Everyday activities are a natural and effective way to begin teaching your young child about letters and words. Download and print these colorful “take-along” activities the next time you go to the grocery store or farmer’s market. Turn your regular trip into a reading adventure!
A simple trip to the grocery store can turn into a real learning experience for your preschooler. Here are some tips to build literacy and math skills while shopping.
Improve instruction and help all students achieve at high levels by making these research-based adjustments to your balanced literacy program. This guidance outlines some of the most common challenges of a balanced literacy model, how they can impede students’ learning, and how you can adapt your reading program to better serve students.
English is a layer-cake language. Not only is it organized to represent sounds, syllables, and morphemes, but its spellings are derived from several languages that were amalgamated over hundreds of years due to political and social changes in Great Britain.
Many young readers are puzzled by the rules and exceptions of spelling. Research shows that learning to spell and learning to read rely on much of the same underlying knowledge. Learn more about the relationships between letters and sounds and how a proper understanding of spelling mechanics can lead to improved reading.
Focus on reading readiness and enjoy winter holidays at the same time with these simple activities you can incorporate into your preschooler’s daily routine.
Rather than introducing a new word in isolation, teachers should introduce students to a rich variety of words that share the same root. This approach should help diverse learners including English language learners, make important connections among vocabulary words within the same family, and transfer core ideas across content areas.
Children’s magazines are a wonderful supplement to classroom instruction. Students are exposed to a wide variety of texts and lots of interactive content. From stories, poems, and action rhymes to nonfiction, crafts, puzzles, and games, kids’ magazines can offer an abundance of high-interest content to support your curriculum.
The principles of a multidimensional vocabulary program hold promise for supporting the vocabulary development of all students, especially English language learners. Eight characteristics of a multidimensional approach are described. The first is the introduction of new words through engaging children’s literature.
Language learning offers a unique and exciting opportunity to integrate music. Many people have had the experience of learning a world language and singing simple, silly songs in class. The introduction of music provides a light-hearted and fun way to interact with another language and culture.
Learning the meanings of new words (vocabulary) helps children to read more complex books and stories and to learn wonderful new things. Children learn new words by being read to and by reading on their own; the more children read, the more words they are likely to know.
Riddles are an excellent way for kids to learn how to really listen to the sounds of words, understand that some words have more than one meaning, and how to manipulate words. And riddles are fun — a good incentive for thinking about words and reading.
Sharing poetry with kids is a great way to highlight language. Poems offer humor, interesting words, tongue twisters, alliteration, and opportunities for choral reading (reading together). Find out how to plan a lively and fun family poetry jam!
Our interconnected and digital world demands a lot of our learners. Here are five simple ways to help build your child’s critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Studies have shown that previewing unfamiliar words before students read improves comprehension. Get tips on choosing words to preview and find examples of vocabulary knowledge checklists.
The powerful combination of systematic vocabulary instruction and expanded learning time has the potential to address the large and long-standing literacy gaps in U.S. public schools, particularly with low-income students and English language learners.
Calendars help young children learn the basics of the days of the week and the months of the year. Your family calendar offers opportunities for other learning as well, including vocabulary, sequencing, and math.
This article answers four common questions teachers have about vocabulary instruction, including what words to teach and how well students should know vocabulary words.
Reading with comprehension means understanding what’s been read. Here is a before-during-after approach that families can use to help children learn to read for understanding.
Read early and read often. The early years are critical to developing a lifelong love of reading. It’s never too early to begin reading to your child! The tips below offer some fun ways you can help your child become a happy and confident reader. Try a new tip each week. See what works best for your child.
Read about it, talk about it, and think about it! Find ways for your child to build understanding, the ultimate goal of learning how to read. The tips below offer some fun ways you can help your child become a happy and confident reader. Try a new tip each week. See what works best for your child.
Parents can support their child’s vocabulary skills through read alouds at home. Find out about Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 vocabulary words and terchniques for informal teaching while you read aloud.
Students with ASD can have strengths or challenges in either word recognition and language comprehension that will impact reading comprehension. It is important to assess, monitor, and track the word recognition or decoding skills and language comprehension skills as you evaluate reading comprehension.
