Tips for Using Word Cards in Reading Instruction

1) Don’t use word cards with words the student has never encountered. Word cards are for practicing words used in instruction, not for long lists of words never encountered before.

2) Create word cards with words from a reader or book that your student is working through with you right now. Reading words in context (with pictures, sentence rhythm, etc.) is easier than isolated words. I like to be sure my student knows the words out of context. You can test to see if the word needs added to your word card stack by writing the word on the board. If there is instant recognition, then it probably doesn’t need to go on a card. If there is guessing or cues needed, then it could go in the word card stack.

CLICK TO WATCH!

3) Once many words are added to your stack of cards, divide them into difficulty level so that the student has a pretty successful pack; a needs some help pack; etc. And don’t do all of them at once—this will be too many word cards at once and can get discouraging.

4) Add words from one family all to the same stack. For example, all at words in one stack together (as opposed to dividing into different stacks/collections). This gives the student a chance to practice the same family at once—and you have the one family all together to use as needed for further instruction.

5) Add sight words from the books you are reading. Do not add random sight words or too many at one time. We call these Remember Words because she has to remember them—but I still point out any phonetic components to them as we work through them. Give all the tricks, cues, and tools that you can.

6) I like to do the cards after she reads a book or two to me. (We are still in Bob Books for this student, so the books are short.) This way she has had success in context before using isolated words.

7) Develop a protocol for guessing words. In the video, I use my “punishment time” approach—which is a little joke that we have. When she guesses a word that does not at least begin with the first letter of the word on the card, I say, “Punishment time…what is this letter?” She has to say the letter then I say, “What sound does it make?” And she has to say the sound. BOTH things. This makes her not want to randomly guess the words because it annoys her to have to say the letter then its sound. It is a quick way to break a student from guessing the word—the student at least should guess a word that starts with that sound!  🙂 It’s not real punishment—just our joke. But if the word punishment bothers you (or your student), you could call it “First Letter Rule” or “No Guess Rule” or something like that. Guessing is fine, but if the student isn’t at least looking at the first letter in guessing, it can become a really bad habit.

Hope these tips help! What else can I help you with in your language arts, reading, writing, grammar, spelling, speech, or word analysis teaching?

The post Using Word Cards in Reading Instruction appeared first on Character Ink.

Teaching poetry can be a challenge. It is easy to get caught up in the mechanics of poetry when teaching about rhyme scheme. It is easy to get lost in imagery when teaching about meaning and depth of poetry.

Poetry Rap

Sometimes you just need a little fun when you’re teaching rhyme scheme—like in the Facebook Live videos that my students made of me teaching the about the importance of syllabication in rhyme scheme development—using funny rhymes and even a little rapping.

The moral of the story? Have fun when teaching. Use anything you already know or anything around you. Walk students through difficult concepts incrementally—using lots of examples and chances to practice together before expecting students to do difficult or unfamiliar tasks.

Happy teaching! 🙂

Rhyme Scheme

Save

The post Having Fun Teaching Rhyme Scheme appeared first on Character Ink.

Welcome to another Wondering Wednesday podcast episode! In this audio presentation, Donna Reish (of Character Ink Press and Raising Kids With Character) answers questions about faith and character training for young children. Donna begins with the Five W’s and One H of Character Training, reminding parents that we must first have it in our hearts before we can give it to our children. She then delves into laying some foundations with toddlers. Finally, she talks about the four places and times that Deuteronomy tells us to teach our kids God’s Word and ways: when you rise up; when you sit in your house; when you walk by the way; and when you lie down. She gives examples and activities for each time period—focusing on getting to our children’s hearts with unconditional love, intentionality, prioritizing, and selflessness.

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: Faith and Character Building for Littles appeared first on Character Ink.

One thing that makes it much easier for children to learn chores and household upkeep is for the children to work with you on developing systems. We as moms have a tendency to create the systems that we like in freezers, refrigerators, pantries, toy shelves, bookcases, kitchen cupboards, and more. And then when somebody comes in to do a chore or unload groceries or put something away, it is not done correctly. And we wonder why people keep messing up our systems!

In reality, rather than simply telling children where things go or how you would like things done, a lot of stress is eliminated when you include the children in developing the system. When I was about to reorganize the pantry, I would have at least one child working with me, if not more. As we organized the pantry, sometimes using ideas from the child, whoever was helping me was learning the system from the ground up. When it was time for the child to help put away groceries, it was easier to handle that job correctly. Also, the child learns valuable organizational skills including prioritizing space, utilizing areas to their fullest, considering sizes and stack- ability of products, and more.

When it was time to work on toy shelves, the entire crew and I would sit down and get busy. We would label the shelves together. We would discuss how the Legos will be stored. We made tubs of things together. And the next thing we knew, we had a workable system that the children could maintain. Thus, whenever the chore to “organize the toy shelves” was given, all of the children knew how to do that.

The systems can extend to the kitchen as well. If you always make biscuits and gravy or you always make pancakes, initiate a system for doing those jobs. Type the recipes up clearly. Always have ingredients on hand. Teach the children from start to finish how to handle those jobs thoroughly, and by involving the child in the system, is ready to take it on himself.

We have a tendency to think in the here and now. It would be easier for me to make the pancakes—and much faster—than for me to have a child help me. Or it would take more time to do it with the kids. However, we are not thinking long term when we think like this. We are not thinking of how much family unity and family efficiency we could have by chore training. We are not thinking of our children’s futures—and how we can equip them right here and now, beginning with three year olds putting their room time toys away.

I believed in this from day one with my kids (thanks to thorough training from Dr. Raymond Moore and Gregg Harris), and my kids are all reaping the benefits of this approach today as they (seventeen through thirty-three) excel in their jobs, homes, marriages, and school. Skill-building, and life-skill-building specifically, is a huge part of parenting—and one that we should take seriously as we teach our kids to become diligent workers in home and school.

The post Children & Chores: Create Systems Together appeared first on Character Ink.

I recently published an e-book titled Age-Appropriate Chores with printable posters for each age group (containing Chores to Do With Someone and Chores to Do By Themselves). It had a forward of several pages of chore tips. It was a freebie in January but is now available at our stores for a small price.

People have been enjoying those posters, so I decided to publish shortened versions of the posters (just the Chores to Do By Themselves) on the blog and for Pinterest. With that, I am going to run several chore tip blog posts as well. So stay tuned over the next few weeks as I write about chores and as we share these colorful memes.

To use the memes in your home, here are some tips:

(1)   You can print them off in color or black and white, three hole punch them, place them in sheet protectors, and put them in a binder (such as your planner or school binder). You can use them as check sheets to check off as each skill is taught/learned/mastered by your child(ren).

(2)   You can print them off in color and hang them up in a family learning area and use them to motivate  your children—again as benchmarks for learning and mastery.

(3)   You can print them off in color and place each child’s in his or her area in the school room or family room or bedroom door or bulletin board.

(4)   You can use them to create a master list for the year of skills that you want to teach. If you do this, be sure that you give each skill a date or month and some benchmarks and checks and balances to keep you moving forward in the chore training.

(5)   Print them off at the end of each school year with the posters indicating which chores the child has mastered and put in his school binder or file for that year.

Of course, the foundation for all chores was mentioned over and over again in the list of how to use the upcoming chore memes: train children in chores.

All of the tips that follow will be of no use if your children have not been fully taught how to do the chores. That is your responsibility.

Once your kids know how to do the assigned chores, the fun of having chores done completely will begin…but not until after the thorough training!

If you want more chores, efficiency, and organization help, check out these podcast episodes below!

The post Age-Appropriate Chore Series appeared first on Character Ink.

Eleventh Grade: Guide your student in editing his papers.

Editing papers is one of many students’ most hated tasks. However, if our kids are guided in how to do this from the early grades, it will not feel so overwhelming to them. This post has suggestions for teaching the high schooler (and junior high student) editing tricks that they can use right away…

Click here to read more →

The post A Writing Tip for Eleventh Grade appeared first on Character Ink.

Tenth Grade: Work on whatever type of writing is needed for your student next.

Usually at this level, a student has decided whether or not he will go to college. For the student who is planning to go to college, the writing pressure is really on by tenth grade—because of the dreaded SAT/ACT Essay (and the verbal part in general).

It is obvious that a college-bound tenth grader needs to work on the SAT or ACT Essay and the portions of an SAT/ACT preparatory book that will help him with the verbal parts of these exams.

So what types of writing should a trades student or non-college-bound writer work on? It is sometimes thought that if a student isn’t going to college, he doesn’t need that much writing instruction. However, there is so much writing that an adult needs in order to be an adult! Regardless of future plans, we want all graduates in our care to know how to write business letters, persuasive essays (and how to spot poorly-supported ones online), how to write/create stories for their own children or for those who might work with children in the future; how to write/give instructions (for those who might have employees some day; for those who might be parents someday; and for those who might want to write out recipes or other instructional types of writing); and much more.

These types of writing require many of the skills that college-bound students need to learn: persuasive writing, quotation inclusion, story plot and character development, proper paragraph formation, etc. When I think of “consumer writing,” I think of recipe, instructional, story, blog, retelling (Bible lessons), devotional, research (original documentation and studies—not blog reading!), letter writing. And more! Detailed writing lessons are not only for the college-bound student!

Additionally, there is the possibility that the student might change his mind/occupation goals in the next couple of years. So there is no reason to stop writing!

Note: The trades type student will need to touch on many different types of writing projects (as opposed to spending a great deal of time on one or two types). Check out my first semester books up to and including Meaningful Composition 9 I. These books have various types of projects (and many “how to” lessons) as opposed to second semester books, which often focus on a certain type of writing. Go to here to see (and print/use) two week samples of my Meaningful Composition series.. Also, keep your eyes on my stores (Teachers Pay Teachers, CurrClick, Teacher’s Notebook, and our own store, Character Ink Press) as I put up various writing project downloads that are in my longer books.

The post A Writing Tip for Every Year: Tenth Grade appeared first on Character Ink.

Tenth Grade: Work on whatever type of writing is needed for your student next.

In high school, writing demands should be based, in part, on what the student needs at that time. I often have students who are writing for me in class as well as writing college entrance letters, SAT essays, contests projects, and more. If at all possible, we should focus on the type of writing that the student needs next. These tips explain this further..

The post A Writing Tip for Tenth Grade appeared first on Character Ink.

Donna Reish, author of fifty language arts and writing books and the Raising Kids With Character seminar and blog, brings you this “chore” episode of Wondering Wednesday. This week Donna answers readers’ questions about age-appropriate chores. Donna introduces some keys to teaching children chores at all ages, including the importance of a set chore time, thorough training, and the difference between working with the child vs. the child working independently. Then she delves into various age groups and what are appropriate expectations for each one—with thorough, consistent training and follow up.

Download the podcast notes here.

Listen to previous podcasts here.

The post Podcast: Age Appropriate Chores appeared first on Character Ink.

Ninth Grade: Teach pre-writing skills that are needed for the type of writing your student is doing.

Besides the aforementioned “writing idea” problem we sometimes create when we do not direct our students in their writing, another difficulty is that of not equipping the student with the skills necessary in order to write what we are asking him to write. It is so difficult for a student to complete a project if he has not been given/taught the skills that are needed in order to write that project well.

Just like we teach our child how to pass, dribble, and shoot before we send him out to play a real game of basketball, so we should teach our students (especially high schoolers) the skills they need before we send them out to write the paper.

For example, various types of writing require various skills that we should give them:

1. How to write quotes before they are asked to include them in a research report

2. How to craft a descriptive setting before we ask a student to write a story

3. How to write dialogue before they write a story in which the characters speak to each other

4. How to gather evidence for writing persuasive essays

5. Much, much more!

While it is often advantageous to go through a grammar book in the order that the book is laid out, you can certainly jump ahead (or backtrack) to a certain skill that might be needed in his essay, report, or story assignment this week. Grammar handbooks (like Write Source) can also be amazing sources for the various skills that your student might need to know in order to write well in each writing type.

If you are using my writing or language arts materials, these mini-lessons will often be indicated with labels “Pre-Writing” or “Write On!”

Note: Go here to see (and print/use) two week samples of my Meaningful Composition series. These samples have, for the most part, complete writing projects. Thus, you can see sample papers of most projects there. Note the various types and how each one has its own outlining type and the various pre-writing and “Write On” lessons will give you an idea of how to introduce some of these skills for various writing project types. Also, keep your eyes on my stores (Teachers Pay Teachers, CurrClick, Teacher’s Notebook, and our own store, Character Ink Press) as I put up various writing project downloads that are in my longer books.

The post A Writing Tip for Every Year: Ninth Grade appeared first on Character Ink.