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The post day 102: creating an environment conducive to learning to read part iii of iii appeared first on Character Ink.

Common Characteristics of Natural Readers:


1. Interaction with adults—these kids were with adults a lot—and definitely not around peers more than adults. They had adults on hand to discuss things with, to answer their questions, and to provide examples of proper speech patterns, etc.


2. Much book handling by the child—these children were surrounded with books that they were permitted to interact with. They were often found at very young ages with stacks of books around them, just looking at the pictures, making stories in their minds from the pictures, etc.


3. Print abounds and interest in print is evident by itself—not only did the homes of natural readers contain books themselves, but they also contained all type of print. The parents of these children read magazines, journals, newspapers, etc. I think the “interest in print” part probably began with something like a parent saying, “Honey, look at this whale they found beached on the coast of Florida,” as he or she brought the little one up on to her lap to see the picture that was provided with the article in today’s newspaper, etc. This type of activity causes a child to become interested in print.


4. Tapes and books are used—nowadays, of course, this would say “cd’s and books are used”; however, this is the reason why I began using book and tape sets a few times a week for my preschoolers and elementary children—and why we have used audios (talking books, radio dramas, etc.) every week of our lives since our oldest was one year old. “Tapes” and books show our children the benefits and “fun” that reading provides.


5. Memorization takes place—these natural readers often followed a certain pattern—they memorized a picture book (usually many), then through the memorization, they began making print-sound-word connections. That is, when they turned the page and recited, “If you give a mouse a cookie,” they began to understand that i-f says if and y-o-u says you. Natural readers were experts at memorizing large portions of text.


6. Interest in writing words and “language experience” activities—many years ago, there was a movement in education to replace phonics instruction with “language experience” activities (also called a “whole language approach”). Phonics proponents everywhere were up in arms at the thought of “activities” of writing what the child said (dictation) for him, making little homemade books, etc. taking the place of phonics instruction. While I am a strong phonics proponent, I believe that these “language experiences” and “whole language” activities augment the reading instruction greatly. And, of course, the natural readers in the research were exposed to these types of activities early and often. These kids were the ones who dictated thank-you notes to Mom to go to grandparents and colored a picture to send along with it; they were the ones who had a chalk board in the kitchen in which Mom or Dad wrote the day of the week each morning; they were those who “said” stories aloud and parents copied it in little “journal” books for the child. And on and on. Why wouldn’t these types of experiences and activities increase a child’s relationship with print and love for learning?


7. Experiences related to literacy and books—these obviously include the types of activities listed in number six, but these kids knew from birth that books and reading were important. They were the ones in a double stroller at the library lawn sale as toddlers—child in front seat with back seat full of picture books. They were the ones who had their own “book basket” in the corner of the nursery almost from birth. In other words, they were immersed in literacy and books from an early age.


8. Self-regulated behavior and risk taking—This characteristic related to how they “organize” their little lives. These kids would pull all of the Curious George books off the shelf and stack them up to look at after lunch. They often had little learning systems in place at ages four and five. And they were not afraid to be wrong. This, of course, stems from not being talked down to or made fun of when they did ask questions. These kids were risk takers because taking risks in learning (“Mommy, is this word (dapper) ‘Daddy’?”) yielded information that helped them in their quest to learn. The questions did not yield put downs or “you should already know this.”


9. Read to often—Obviously, a link has to be made from the squiggles on the page to the sounds that those squiggles make in order for a young child to teach himself to read. Thus, a child must be read to (or follow along with books and tapes) in order to learn to read without formal instruction. Now, this is not to say that a child who is read to will automatically learn to read early and on his own. I read aloud to our first three kids three to five hours everyday for years and years—and not one of the three was a natural, or early, reader! But it certainly created a love for print and learning in my children!

Tomorrow—how does this reading environment teach informally what could take years of instruction to learn?

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The post day 100: homework help–creating a reading environment for new readers, part i of iii appeared first on Character Ink.

1. Lie has an I—and I alone can do it (it is not done TO something else).
1. I lie in bed at midnight wide awake.
2. Yesterday I lay awake half the night.
3. Before that I had lain down when the cat jumped on me.

2. Lie means to stretch out in a flat position—anybody or anything can lie, as long as it does it by itself (i.e. it is NOT laid)
1. She lies down with a headache every day.
2. The sun is lying low.
3. She has lain down for a nap.

3. Lay must have an object following it—something that it is being laid down.
1. Lay your book on the table.
2. He laid his money down.
3. She has laid the towels in the sun.

1. Base form: lay—I lay the kids’ clothes out every day. (Tricky: lay is the base form of lay (to put something down; it is also the past tense of lie—to stretch out by yourself or itself.)
2. Past simple: laid—Yesterday I laid the pink pants out for Jon.
3. Past participle: laid—Before the dog came in, I had already laid his bones out.
4. Third person singular: lays—He lays the book down every night at ten.
5. Present participle/gerund: laying—I am laying the swim suits out to dry.

1. Again, do sit/set first (all same base word for tenses of set!) or rise/raise (since many people get this pair correct even if they do not know sit/set and lie/lay very well).
2. Do rise/raise after sit/set or sit/set after rise/raise (saving lie/lay for last).
3. Memorize acronym/rhyme to cement the fact that all three with I’s are the ones that are done by someone or something (not to something).
4. When you get to lie and lay, to lie first all by itself until it is memorized. Then do lay. (I am starting to wait a week between the two with lots of practice on lie during that week before moving on to lay.)

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1. If your child is hesitant to write because of penmanship difficulties, either teach him how to type (use a typing program for young kids) or write for him as he dictates to you. He needs to see that penmanship difficulties do not mean that he is unable to write. Writing is thinking. Penning is art.
2. Try having him write sentences about things you are doing. For example, have him write a sentence each day in a journal about that day or every Saturday about the weekend.
3. Or have specific things listed at the top of a journal for him or her that he/she writes about:
1. Monday: Weekend
2. Tuesday: Food
3. Wednesday: Book
4. Thursday: Animal
5. Friday: Person
6. Saturday: Movie
4. Have him write a sentence under a picture, similar to captions. These pictures may be ones that he has drawn or colored or cartoons or pictures from a book.
5. Make a list of nouns and a list of verbs. Have him write a sentence using one word from the noun list and one word from the verb list. For example:

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1. If your child likes the feeling of creating through writing, but doesn’t think he can write sentences, you may want to try one of the following:
1. Have him copy sentences that you write for him or sentences out of one of his favorite books.
2. Write sentences for him with a light colored highlighter and have him write over the highlighter with his pencil.
3. Write “fill in the blank sentences for him.” When I was in teacher’s college, these were called “cloze sentence” (for those who want to google to find out more). This is where you write sentences but leave blanks for him to fill in key words. This way you have started the sentences for him, but what happens in the sentence and to whom is still his creation. (There’s a site that lets you build these and print them for your kids/students at https://www.theteacherscorner.net/printable-worksheets/make-your-own/fill-in-the-blank/ .)

2. If he can’t think of anything to write about in his sentences, ask him questions that he must answer in sentence form. “What is your favorite animal?” “What is your favorite color?” etc.
3. If he is having trouble writing “real” sentences (i.e. write fragments or dependent clauses instead), have him say it aloud and ask him more questions. For example, if he says “Blue” (to the favorite color question), say “Blue what?” If he says “favorite color,” continue to coach him. “Try this…Blue is…can you make that into a complete sentences instead of just words?” (Coaching is a huge part of teaching writing!)
4. If he likes to write stories, have him dictate sentences to you (or alternate giving sentences—he then you) that you pen for him.
5. Finally, have him write a sentence a day to get used to sentence writing. We had journals for our kids that they copied verses and quotes in—one a day—to help them get a feeling for sentence writing.

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1. The CAVES acronym shows that a sentence must contain five parts: Capital; All makes sense; Verb; End mark; Subject. You can use this with your child as he writes sentences to evaluate if he truly has written sentences or just a group of words. (If he doesn’t fully understand the subject-verb part, ask him if his sentence has someone or something that it is about. And that someone or something doing or being something (verb). He doesn’t even have to know the terminology to see if the subject or verb is missing from a sentence.
2. The other two “easily visible” part of CAVES—capital and end mark—can be spotted quickly by your student as you ask him for each one.
3. The last one, All makes sense, is best discovered orally (both now and in writing for years to come). This is because what a person thinks he wrote (and reads silently) is not always what he truly wrote. Thus, if he reads something silently, he will often read in his head what he meant to write, not what he actually wrote. If he reads it aloud, he will “hear” it. (Incidentally, we use this “hear” your errors approach in our writing books for high schoolers as well—not just for individual sentence writing.)
4. If he is learning to write sentences and feels at a loss as to what to write, point out the speaking-writing connection to him by dialoguing:

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Roadmap for the week:

1. Starting with some reading help! Reading is the inverse of spelling in the same way that addition is the inverse of subtraction. Build a strong reading background, helping  your student to reach “reading fluency,” and a love for learning, and you will go a long way way in helping him or her in language arts in general–and all learning eventually.

2. Then sentence writing, including…

a. Penmanship vs writing
b. Beginning sentence writing
c. Copy work
d. Reading and writing connection
e. Writing “from his brain” and from a source for little ones

Thanks for joining us!

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