| Elementary School |
Supporting Reading at Home
Learning to read and trying to make sense of all the funny squiggles and lines that surround them can be intimidating.
Here's what you can do to help:
1. "Marinate them with language", both written and oral.
2. Remember that your child is receiving the necessary instruction and working hard in school, so KEEP IT FUN at home! Reading, writing, and talking with your child should be calm and enjoyable for both of you.
3. Capitalize on your child's interests. Go to the library together to choose books that interest him/her. Provide your child with a journal to write down memories and observations.
4. Be your child's cheerleader! They need to feel comfortable experimenting and taking risks in order to grow, so applaud every step (they only learn to read once).
5. Read to your child! "The single most important activity for reading success is reading aloud to children...and it should continue throughout the grades", Jim Trelease.
Activities from the Author Jan Brett: Here are lots of beginner reading activities and flash cards
Bridge to Reading: Some free online reading activities as well as a paid site which has a reading story that encourages reading
Book Pals (Storyline)-Stories read to students by famous People
Book Pop- Audio stories by Stephen Cosgrove; no Pictures
Book-Pop Readables and viewables
Candlelight Stories: Paid membership, but lots of cool free audio and visual stories
C-Beebie's Stories: BBC Stories
KidsCom Games: I like this one because children can figure the games out by READING. There is a lot of analytical reasoning and problem solving going on when children do games. This site is monitored and the kids can get points for prizes for reading.
Kids Com: Parents Talk All sorts of topics for parents. I liked the magazine format.
Literacy Topics: UCONN sponsored. This has links to lots of reviewed sites for Reading and literacy
National Geographic Grimms Tales- go to "list" on second page for audio list. Cool Site
Raz Books- An Audio subscription, free for A-Z Subscribers (See Below). Eighteen books
Reading A-Z Subscription Cost of 29.95: Download many books, lessons, phonics and other reading items. It's like having a library at your fingertips.
Reading Tutors-Paid Subscription- More Info at the site
Word Central by Miriam Webster a dictionary site that makes learning new words fun
For Teachers:
Strategies for Reading Comprehension
From Danielle Kelm (DanielleK@stma.k12.mn.us), a seventh
grade language arts teacher at St. Michael-Albertville Middle School:
Brought to you by the NEA
"Take a book and divide it up so that each student gets a group of pages or
a chapter. It's easiest to tear the pages out of the book and staple them
together, but if students need extra time, it's also helpful to have extra
copies of the pages handy for them to take. Make sure you pick a book that
is not too long--you don't want the students to have too many pages to focus
on. For example, for my class of thirty students, I found a book that was
between 150-200 pages so that each student would only read approximately 5-7
pages. Each student should list out the characters in their section, the
setting, and a three sentence summary of what happened in their section.
After everyone is finished working on their summaries, then have the class
share their summaries in chronological order. I kept track of the characters
and setting on the overhead as students shared. As one student shares their
summary, have the other students write a one sentence summary of what is
being shared. I found that this worked really well with my students,
especially the low level readers. They enjoyed not having to read an entire
book, but still getting to hear about the book. It took about two and a half
40-minute class periods to read a 160 page book with my students. Picking a
high interest level book for students is a must for this activity to work.
My students really struggled the first day (reading their section, writing
summaries), because they really had to think about what they were reading.
Once we started sharing, though, and they got into the story, they really
started to enjoy it. Book in an Hour is a great activity for kids who don't
like to read, as they don't have to read a whole book by themselves. It is
an easy way to get kids to 'buy' into reading."