Become a Reading Advocate for your Child

1. Become a Reading Advocate for your Child Alabama Early Intervention & Preschool Conference November 16, 2009 Birmingham, Alabama

2. Language Development • Phonological Awareness • Print Awareness and Concepts • Early Writing • Alphabet Knowledge Today’s WorkshopThe abilities to listen, speak, read and write emerge interdependently…

3. “If you are worried about your child’s reading skills, it’s better to be safe than sorry….. Learning to read has to be at the top of your child’s educational priority list. Nothing is more important to later academic success, so don’t hesitate to secure all the help you think he needs.” In his book, The Educated Child, Bill Bennett says,

4. …the likelihood that a child will succeed in the first grade depends most of all on how much she or he has already learned about reading before getting there… Dr. Marilyn Adams, from Beginning to Read There are Many Players Involved in Helping Students Learn to Read

5. What isEARLY LITERACY? • Early literacy is what children know about reading before they can actually read. • Early literacy is pre-reading skills. • Early literacy is “reading readiness”.

6. Learning to read is essential for school success • Children should get ready to read long before they start to school • Research shows that children who are read to from an early age have a larger vocabulary and better language skills when they start school • Children who struggle with “Phonological Awareness”—a pre-reading skill—often struggle learning to read. Why Start Early?

7. Language/Vocabulary Development • Print Awareness • Knowledge of the Alphabet • Phonological Awareness What Do Children Need to Know to Be Ready to Read?

8. L a n g u a g e and V o c a b u l a r y D e v e l o p m e n t

9. How early does a child begin to learn language? • From the day of birth, a child’s brain is receptive to learning language. • The size of a toddler’s vocabulary is strongly correlated with how much a mother talks to the child. • Children learn to speak by being surrounded by speech The Importance of the Early Years • Your habits of talking and listening will make a difference of in your child’s language development

10. Follow Directions • Listen Attentively Receptive Language

11. Expresses wants and needs • Responds to questions • Names pictures/objects • Initiates conversations • Speaks in sentences • Imitates songs/rhymes/finger plays • Retells simple stories Expressive Language

12. Discriminate and identify sounds in spoken language • Identify rhyming words • Recognize common sounds at the beginning of a series of words • Identify syllables in words Phonological Awareness

13. Our children begin the process of reading EARLY…

14. Phonemic Awareness by climbing the ladder of Phonemic Awareness skills.

15. P h o n e m i c A w a r e n e s s Activities

16. How to help your child with Phonemic Awareness… • Direct teaching of specific sounds • Clapping games • Rhyming games • “What do you hear?” games • Stretching and shrinking • “Bumpy” and “smooth” blending

17. What you need Objects that make interesting, distinctive sounds. Examples: Banging on wall/table/lap Snapping fingers Blowing a whistle Crumbling paper Blowing nose Drumming with fingers Clapping Eating an apple Clicking with tongue Noisy chewing Pouring liquid Tearing paper Rubbing hands together Stirring with a teaspoon Slamming a book Hammering Sharpening a pencil Coughing Cutting with scissors Writing on blackboard Listening to Sequences of Sounds

18. What do your do? • Ask children to cover their eyes and listen to and identify the sound they hear • Once the children have caught on to the game, make two noises, one after the other. • Without peeking, the children are to guess the two sounds in sequence saying, “There are two sounds. First we heard a _______, and then we heard a _______.” • After the children can identify a sequence of two sounds, increase the number of sounds in sequence. Listening to Sequences of Sounds

19. What You Do • You say a compound word. • Ask your child to repeat it. • Then ask your child to say what word remind if you omit one portion. • You child pronounces the word that is left. Examples: Cowboy Say it again without the boy cow Outside Say it again without the out. side Grasshopper Say it again without the grass. hopper Jellyfish Say it again without the fish jelly Zookeeper Say it again without the zoo. keeper Rattlesnake Say it again without the snake rattle Cupcake Say it again without the cake. cup Dishwasher Say it again without the dish washer Horsefly Say it again without the horse fly Baseball Say it again without the base ball Campground Say it again without the ground camp “Un-Compound” That Word

20. What You Do • Say each pair or words below and ask your child to repeat them and tell you if the words rhyme. They rhyme if all the sounds are the same except the beginning sound. • Start down the first column for the easiest pairs, followed by the middle, and then the right column • Do a few at a time - not all at once. Hearing Rhyming Words

21. Whew! Now the Phonics Ladder of Skills!

23. Explore the use of print and to construct meaning • Understand that writing is a form of communication for a variety of purposes • Orient picture book correctly and turn pages one by one Print Awareness & Concepts

24. Knowledge that people read the text, not just look at the pictures • Awareness of how to read a book-right side up, starting with the first page and continuing to the end; the left page is read first, and the text is read from left to right • Understanding that words are units separated by white spaces What is Print Awareness?

25. Ways to Help Your Child/Student Develop Print Awareness

26. Experiment with a variety of writing tools and materials • Write some recognizable letters, especially those in own name Early Writing

27. Demonstrate awareness of letters in print • Relate at least 10 letters to the specific sounds they represent Alphabet Knowledge

28. Knowledge of the P E A A L H B T What Does My Child/Student Need to Know to Be Ready to Read?

29. Being able to recognize and name all the letters of the alphabet What is Knowledge of the Alphabet?

30. The importance of being able to name and recognize the letters has long been misunderstood by parents. • For many years parents have believed that thy had to do two things to prepare their child for school: • Teach their child the alphabet • Read, read, read to their child • Knowing the alphabet is necessary, but not sufficientto learning to read. • One of the most important things your child needs to accomplish during kindergarten is to learn the sounds associated with letters. Knowing the alphabet can make learning the sounds easier. How Important is It for Me to Teach My Child/Student the Alphabet?

31. Most educators recommend teaching the skills in the following order: • NAMES Recite/Sing the ABCs • SHAPES This is a B • SOUNDS This is a B and it says /b/ Should I Teach My Child/Student the Letter Names or Shapes First?

32. Yes • If you teach correct letter formation • If your child has good control of their finger muscles No • If your teach them incorrectly and they develop bad habits • If they have not developed finger strength and dexterity Should I Teach My Child to Write Letters?

33. When Should I Begin Teaching My Child/Student the Alphabet? Alphabet Knowledge

34. Ways to Help Your Child Develop Alphabet Skills

35. G F • What You Need • Set of plastic alphabet letters-preferable capital letters • Mat that you make on an 11” x 17” piece of firm paper. Trace the plastic letters and fill them in, in an arc shape, so that the plastic letters will fit over the letters written on the arc. The arc should extend from the lower left to the lower right corner. • What You Do • Ask you child to count how many letters there are. • Then ask your child to place the plastic letters on the matching letters on the arc of the mat. • Teach her the name of each letter, introducing about four new letters per day. For example, “This is the letter A.” • After she can differentiate the letter shapes and has been taught the names of each letter, ask her to say the name of the letter as she places it in the position on the arc. • Repeat often, until your child can recognize each letter, place it over the corresponding symbol on the arc on the mat, and say the name of each letter. Generally, it takes several weeks for a child to master all the letters. Counting, Matching, and Naming Letters

36. What You Need • Set of plastic alphabet letters • A slightly different mat made on an 11” x 17” piece of firm paper. List the letters in order in a straight line across the top to provide a reference for the child. This time, instead of the letters composing the arc, draw a line to form the arc. Then provide three “anchors” by writing the letter A at the lower left corner of the arc, the letter Z at the lower right, and M and N at the midway point at the top of the arc. What You Do • Ask your child to take the plastic letters out of the container and place them right side up in the center of the arc. • Then ask her to find the A and place it. • Next find the Z and place it, followed by the M and N. • The child then begins with B, Then C, and so on, placing all the letters in order along the arc. • When your child has finished sequencing the letters, ask her to check it by touching and naming each letter, starting with A and moving to Z. The alphabet across the top of the mat can serve as an additional reminder. • Repeat this activity frequently until the child can place all the letters in the proper order within two minutes. Generally, it takes several weeks for a child to master this task. A F ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ C X E C Learning The Sequence of the Alphabet

37. What You Need • Two sets of plastic alphabet letters-preferably capital letters • Two 11” c 17” mats with or without the letters filled in on the arc • Two brown paper bags, or cloth bags, big enough to hold the letters What You Do • This is a game that two children can play together or you can play with your child. The object is to try to correctly identify and name the letters based on felling them without looking. The winner is the first player to fill in all the letters on her arc. • The first player reaches into a brown paper bag and feels a plastic letter without looking at it. If she can correctly name it, then she gets to place it on the arc on her mat and choose another letter. She continues choosing letters until she makes a mistake. • Once a mistake is made, the turn rotates to the next player • The player who successfully identifies and places all the letters on her arc is the winner. Guess the Letter

38. What You Need • Modeling clay or cookie dough What You Do • Roll the pieces of clay or dough into snake-shaped pieces for your child to use. • Help your child form the pieces into the shapes of letters. • If you cookie dough, make sure the letters with enclosed circles (i.e., o, b, d, q) have plenty of space inside the circle before baking. This will assure that the circles will not close up when baked. Snaky Letters

39. What does the research tell us that we should do about language development & vocabulary?

40. Vocabulary • What is it? • to know the meanings of words read • to know the meanings of words heard • to use a variety of words in spoken and written language

41. Children enter school with a listening vocabulary ranging between 2500 to 5000 • Vocabulary differences at grade 2 may last throughout elementary school (Biemiller & Slonin, 2001) • Children who enter with limited vocabulary knowledge grow more discrepant over time from their peers who have rich vocabulary knowledge ( Baker, Simmons & Kame’enui 1997) • 86-98% of the words recorded in each child’s vocabulary consisted of words also recorded in their parents’ vocabularies ( Hart & Risley, 2000) Research Evidence

42. Vocabulary Gap Average child from a welfare family hears about 3 million words a year vs. 11 million from a professional family (Hart & Risley, 1995)

43. Model good language use • Engage in daily oral language • Read aloud good literature • Use less “business” talk at home • Use descriptive words • Lots of shared reading and conversations about words Use High-Quality Oral Language

44. Business Talk • Come here! • Stop that! • Be quiet! • Sit down and eat! • Go watch TV! • Clean your room! • Go to sleep! • Get in the tub! • Conversations • Tell me about… • How was ….? • What do you think about…? • Why is …..? • Do you think …..? • Who is …..? • What do you like? Less “Business” Talk—More Conversations!

45. Other Ways to Help Your Child’s Language Development

46. Aloud to Children Read

47. Curious shed professor Fountain pen loop signal Funnel hurled space suit Blotter grunting parachute Curious George Gets a Medal

48. Fill you house with books • Establish good reading habits • Offer incentives for reading • Set an example for reading • Help your child choose books Things You Can Do To Create a Reading Environment At Home

49. What do Kindergarteners have to learn? Are we sending them ready for Kindergarten??

50. Quick one minute assessments that let us know if our students are “on track” to be readers. Help schools provide enough instruction to get students back on track as readers. • Helps schools see where they need to focus to help our children learn to read at each grade • Helps us see where we as parents can help at home to help our children learn to read DIBELSDynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills