Thank you, Super Why.

My children do not watch a lot of TV. I may have one of the only eight year olds who does not know that iCarly exists. Please do not let the cat out of the bag should you two happen to be chatting about television. We have stuck to PBS, Fresh Beat Band (more my obsession than theirs!), and Charlie and Lola. They have 30 minutes or so a day of screen time (my 4 year old gets an extra show in lieu of a nap), and they seem genuinely happy with it.

This is NOT a post patting myself on the back. This is a post giving credit where credit is due: to Super Why and other shows like it.

I have realized that my third child did not get the best of me. In fact, some days, even though we are home together for many hours at a time, she doesn’t get much of me at all.  My mind may be elsewhere, or I just don’t feel like playing or reading or being on.  And, she is my most independent child. She loves playing alone.

Last week, it dawned on me that Sophie did not learn her letters from me. I realized that my older two daughters have taught her all they know, and she watches Super Why at least once a week. It is this show that turned Sophie on to learning about letters. This show gave her the curiosity to ask me what letters are in her books and to ask me and her teachers at school to show her how to write her letters. She has begun to watch her sisters do their homework and then run to a corner to do her own “important work” in one of her many journals. I have often heard Sophie singing one of Super Why’s catchy tunes as she writes.

I love this! As a mom, I love that I can justify the TV I let her watch. As a teacher, I applaud the creators of Super Why.  This show has an actual benefit to her life as a reader and a writer. I know that while I go to make beds or write this blog, she is learning something valuable.

In the next blog post, I will show you how you can support your child’s newfound passion for letters and words—beyond videos and computer games.  I will give you some quick and easy ways to reinforce and extend what your child has begun to learn.  Stay tuned…

It’s been a while…

It has been far too long since I have blogged. Time just flies. I feel like I blinked and my kids are all growing up so fast…my baby just turned 4. In the last few weeks, I have realized that all the special moments with her as my little baby are almost behind me. I have made the conscious decision to make sure I enjoy all the moments that much more—with all of my kids, not just my 4 year old.

In these last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to sit and watch my kids from the sidelines. I have watched them in school performances, and just sat back and watched them at home.

My “first baby” is now in the grade that I taught when I first entered the world of teaching. Second graders seemed so old then! How can I have a second grader who does research, reads complicated books, and writes stories?! How is it possible that my first grader who did not read with confidence, suddenly reads with expression and total comprehension as she devours her favorite new series, Roscoe Riley? How can my 4 year old suddenly correct ME when I read her favorite books and skip a word?

Of course my kids have grown as people: emotionally, socially, and in other areas. Since this blog focuses on our children as learners, that is what I have been thinking about most as I observe them.

This past week, what has become obvious to me is how my kids have begun to teach each other. So, in the spirit of getting you more free time while at the same time fostering your kids’ emotional and intellectual development, I am going to give you a tip: make your kids take over your role at bedtime.

If you have older children, have your older children put your young preschooler to bed. If your preschooler is your oldest and you have a baby, have your preschooler try to put your baby to bed. If you have a preschooler or a toddler and no others, have your child put YOU to bed.

It seems silly, I know. This past week my oldest decided to put our 4 year old to sleep. It was helpful for me, since I was able to spend the time with my middle daughter. It was helpful to me, since I only had to put TWO kids to sleep and not three. But most of all, it was helpful to the two of them.

For my oldest, she was able to apply so many of her skills:

-she felt really old, mature, and responsible

-she was able to practice her own reading with expression and keeping it interesting for her audience

-she actually worked to teach her little sister to read! She read her one of our favorite books (Baby Happy, Baby Sad by Leslie  Patricelli) and made sure to point out the repetitive text

For the youngest:

-she learned a new book from a different teacher

-she felt mature and responsible, too. Mom was not present!

Above all, they bonded. In the way that reading is so special for parents and children, it is as special for kids to share this with each other. Sometimes, parents can be in the way of truly positive interactions between siblings. (Don’t get me wrong. Feel free to spy from the hall.)

This can work with any age children. I have been doing this with my kids since my oldest was four. You would be amazed at what your kids can do. (Just don’t forget to try to stand in the door to take a video. It is guaranteed to warm your heart!)

Let me say this again: try this to save yourself some work! Use the extra time to kick up your feet and curl up with a book of your own. The dishes in the sink will wait until tomorrow morning. I promise.

 

I CAN read!!!

Now that you have read my tips for preparing your child for kindergarten and beyond, here come the blog entries where I spew ideas at you. I want to show you that you can do all of those things in only minutes a day, minimal planning, with resources you already have. Above all, I want you to see how fun it can be and how rewarding it feels to know that you have given your child knowledge, skills, and confidence.

I am going to show you examples from my own day-to-day life. To be clear, I am not sitting at home planning curriculum for my children or sitting teaching my preschooler new skills for longer than a few minutes. We play a lot together, read together, chat, sing, play princess, house, and color pictures. Whatever skills I do teach her, arise organically. There is little planning involved in her intellectual experiences. It is true; much of what I do with her and with my others, I did do as a teacher. That by no means makes you unable to do this yourself at home.

In this blog entry, I will show you how I taught Sophie to read in 10 minutes. OK. That was just to see if you were paying attention. Of course I didn’t teach Sophie to read in 10 minutes, but I made her believe she is a reader. And that, my friends, is how a reader is born.

A few weeks ago, I decided to pull out a book that Sophie could learn to read herself. She has begun to be very interested in letter sounds as we work to complete alphabet puzzles, letter card games, and sing the ABC’s. I knew this was the next logical step in Sophie’s journey to become a reader.

I chose the book No No Yes Yes by Leslie Patricelli.  It is an adorable board book with only the words no and yes. Each page has a “no” (something kids should NOT do) or a “yes” (something appropriate). The pictures are so clear that kids can easily discern which is which.

Though I did not write a lesson plan for this bedtime read, I will confess I had objectives when I chose it off the shelf. I wanted Sophie to feel a surge of confidence as a reader, and I figured it would be an added bonus if she was able to recognize the words “no” and “yes” at the end of this experience. To explain what I did next, I will list the steps so you can try it at home with your child.

1. I showed the cover of the book to Sophie and explained I was going to show her a book. I would read it to her first and then let her try reading it. “I can’t read! I am only 3!” My reply: “Hmmm. Let’s see if you say that when we are done with this book in a few minutes.”
2. “This book is called No No Yes Yes. Let’s look at the pictures. It has stuff you are not supposed to do on the NO pages, and stuff you should do on the yes pages.” We then did a picture walk, which is a fancy way of saying we just looked at the pictures to preview the story.
3. As I read the book to Sophie, we discussed the pictures. I pointed to the words as I read them one by one. (For more on the importance of pointing, see previous entry.) I made sure she saw I was pointing. A few times I said, “Look! This word must say “no” since it starts with an N.”

After a read through, I said “Do you think you can read it now?” Sophie picked up that book so eagerly and began to read.

Already, I saw Sophie demonstrating three or more “good reader” skills.

1.  Sophie was already pointing to each word as she read it
2.  Sophie was looking at the pictures to determine if it was a yes or a no page
3.  Sophie was able to self-correct!

If she began to say yes, and she looked at the picture or  the word and saw an N and a picture of a baby doing something not okay, she self-corrected! When kids are able to develop this skill early on, they never lose it. In my opinion, a reader who learns how to self-correct early is a good reader for life. 

When Sophie was done reading, the smile on her face said it all. But in case the rest of the neighborhood or I missed it, she shouted: “I CAN READ!” She called her sisters in to celebrate, and the party hasn’t stopped.

Give this a try with your child.  Sophie is not unusual. Any child can do this given your attention for a few minutes and a good book. If you would like ideas for more wonderful books, or if you have your own, let me know! In my next blog I will tell you how Sophie and I took this book a few steps further.

Do The Write Thing

By now, if you have been reading my blog, you know my philosophy well: stop bringing your kid to classes to help her have a leg up in kindergarten. Schedule less structured time, and more play time. Enjoy your kids as much as you can, even on the days when it feels impossible, for they will be grown-up before you know it. Let your child have a stress-free childhood. PLAY. PLAY. READ. RHYME. COUNT. Play some more.

There is one last step in my list of ‘back to basic’ tips: write notes to your child. This is one of my favorite tips. I LOVE writing notes to my kids, and they love receiving them. I urge you to start doing this every day, no matter how old your child is. Even the youngest of preschoolers understands what a note is and is excited to receive a note or a letter, even if s/he cannot read independently.

In writing notes, you are modeling writing as a FUN means of communicating. You needn’t ask them to write back to you; in no time at all your child will take initiative in ways that will surprise you.

What is the educational value of these fun notes? For starters, modeling yourself as a writer is as valuable as modeling math and reading for your children. It helps your kids see the fun and applicability in a skill.  You are a role model in all you do; when they see you write, they want to write. When children enter school ready, confident, willing, and loving a skill, they will develop the skill naturally, quickly, and with little effort.

As importantly, these notes—no matter how short they are—help your child to learn to recognize high frequency words such as: good, morning, night, love, I, you, me, mommy, your child’s own name, etc. In my opinion, there is nothing that will give your child the upper hand in reading and writing more than this. And, it is fun learning. In fact, you and your child do not even have to be face to face to make this happen.

How can you add note writing to your daily routine without it feeling forced? How can you keep it fun and organic? I have a couple of suggestions I have been doing with my own children since they were two years old.

Stick a memo board to their bedroom door. Think college dorm message board. I began with writing notes that were simple and fun. As my kids got older, I added blank spots for them to fill in words and letters, told them to circle words they knew, letters they recognized. Then they started writing back, and even initiating notes before they left for school.

This is an invitation to a tea party that came in the “mail” under our bedroom door very early one morning.

This one made my day.

I LOVE the writing process. It is fascinating to watch kids learn to express themselves in writing as they piece together letter sounds and words they know–or think they know. Sometimes what they write may make no sense to you, but it makes perfect sense to them. Empower them. Have them read it back to you.

Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is my daughter was nearly 4 and a half and very proud.

Lunch box notes are always fun. For my three year old, I write the same note each time I write to her: “Dear Sophie, I love you. Love, Mommy.” She now knows the words love, dear, and Mommy.  For my older two, I write puzzles, math problems, word games, and notes.

A lot of the examples that I have mentioned mirror what I did as a teacher within my own classroom, but your notes do not need to do this. Even the shortest and simplest notes will help your young children to recognize and appreciate the power of the written word.

There are so many ways to extend all of this, but if I tell you all of my ideas now, you won’t come back to read more.  Now I hope I have hooked you in…

Until the next post, have fun and enjoy your new little pen pals.

Pick a book, any book.

                   

In my last post, I recommended that you read with your child. I suggested that you expose your child to as many genres as possible at an early age. It will help your child to develop a love of literature. One day, in the not so distant future, it will also help to develop your child’s writing skills and sense of story.

I would like to share some books I love reading to my children. Of course if I listed all of them, it would be too long to post. As I started typing out this list, I realized I could publish a whole book of bibliographies of my favorite children’s books. Hmmm, maybe I will one day.

I have listed a few categories of books to start the list. Most of these books  feature repetitive text. This feature will help your child predict what will happen next in the story, and eventually will lead to recognizing and reading words that appear frequently within a text. It also helps your child to develop pre-reading skills. It will not be uncommon for your child to “read” to you while he looks at pictures and turns pages while using many of the words he heard you use. The repetitive text helps your child to build the confidence he needs to do this. Without “prereading”, there can be no readers.

Recently, my 3 year old found the word “said” in one of her books because I read it over and over. She asked me which word was ‘said’ and went on to find it in another book we had nearby. This was not a contrived lesson plan, or any plan at all. I pointed to words, she listened, and took the initiative to learn a word all on her own. This came from only minutes a day of reading on a regular basis. A little goes a long way!

I hope this list is a good starting point for you. You may see books you have already read. You may see books you own. You will see books that are listed under more than one category. This was intentional.

Of course there are so many more books. If you have any books you feel we all MUST know about and read, please let us know in the comment section. In future posts, I will explore specifics of how you may want to use this literature with your children. But for now, read with expression, point, and read some more.

ABC/123/Color:

This genre is especially wonderful for early readers and preschoolers. There are usually sections of these books at your local library. In my kindergarten classrooms I always had a huge bin out. These books help even the earliest readers feel confident. Many have one letter per page, or one number per page. Those are great, and too plentiful to list. I have listed some others…

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? By Eric Carle

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr., John Archambault and Lois Ehlert

Chicka Chicka 123 by Bill Martin Jr., John Archambault and Lois Ehlert

Museum ABC by The (NY) Metropolitan Museum of Art*

Museum Shapes by The (NY) Metropolitan Museum of Art*

*These two books use famous artwork you may see at your local art museum. These books are gorgeous!

Rhyming Books:

Rhyming is invaluable. The more children are able to recognize and predict rhymes in texts, the more they are able to develop phonemic awareness. To refresh your memory, feel free to check out my last post in which I wrote about the importance of phonemic awareness.

Books by Sandra Boynton (Hey, Wake Up!, But Not the Hippopotamus)

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? By Eric Carle

Beach Day by Patricia Lakin

Rainy Day by Patricia Lakin

Snowy Day by Patricia Lakin

Books by Dr. Seuss

**NURSERY RHYMES/MOTHER GOOSE BOOKS: These are some of my favorites because they are available in all different formats: board books, cloth books, bath books, with CDs, different illustrations, different collections, etc. It is also my personal opinion, that not enough kids today know the basic nursery rhymes. I am secretly hoping that this one blog post will bring back Mother Goose into each one of our children’s lives.

Funny Books:

I love funny books. Now my kids love funny books. Nothing like a good giggle with your kids or your class. I have found that my kids are able to catch onto jokes earlier than we think. So, I read funny books with my kids as soon as I start reading. Here are a few. If you want more ideas, let me know!

Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton

Pookie by Sandra Boynton

Go, Dog, Go by P.D. Eastman

Underwear Do’s and Don’ts by Todd Parr

The Cat and The Hat by Dr. Seuss

Thomas’ Snowsuit and other books by Robert Munsch

Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann (This book cracked up my oldest when she was only 13 months old. There are not a lot of words but the pictures are a hoot. She still giggles as she reads this book, and she is 8.)

Songs:

You can read or sing these books. When you point and sing a familiar song, your child is able to continue to develop confidence and further those early reading skills.

Today is Monday by Eric Carle

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr., John Archambault and Lois Ehlert

The Wheels on the Bus by Raffi

BINGO by Rosemary Wells

Five Little Monkeys Jumping On The Bed by Eileen Christelow

The Lady With The Alligator Purse by Mary Ann Hoberman

Miss Mary Mack by Mary Ann Hoberman

“Snuggly books” (as my kids call them): 

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague

The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown

The Jacket I Wear In The Snow  by Shirley Neitzel

(Great rebus book with pictures, kids will feel successful as they join you in reading this book)

The OK Book and other Todd Parr Books

Jez Alborough Books (Tall, Hug)

ANY books by Mo Willems

I hope you do use this list and enjoy it. And, PLEASE, let me know if you have any questions, would like more ideas, or have any more ideas you would like to share.

Coming in my next post, I will begin to discuss what you can do at home to foster math readiness and number sense. You can make a difference in just a few minutes a day. Stay tuned…