pattern!” one more time, my 3-year-old might throw a toddler tornado-sized tantrum.
Yes, my kids can get burnt out on lessons from this Mommy Teacher; however, I know how to win them over every time: food, particularly pizza.
I recently saw a recipe on Pinterest that involved cutting zucchini in half long ways, carving out the insides and filling them with various deliciousness. I decided that these “zucchini boats” would make great pizza crusts! This idea perked interest with my kids so quickly that I couldn’t prep fast enough.
-Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Cut zucchini long ways and spoon out a trench on the inside. Spread a few spoonfuls of pizza sauce inside. Fill with mozzarella cheese. Top with pepperonis. Place on the oven for 15-20 minutes or until zucchini is tender.
Easy peasy… and so delicious that even my super-picky 3-year-old was digging into the “green crust.”
Here are the different skills we covered while making our pizzas:
Math
– Sequencing: “What is the first step to making our pizza? What comes next?”
– Measuring: “How long is our zucchini? Let’s measure in pepperonis.”
– Adding: “Our pizza needs 3 pepperonis. There are 2 pepperonis on the pizza now. How many more do we need to add to make 3?”
-Counting: “How many pepperonis are on your pizza?” How many pepperonis are there all together?”
-Multiplying: (for the school-aged child) “If we have 3 pepperonis on 10 pizzas, how many pepperonis are there all together?”
-Time: “Our pizzas need to cook for 20 minutes. Let’s set the timer.”
Motor Skill Development
-Pouring and spreading the sauce with a spoon
-Sprinkling the cheese using our fingers
-Using the pincer grasp to separate the pepperonis
Language Skills
-Sequencing Vocabulary: first, second, next, then, last, before, after etc.
Health and Nutrition: Learning about making healthy choices by substituting with fresh vegetables and what food groups are being included in dinner
Following Directions and Recipes: Following step-by-step or a series of directions is different than following one direction at a time. “So, I put the pepperonis on first right??? No? Well, what do the directions tell me to do?” You can take this a step further than I did by drawing or writing out the recipe for your child to have a visual to follow.
Social Behaviors: being a happy helper in the house! It is important for kids to take ownership over household tasks and doing it with a happy heart!
* * *
My kids do not like to try new things, but since they made the dish themselves they were eager to dig right in! More surprisingly was my 3-year-old who didn’t shed any tears before his taste test! That’s quite an accomplishment at our dinner table! Everyone was happy… even the baby who got pureed zucchini that was scooped out of the middle of our boats. Bonus!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I have been soooo busy soaking up time with my little ones as a working mom that I haven’t made time for posts. But I assure you, I have TONS in the “Posts Drafts” Section of my website that I my new year’s resolution is to share 😉
Here is a quick share for you…
My sister showed me this Montessori Crosswords App that her TWO YEAR OLD was playing and I immediately wanted it on my phone for my little one. It amazes me how many tools there are in the tech world these days and I love learning about them.
This App is a letter-sound matching tool that sounds out the first, middle, and ending sound of each word one letter-sound at a time. A child matches the letter to its sound by dragging and dropping the letter in the correct space. If a child isn’t sure what letter matches the sound, he/she can click on the question mark at the top to show the way the word should look. Then, the skill changes to a letter recognition skill.
I was amazed that my niece was using deductive reasoning to figure out the right letter that makes the matching sound. She was either trying different letters until she found the correct one or she was using the self-correct options to check the right letter.
See what I mean here:
This App is great for ages 2-7 in my opinion. It is a great pre-requisite for phonetic spelling.
My two year old has known all of his upper case for almost a year, but this is a great tool to help him with lower case letter recognition by changing the letter case option to lower.
I don’t like to buy apps but this is one that I caved in and forked out the $2.99 because I know what a reading benefit this kind of tool can be. Check it out and let me know what you think.
The Montessori Numbers App from the same group is pretty great too! It covers Numbers, Quantities, Numerals, Numerals from quantities, and tracing. Awesome skills to build on!
Leave a comment with other Apps you like….I love to check them out and see what’s out there 🙂
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