An Introduction to Readability Levels

I began homeschooling over thirty years ago when Ray and I taught my younger sister (who was in eighth grade at the time) in our home. During my first several years of homeschooling, I used early readers when my children were first learning to read, but I did not care for “readers” for older children. I always felt that abridged or excerpted stories were inferior—and that children should read whole books.

This worked wonderfully for my first two (the ones who learned to read at age eight and nine). They didn’t like abridgements and excerpts very much anyway—and could easily read a couple of chapter books a week from ages ten and up. (I should note that they are both real literature buffs as adults, and our son teaches literary analysis of many novels to homeschooled students every semester. All of that reading really paid off!)

Then along came our third child, who begged for everything that I did not think was “best” for learning—workbooks (the more, the merrier, in her opinion); readers with excerpts and short stories; tons of what I had thought were useless pages of worksheets and coloring pages; and more. She was a different type of learner than Joshua and Kayla had been—and desired different learning tools.

So I began my hunt for “older” readers—readers for children beyond the phonetically-controlled ones that I had utilized to teach reading. I found many that I liked—and actually used some of them to read aloud to the kids since we found the stories and excerpts interesting and fun. They even caused my kids to go on and read entire books for themselves that they might have otherwise not known about or read (after reading an excerpted portion in their readers).

So…the moral of this story? Every child is different. Each child has his own learning style, likes, dislikes, etc. And we need to cater to those as much as possible in their learning. In order to choose reading materials for your children, a basic knowledge of readability levels will be a great help. I will detail readability levels and determinations in this month’s newsletter (March) and next month’s. 

When a child is in school, he is likely in a “reading group,” that is a group of children from his class in which all of the students read at about the same reading level. The child’s teacher chooses readers/stories for each group of children based on that group’s (the children in that group’s) reading level.

To practice with your child at home, you will want to do the same thing—but in a one on one, rather than small group, situation. How do you know what level is appropriate for your child?

I will enumerate some tips for choosing books at your child’s reading level, primarily for word-calling purposes. First, though, a small peek at readability levels will help you in determining your child’s reading level.

Readability is based on many factors. Many readability scales use one of a few simple formulae in which the number of words in a passage or story is divided by the number of words—and a readability level is derived based on the number of words each sentence contains (on an average). Other formulae use the number of syllables, considering that a sentence that contains twenty “one-syllable” words is certainly easier to word call than a sentence that contains twenty “three-syllable” words.

In both of those cases, the readability level is based on word calling, which is an accurate portrayal of early readers since children do not focus much on comprehension at that level of reading. (And if a class does focus on comprehension, it is usually just literal comprehension—what happened, who the characters were, etc.)

As students progress in their reading, we want them to not only be able to sound out words in a passage or story, but we want them to derive meaning from those words. Formulae for readability of a text based on comprehension is much more difficult to assess (though definitely counting number of words with longer syllables demonstrates a higher comprehension level than just merely counting the number of words).

So many things come into play when considering readability of, say, a chapter book of 150 pages. A book might be short but extremely difficult to comprehend due to the vocabulary used (which some formulae do not consider). Likewise, a book can be very long but have extremely immature vocabulary and not be difficult to comprehend at all.

In our language arts and composition books, we give students passages to write from at least half of the time for factual writing in the early grades, lessening as students learn to find appropriate sources themselves, etc. In choosing these passages to write from, comprehension is extremely important. In order to write from source material, a much higher level of comprehension must be realized than merely that of sounding out the words. In choosing passages for students to read, take notes from, and write from, we consider readability in terms of word calling first, then we consider sentence structure. Sentence structure includes the length of the sentence, the type of sentence (i.e. what we learned as compound, compound-complex, etc.), the type of and length of sentence openers a sentence contains (prepositional phrase openers, adverb openers, etc.), and finally, the vocabulary of the passage.

How does this apply to your reading with your student? Consider the list of ascending skills below concerning readability and readers:

Readability and Readers

1. In the early grades, you will be concerned with readability in terms of decoding, phonics, sight words, etc. That is, can your student read the words?

2. If your child already reads well in terms of decoding (sounding out words), and can “pick up anything and ‘read’ it,” you will want to focus on content—comprehending what he reads, discussing it, etc.

3. As students progress in reading, homeschooling moms and teachers in school often forsake the practice of reading aloud with children, noting that the child can word call anything, so there is no need to check for word calling skills/application of phonics. However, we advocate reading aloud with your child for some years, at least a couple of times a week. No, you will not be checking for word calling anymore (though my older boys will still say something like, “How do you pronounce this word—m-y-r-i-a-d?” when they are reading something to themselves), but reading involves word calling AND comprehension. A child who can “read anything” but not comprehend it is like a child reading “There’s a Wocket in My Pocket.” To say that a child in fourth grade can read at a ninth grade level because he can decode all of the words in a passage that is rated at a ninth grade readability level is like saying he can read the “Wocket” tale by Dr. Seuss. He might be able to word call it, but is he “reading” if he cannot comprehend what he reads?

4. Oral reading together with Mom or Dad at upper elementary grades is for comprehension—you will not necessarily be checking on the application of his decoding skills, but you will be checking on his comprehension, vocabulary recognition, etc. You will hopefully be guiding him through his reading, discussing it, answering questions about vocabulary words (i.e. words he can easily sound out but does not know the meaning of), etc.

5. If your child is beyond the beginning phonics instruction, you may not need books that are “graded” in terms of readability. Perhaps he already enjoys reading a certain picture book series or early junior fiction series. These can then become his “readers” to read with you.

6. Consider the differences in “readability” in the materials he reads with you vs the materials he reads to himself:

 
a. Be sure the material he reads aloud with you is somewhat challenging (i.e. he needs some help with words here and there but the books do not leave him in tears).

 
b. Be sure that what he is reading to himself is not so difficult that he needs cueing or instruction as he reads it.
 

 
c. Keep in mind that there are other things that affect readability besides syllable count, numbers of pages, sentence structure, and vocabulary. Interest is a strong factor in determining readability. (That is why I recommended the Saxon Bold Intervention+ for older students who need remedial reading on our Positive Parenting blog.The materials that they read from are high interest for older students—not childish or primary stories.) This is the reason that children who would not read their science or history book in fifth grade are picking up huge books of Harry Potter and these vampire books (not sure of their titles). Whether we like them or not, many children out there are reading these tomes simply because they are interested in them—despite the fact that those kids are not “at that reading level” and would never have picked up a book over two hundred pages prior to these books being released. (If you have an older student who is working on remedial reading, ask your librarian specifically for high interest/low readability materials for older students. Some of the adult literacy materials are extremely high interest with lower readability levels, as well.)

Other reading links:

Phonics Program Roundup for Reading Instruction

Using Word Cards for Reading Instruction

Reading Round Up: Tips for Teaching Your Child How to Read

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I have a lot of material at the blog about reading aloud to your kids—unit studies, morning read aloud, Bible time, story time, family read aloud, and more. We did them all…nearly every day for twenty-five years….and I wouldn’t trade those hours for anything!

But there are logistics…especially if you are trying to do this with a large family…multiple ages and interests, etc.

Those are some of the things that I tackled in my latest Facebook Live video about Read Aloud Time!

Check it out…..and check out the links below for some fun readers and a darling chapter book!

Click on the pictures below to see my Sound it Out, and Read a Chapter beginning reader books!

PIN IT FOR LATER!

Sound It Out, Baloo!

PIN IT FOR LATER!

Read a Chapter, Mowgli!

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Summer is here and the livin’ is easy. Or something like that.

And there’s a lot of truth to it. My husband and I were just talking last night about how one of our favorite things is going to concerts and movies (mostly with our kids!) in the summer because it feels so easy. Sitting in my lawn chair at an outdoor concert just listening to old 50’s and 60’s tunes (some of our favorite swing music!) just makes me feel relaxed. Like I don’t have anything to do, so just sit there. (I have a LOT of trouble sitting….unless I’m doing!)

But the reality is that fall comes after summer. And we can’t forget that all together.

One way we can be help fall be better is to put a little effort into our summer—not a lot—just a little….in the areas that we want to keep strong. (Check out last week’s newsletter for more summer tips!)

I recorded a FB Live this week in which I describe some very simple tasks that you can do to help your new reader continue to learn and grow this summer (or at the very least keep the skills he has!). You can watch the video below.

I made reference to several things in that video, so I am going to do a quick outline/list of the tips with links to the products that I recommend.

Oh, and let me know what you would like to learn more about—teaching a specific writing type, reading help, organization and productivity, cool East Coast swing moves…I can fix you up in future video! 🙂

Below are some affiliate links as I am an affiliate for Amazon.com.  By clicking on these links you are helping to support this blog.  Thank you!

1. Reading Baskets: The ORAL reading basket (for books that the student still needs cues and help with) and SILENT reading basket (books that he can read without any help….I moved them from ORAL to SILENT after we worked on them for a while.

• Bob Books
• Hear Me Read readers
• Sound It Out (Mowgli, Baloo, and Brother Wolf)
• Read a Chapter, Mowgli

2. Read Every Day: Have your student read once or twice a day to you from a reader that is phonetically controlled and/or vocabulary-controlled. Don’t trust the age or grade level written in the upper corner of department store books! (Get help from your librarian, if needed.)

Recommended Reading—to learn about readability levels, phonetically-controlled books, and vocabulary-controlled books.

3. Make a Reading Chart. Have summer charts that are simple to manage (i.e. a smile each day he reads aloud) with built in prizes that are easy to carry out.

Recommendations: Charts for older kids and younger kids for homeschooling and other tasks.

4. Use Audio Books or Book/Audio Sets to Build Listening Comprehension. Your child’s listening comprehension level actually tells you a lot about what level he could comprehend at if he knew how to word-call that level. (Remember, reading is word calling AND comprehending.) I always liked to expand my students’ listening comprehension levels, knowing that they had a huge impact on their comprehension later. Additionally, students will desire to learn to read better if they listen and/or follow along with books that they cannot read—the motivation will become stronger to learn to read (and this also helps develop a love for learning in children.) The picture book and audio sets from the library are great for this.

Recommendations; I can’t say enough about these amazing audio and book sets. One device plays all the books in the set. Easy to follow and learn to control themselves. Not a lot of other pieces, wands, devices, etc. Easy peasy. My students and grandson love these! (Plus, they are familiar movie and tv characters.) There are about a dozen sets floating around. I get mine from Sam’s and Costco at Christmastime, but here’s an Amazon link for one set…check them all out!

5. Do follow up activities that are related to the book he just read—confusing word games, word cards, etc. The beauty of using the words and text that he is currently working on reading is two fold: it is easy for the parent to make word cards or create a confusing word sheet or play with magnetic words AND the activities will contain the very words that he just got stuck on when you read. Quick, easy, pain-free. (You will see what I am referring to in the video embedded in this post.)

Recommendations:

• Dice for rolling to see which word he should read
• Magnetic words
• Magnetic letters for creating words
• Blank word cards to customize
• Dab a Dot Markers for Marking the Word You Read to Him

6. For readers who can write, consider adding in some fun writing this summer! Be sure it is DIRECTED (i.e. not a writing idea book) and fun! 🙂

Recommendations:

• Write On, Mowgli Level I
• Write On, Peter Pan, Level I
• Write On, Beauty and Beast, Level I

7. Go back to beginning sounds if your student still can’t say in a snap that p says puh, etc. If you are still working on beginning letter sounds (i.e. not reading yet), use something that teaches them painlessly AND has true, consistent (not blended) sounds.

Recommendations;

• ABC Word and Picture Cards
• Sound Song Packet
• Video of me explaining what to look for in beginning sound materials

8. Check out my other posts, videos, and audios to help you with reading this summer!

Recommendations:

• Reading Roundup Tips
• Podcast: Summer Reading Help for Young Students

What are you working on this summer? What is your favorite reader set? How can I help you with reading, writing, and grammar?

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Bob Books (<–affiliate link 😉 )

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School is in session everywhere now, which means young learners are learning their ABC’s and 1-2-3’s! I love back to school! I especially loved it when I taught my own kids at home! Nowadays, I am enjoying teaching (along with my oldest son Joshua, age thirty-two, history major with emphases in too many subjects to list!) one hundred students writing and language arts in cottage classes at three locations in and around Fort Wayne, Indiana. I call it my “testing program” to test my new books before we publish them, but really, they are just excuses to do what I love most—teach!

Speaking of new books, I have a new line of preschool materials coming out at my three stores (CurrClick, Teachers Pay Teachers, and Teacher’s Notebook), and I am thrilled to introduce you to the first book/download in the series! The series is called “Letters and Sounds,” and the first book in the series is a full-color download of alphabet cards. This product is called ABC Picture Cards, and it has many unique features that other alphabet letter and picture cards do not have (and features that are definitely not found in your grocery store workbooks).

Because of my love for children and my thirty-plus years of teaching experience, when I create curriculum, it has to be user-friendly. It has to do the job with as much help for the student as I can possibly put in a book. The same is true of this product. Each aspect—the font, the size of the letters, the colors, the pictures for each sound, etc.—has been carefully thought out (and tested). You can read more in the description below the video!

The first book in the series is available for download now at these three stores!

• CurrClick,
• Teachers Pay Teachers
• Teacher’s Notebook

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION: ABC PICTURE CARDS (from the “Letters and Sounds” series)

Welcome to the first of many products in the “Letters and Sounds” series by Language Lady, Donna Reish! This first product contains three sets of alphabet cards (though all of the sets contain the same letters and pictures). The cards have all thirty-three letters (see “What Makes Letters and Sounds Products Unique” ) and two “clue pictures” per letter. The product also includes instructions in various uses of the cards.

These three ABC/Picture Card sets include

(1) Two-sided cards with ABC’s on one side and clue word pictures on the back—these cards have all thirty-three letters on the fronts of the cards with the coordinating “clue” pictures on the back of each card. (Aa has a picture of an ax and a picture of an apple on the back of it). The front color matches the back color on these cards. These are made to be printed in a two-sided manner and cut out to be used for flash cards and other learning activities.

(2) One-sided cards with ABC’s—these cards are several pages of all thirty-three letters only. The “backs” are intended to be blank. (You will print one sided only for these.) These can be used alone for printed letter recognition or with the one-sided picture clue cards (next) for matching letters and sounds activities and games. (These are the same as the “fronts” of the two-sided cards.)

(3) One-sided cards with clue word pictures—these cards are several pages of clue word pictures for the thirty-three sounds with various colors on them (so that children do not rely on matching colors when using the letter cards and the clue word cards for letter-sound recognition activities). These are created to be cut out separately so that they can be used for letter-sound matching games and activities. (These are the same as the “back” two-sided cards but with different background colors.)

This product also contains three 8.5 x 11 inch alphabet posters with the ABC’s aligned with how the ABC song is sung (along with tips on using these posters).

This product is ideal for any preschool, kindergarten, or homeschool in which letter recognition, beginning sounds, and letter writing are being taught.

Check out the previews at the links below:

• CurrClick,
• Teachers Pay Teachers
• Teacher’s Notebook

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I have been busy this summer doing some private tutoring as well as teaching a few small groups in my home. It was fun to teach in my home in a super relaxed environment of fewer students (and less homework since it was “summer school,” and parents wanted about half the normal amount of homework for their kids).

Additionally, I was blessed with the opportunity to work with a special needs student on her letters and sounds. (In case you ever wonder what the best age of kids is, I stand firm in my conviction that the best is four to six year old, followed closely by every other age!)

I didn’t set out this summer to write a preschool program that teaches letter recognition and sounds of the letters. (I’m still finishing my composition series, Meaningful Composition and writing a novel with my son…so I had plenty to keep me busy already!)

I started out like most tutors who are tutoring in an area they are unfamiliar or rusty (in my case, it has been ten years since I taught a child to read, and it has been over twenty years since I worked on my master’s degree in Reading Specialist). However, I didn’t anticipate that so many fun and flashy programs (and grocery store workbooks, flash cards, and activity packs) would be so un-sound in their foundations. (I’m sure there are great ones out there, but just not the ones I was working with.)

For example, one taught beginning sounds at the same time as it taught them as middle sounds and end sounds (way too much new information at one time; plus, once the beginning sound is taught, it is much easier for a child to transfer that information over to end {then middle!} sounds). Some had way too many writing (penning) expectations for preschoolers. Some taught the initial sound then had the student read words with it—really? It only takes recognizing the sound of D in drummer to be able to read that word? One had less-than-best clue words (like alligator for A—too long for a clue word and run for R (verbs are not a good first choice for clue words). Some just had vague clue words (park ranger—who looked like a policeman or an explorer). Others were downright wrong—ark for short A?????

So what does a curriculum writer do when the programs she tries just do not suit her? You guessed it! She writes her own program. Enter “Letters and Sounds”!

I love to teach—so this will definitely be a teaching post! I am going to paste the full front matter for the ABC Sounds Song book/packet below. If you are teaching preschool and/or kindergarten, even if you are not in the market for materials to teach letter and sound recognition, I hope you will take time to read this “front matter” as I give a lot of instruction on teaching littles these first important skills. And check back often as I continue to add new grammar, writing, and other learning materials! (Oh, and check out my demo videos here!)

About “The ABC Sounds Song” Packet

Your teaching of beginning letter sounds is about to get much easier! Yay!

Children remember words of songs. They remember rhymes and mnemonics. They remember jingles and ditties. Thus, a natural way for littles to learn their beginning letter sounds is through one of these means. Enter “The ABC Sounds Song Packet.”

In a nutshell, this packet contains 8.5 x 11 inch colored “posters” of each of the twenty-­‐six
letters of the alphabet (plus five additional ones) in song to the tune of “Mary Had a Little
Lamb.” (It actually includes thirty-­‐three posters; see below.)

Each song is the same (same wording, phrasing, and line breaks) as the other. The only differences among the song sheets are in the letter and the words/picture clues that begin with that letter.

Here is what you get:

1. Three ABC posters with the alphabet laid out in the order and with the line breaks in the same manner it is sung in the “original” ABC song. (See “Tips for Using the ABC Sound Songs” below.)

2. Twenty-­‐six “regular” letter posters-­‐-­‐the “regular” twenty-­‐six letters of the alphabet, one on each poster, with each letter ’s own “song” with the beginning sound. (See “What Makes This Packet Unique” below!)

3. Five“additional” letter posters—the five long vowels (the original five vowels in the first
twenty-­‐six letters contain the short vowel sounds) and the soft sounds of c (suh) and g (juh).

What Makes “Letters and Sounds” Unique

I developed the entire “Letters and Sounds Program” when working one-­‐on-­‐one with a special needs student at the pre-­‐school level based on my experience in my reading specialist master ’s work as well as on my experience as a curriculum author for fifteen years (sixty books and forty thousand pages!). Thus, I do not take lightly the exact breakdown of curriculum development and its usability and effectiveness. Giving students every chance to succeed is what curriculum creation is all about.

Here are some things that are unique about the entire “Letters and Sounds” program and specifically about these letter/picture songs:

1) There are thirty-­‐three song posters, not the typical twenty-­‐six letters only. Why?

a. I think it is important when teaching beginning letter sounds that the short and long vowels not be put on the same poster/taught at the same time. Thus, the first twenty-­‐six letters are in ABC order with the vowels beginning with the short vowel sounds. The remaining five vowels are at the end of the posters and begin with the long vowel sounds. (In other words, one A card does not have Apple and Acorn both on the same card…way too confusing for young learners.)

b. Also, the hard and soft sounds of C and G are separated. The first time through (in the first twenty-­‐six songs), the hard C and G sounds are used (the most common in primer and pre-­‐primer readers). At the end, two additional songs are included with the soft C and G sounds (less common). You may choose not to use the soft sound cards, depending on how the reading program that you will be using handles these.

c. The short vowel sound is given first because it is the more common sound of each vowel (especially in one syllable words that begin with the vowel as found in beginning readers). If you desire to teach the long vowel sounds first, simply start with the vowel song posters at the end of the original twenty-­‐six. There are definitely pros and cons to both methods/orders.

2) Each of the letter song posters has the upper case letter and the lower case letter on it.
The concept of recognizing both of these is very challenging for young learners. The more that the student sees these two together, the better the connection will be between the upper and lower case letters.

3) The letters are Primary. This means that the REAL a is used (not a
typewriter a)—the a that the student will learn to write is used (circle and line lower case a).

4) All of the Letters and Sounds products have the exact same clue pictures. The clue pictures are the most important pictures in all of the Letters and Sounds products, and great care was taken in choosing them. Here are some tips:

a. Do not change clue pictures or clue words when teaching the beginning sounds. A should always be associated with AX and APPLE. B should always be associated with BED and BIKE. (Obviously, worksheets with multiple pictures to practice finding pictures with a beginning sound will contain other pictures, but clue word pictures should remain constant.)

b. The clue picture words for the consonant sounds are primarily from Dolch words lists and Fry word lists. When these words did not work, the words were taken from a children’s dictionary. They are the most common words that a student will encounter when he or she begins reading. Thus, they will already have been exposed to “first words” over and over again in the Letters and Sounds products (as opposed to random choosing of clue pictures).

c. The clue pictures for the consonant sounds have a short vowel picture (BED) first then a
long vowel picture (BIKE). While students are not learning to read yet (just learning beginning sounds and letters), they are continually exposed to both short and vowel sounds with the twenty-­‐one consonants (as opposed to r-­‐controlled, diphthongs, etc., which are used in other Letters and Sounds products as needed to create rhymes, etc.).

d. Whenever possible, the clue words are one syllable words so that the beginning sound can be isolated more easily. There are instances in which two syllable words (and occasionally three syllable words) were used, but only when necessary and only when the beginning sound is clearly heard (like APPLE….even though it is two syllables, the short A sound is heard more clearly than, say, in ANT, which is one syllable, but is more n-­ controlled and the short A sound is not as discernible).

e. Whenever possible (excluding difficult ones like X-­‐tra), noun picture clues were used. It is important in sound-­‐picture recognition activities that the pictures be common ones and that they are clear, non-­‐ambiguous pictures. Verbs were used only when nouns were not clear enough or not available (QUACK for Q, for example). I tried not to use DOVE, for example, because students tend to think that is a BIRD, and this is too ambiguous.

f. Blends were not used for beginning letter picture clues unless the consonant sound was clearer in a blend word than common non-­‐blend nouns.

Tips for Using the “ABC Sound Song Posters”

1) In terms of upper and lower case letters, I personally have students call them CAPITAL and BIG for upper case and LITTLE for lower case. You may choose to have students call them upper and lower case, but the key is to be consistent in what they call them—and be sure that you use the same wording all the time as well.

2) You may desire to use the songs in a different order than ABC order. This is up for debate, but I know many teachers choose to teach beginning sounds in the order of frequency (think “Wheel of Fortune”) as opposed to ABC order. I waffle on this because on one hand, students usually already know the ABC’s in ABC order from the original alphabet song. Thus, it seems there is a “learning hook” already in place to learn the letters in ABC order. On the other hand, learning the consonants by themselves then the vowels by themselves can be somewhat easier—and it is especially helpful not to have “b” and “d” so close to each other in the visual learning sequence (and the sound of short a, short e, and short i very close to each other in the sound learning sequence). Obviously, the order for the sound songs is completely up to the teacher.

3) I recommend still reviewing the “original” ABC song with students even if they already know it. Here are some tips for doing so:

a. Use one of the ABC posters provided on the next pages (with the letters in the order the way the song is sung)—not as a long string of letters. (You may use the ABC pages given here as 8.5 x 11’s or enlarge them for more “poster ” sizes.) You want the break in the letter line to fall in the same place on paper as it does in the song.

b. Students love to sing the “original” ABC song fast. This is not conducive to letter-­‐sound
recognition. (They may be able to sing the song super fast but are not able to see a B and know it is a B because they do not correlate the “sung” letter with the written letter.) Because of this, I recommend that you sing the “original” ABC song with your students painfully slow while pointing to each letter on the song-­‐letter chart. Do not let them speed up or run away with it. Then go through it again a tiny bit faster (but still slowly and still pointing to the letters). Keep going through it, letting them speed up each time until they are doing their “crazy-­‐fast-­‐can’t-­‐point-­‐to-­‐the-­‐letters” (or learn anything!) speed just for fun. If they know that they will get to do the “fun and fast” way later, they will be more patient and more attentive during the “slow and point” way.

Speed of Use

If you are using the product for one-­‐on-­‐one teaching, pay close attention to the student’s of learning and base your speed through the product on that. Some programs recommend a letter a week if you have that option and that amount of time to spend on each letter. Of
course, you will want to do other activities to help cement the letter-­‐sound learning. Watch this spot for additional “Letters and Sounds” products, including our “Little ABC Rhyming Books,” which students love!).

What to Call the Sounds

What to call the consonant sounds: All of the “Letters and Sounds” products have the consonant sounds indicated with buh (or whatever consonant plus uh-­‐-­‐with the uh in a lighter color). This is easier for the teacher than having a key that is confusing (such as /b/ or “b” always refers to the sound, but B refers to the letter, etc.). However, you really do not want your student to say “B says BUH.” You really want your student to say a quick B sound. Thus, be careful that you are not stretching out the BUH (which is why the UH is written in light font).  (see image above)

There are two methods for ensuring that your student does not say BUHHHHHH:

i. One method for teaching the beginning consonant sounds is to have the student whisper the sound (buh). He will be less likely to drag out the UH if he does this.

ii. The second method is to have him say the sound with his
lips closed or just open ever-­‐so-­‐slightly as much as possible (just when saying the isolated
consonant sound). In this way, he will likely say bbb not BUH. (This method might not be desired for students in speech therapy since the advice may be the opposite of what the therapist is giving.)

What to call the vowel sounds: All of the “Letters and Sounds” products have the short vowels written like this Ah, Eh, etc. (with the exception of o since the combination oh is
really a long vowel word—too confusing!). This tells you that you are working on short A, again, you don’t want your student to say AHHHH like he is getting his tonsils checked. The ah is in light font and is there to remind you that it is short A. Sometimes it is better to say “A says ah like in AX” than it is to say Ah by itself.

The Songs

The songs are all laid out with the same breaks as “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” It should be easy for children to catch on to the songs. The song purposely has the following components in it:

1. Letter name (D says the sound of…)
2. Sound (sound of duh)
3. Two clue words (as described earlier in this forward)

The pictures of the clue words at the bottom of each song are in the same order that they fall in the song. Thus, even if your student does not know “sound of duh, sound of duh,” when you get to the end of the song, and you point to the dog and the deer, he should be able to recognize and sing those easily. The song is repetitive enough that children learn it very quickly.

Using the Packet/Book

It is debated as to whether it is more beneficial to learn to recognize the letters by themselves before embarking on sound learning or if it should be done jointly.

Hopefully, your student has had a lot of exposure to letters and has done puzzles, coloring pages, etc., with letters as well as had fun experiences with letters on signs and in his environment.

This makes the transition to letter recognition and beginning sound learning much easier.
If your student does not recognize letters, it might be a little bit difficult to jump right into
the sounds. In my upcoming book (Letters and Sounds: Patterns, Posters, and Pages), I begin with letter recognition entirely—and matching upper case and lower case letters before beginning with sounds.

Whenever we ask students to learn two or three things at one time with no “learning hook” to hook the new material on, learning becomes challenging-­‐-­‐like in the case of very little
letter exposure followed by learning (1) Upper case letter recognition; (2) Lower case letter
recognition; (3) Beginning sound; and (4) Clue words. That is a lot to learn at one time.

For this reason, I recommend that you work on letter recognition first by itself (using the
letter portion of my “Letters and Sounds ABC and Picture Cards”). Once the letter recognition is mastered, your student is ready to move into sound-­‐letter correlation. (I know this is debated, and each teacher has her own way. Some programs even recommend not doing letter recognition at all but simply sound recognition of that letter (this letter {B} says buh as in bed without saying the letter ’s name). That is not how I would handle it because that is not natural—how the child has been introduced to letters at home, at the library, in preschool, etc.—usually.

Email me to let me know how this product helps you. Feel free to send me questions. I answer questions about parenting, homeschooling, language arts, marriage, family living, organization, and teaching in my Wondering Wednesday podcast episodes. I would be happy to answer your questions there or via email or Facebook. Check out my products and blog posts at LanguageLadyBlog.com. Thanks for buying Language Lady products!

The post Introducing the Letters & Sounds Series appeared first on Character Ink.

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I was recently asked what my “educational expectations” would be with a five year old. Now, this fall marks our thirtieth year of homeschooling. Through the years, we have ebbed and flowed with the trends of homeschooling just like all other long-term homeschoolers. However, there are some things that have always stayed the same for us:

(1) Teach obedience before starting school

(2) Put relationships above academics

(3) Put God first, then marriage, then children, then others

Read More!→

One way that we like to help parents determine whether a child’s behavior is of a serious nature or whether it is simply childishness that needs training, rewards, more training, follow-through, and consequences to solve it is by using the benchmark of the 4D’s.

If you have been to our Raising Kids With Character parenting seminar, you have probably heard us describe the importance of determining which behavior a child is having. This is because the behaviors that we call the 4D’s are heart-oriented and more life-affecting than those that are simply childishness such as irresponsibility, laziness, or messiness.

That is, we take the four D’s behavior more seriously and attack it with more intentionality than we would childish behavior that we can train and teach from area

It will help you to be able to discern between the two types of behaviors if you recognize and memorize the 4D’s…  Read More→

Donna Reish, author of character quality language arts and meaningful composition, answers a couple of readers questions about kindergarten. In this podcast episode, she specifically talks about what types of behaviors parents should expect from a four to six year-old child before starting formal academics and the six most important things to focus on first, including obedience, morning routines, chore times, and informal learning. She describes the optimum learning environment and gives insight as to what to look for in readiness to learn to read.

Join Donna as she describes some of the best years of parenting.  Listen HERE!

Many years ago we were able to go to many homeschooling seminars including the Christian Homeschooling Workshop by Greg Harris. I mentioned before on this blog that we came home from his seminars (basic and advanced) ready to tackle one thing at a  time out of that amazing binder of material.

One of the things that he taught us were the amazing benefits of using delight directed studies. He said that if we would focus some of our studies on things that our children love, things they were delighted in, things they were interested in, they would learn so much more easily and learning would be more fun.

I was all about waiting for readiness in my children so that they would love school. I was all about building a love for learning in our children. And delight directed studies lined up beautifully with those goals.  Read More→

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The post This Week’s Character Ink! Newsletter {July 9, 2015} appeared first on Character Ink.

Donna Reish, author of character quality language arts and meaningful composition, answers a couple of readers questions about kindergarten. In this podcast episode, she specifically talks about what types of behaviors parents should expect from a four to six year-old child before starting formal academics and the six most important things to focus on first, including obedience, morning routines, chore times, and informal learning. She describes the optimum learning environment and gives insight as to what to look for in readiness to learn to read. Join Donna as she describes some of the best years of parenting.

Click here to download the printable handout.

Subscribe to our Wondering Wednesday podcasts in iTunes.

Click here to see our previous podcasts!

The post Podcast: What Should I Do With a Kindergartener? appeared first on Character Ink.

I was recently asked what my “educational expectations” would be with a five year old. Now, this fall marks our thirtieth year of homeschooling. Through the years, we have ebbed and flowed with the trends of homeschooling just like all other long-term homeschoolers. However, there are some things that have always stayed the same for us:

(1) Teach obedience before starting school
(2) Put relationships above academics
(3) Put God first, then marriage, then children, then others

And many more!

My expectations for five year olds still haven’t changed! If I had a sweet, wonderful, amazing five year old, this is what I would do! (Btw, four to six year olds are the greatest kids ever!)

1. Obedience. We can’t expect children to do school work if they will not make their beds, brush their teeth, come when called, etc. Obedience is a pre-requisite to bookwork–always has been in our homeschool. Take it from an old mama—school is so much better with a six year old in kindergarten who obeys than it is with a five year old in kindergarten who doesn’t obey.

2. Morning routine. If our kids couldn’t do a simple morning routine chart of making their beds, grooming, putting away their own toys and books, “reading” a picture Bible (or doing a Bible book and audio set), and getting completely ready for the day without a big fuss, I didn’t do bookwork with them. (See number one!) I talk about morning routine charts here and here and here.

3. Chores. Once a five year old is known for first time obedience and following through on his morning routine, I add chores to his schedule. You can read more about developing chores for this age group here and here and here and here and here.

4. Room time. I used room time from ten to fourteen months (playpen time) up through age six or seven, depending on how much the child could join us for older kids’ school. The reason I list it here as an expectation for a five year old is that I believe room time has so many educational benefits, namely those of increasing a child’s concentration, creativity, independence, and risk taking (all found to be important factors in studies about children who were “natural readers”–that is, they learned to read without instruction–this is important because if it helps a child become a natural reader, it can also help a child become a good reader in general). You can find out more about room time here and here and here and here.

5. Bible time. I would have the kindergarten join us for Bible time as well as having a “little kids” Bible time during the morning. I liked to put this after morning routine and chores, so we had an order that put character and faith before academics. It might work better for some to do it during story time. (I used what I called “interval Bible training,” meaning that we did various Bible teachings from sun up until sun down, so that they were always being trained in Bible stories, character, doctrine, hymns, songs, etc. all the time. For instance, we would use Bible on audio during morning chores, hymns and praise music during breakfast, Bible story read alouds in the morning, more in depth Bible studies with the olders during “unit studies,” Bible audios and/or videos during room time (almost always audios; I wasn’t big on videos as I wanted them to “make the pictures in their minds”); Bible stories and character stories during story time, audios as they were falling asleep; Bible reading and singing at dinner; Bible stories at bedtime, etc. Find out more about what we used during this age here and here and here.

6. Informal learning time. We had an adage that “we would never teach a young child anything formally that could be taught informally.” Therefore, when it came to pre-reading and pre-math skills, we were extremely diligent to “teach while we are in the way with them.” In other words, rhyming words, initial consonant sounds, ending consonant sounds, letter recognition, beginning math concepts (counting, recognizing numbers, less than/greater than, and much more) can all be taught informally, and we did. We also used picture books, puzzles, games, manipulatives, audios, videos, computer games, felt activities, toys, blocks….anything! I recommend building this time into a kindergarteners day–either through room time or through a learning center or table time where activities are set up for him, etc.

7. Formal learning. We only used workbooks with our five, six, and seven year old (non-readers) when they were set on numbers one through six above–and only if the child wanted them and enjoyed them. There are colorful, wonderful kindergarten workbooks available through Timberdoodle. Here are some other formal learning tips for this age:

a. If your kindergarten student is ready to learn to read, I don’t recommend using a complete kindergarten/first grade curriculum to do this. Learning to read doesn’t need to take three to five years. If you get a good program, a child can learn to read in three to six months if readiness is in place. (Call to order my audio on Teaching Reading in the Homeschool for more information on reading readiness, choosing readers, and choosing a phonics program.) I recommend a couple that I have used or had friends use, but there are many good ones out there that teach reading only (i.e. not complete language arts at this level) and use a word family phonics approach combined with readers. Some of my reading program reviews are found at Raising Kids With Character for Phonics Tutor and Saxon Reading.

b. If you do want to get an entire kindergarten program, do not get a textbook-driven approach. Again, Timberdoodle has wonderful preschool and kindergarten programs with many hands on and fun activities included.

c. Make kindergarten fun. If I had kindergarten to do over again, I would do all of the tips above and get Timberdoodle’s kindergarten fun things, a colorful math program that has manipulatives (Math-U-See and/or Saxon kindergarten math are very hands on!), and Five in a Row (and choose the activities that you want to do and leave the rest). But again, I would only do that after the first six things above are met!

As for general expectations, here are some other tips:

(1) Morning routines, morning chores, sitting during reading, room time, etc., first (have I mentioned this yet?)

(2) An hour or so of time with you either in fun learning (see c. above) and/or in learning to read, preferably in the morning.

(3) Story time, room time, quiet time, book and audio sets, etc. for independent learning all built into the schedule.

(4) Interweave free time with all of the above. It is my experience that four to six year olds who are not doing “formal” more all day type of school end up being bored and restless when their days are not predictable.

Hope this helps you with your five year old! Most of all, enjoy them! These should be some of the sweetest days of parenting! I know they were for me, and I want that for every mama out there! 🙂

More Help With Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Kindergarteners?

BLOG POST: Character Q & A: How Can I Start Character Training With My Toddler?

PODCAST EPISODE: What To Do About Toddler Trouble?

PODCAST EPISODE: How Do I Prepare My Child to Learn to Read?

The post Expectations For a Five Year Old appeared first on Character Ink.

Click here to download the printable handout.

Subscribe to our Wondering Wednesday podcasts in iTunes.

The post Wondering Wednesday Podcast: How Do I Prepare My Child to Learn to Read? appeared first on Character Ink.