Helping kids learn to read is a great goal for community groups. An important step for all groups is to not only define how to help, but also to identify the children in the community who could must benefit from what you do. This article provides tips for finding and serving these children.
Every child is unique and has an individual rate of development. This chart represents, on average, the age by which most children will accomplish skills in hearing, understanding, and talking.
Choose wisely! This list is not exhaustive, but gives parents and educators a good idea of what to look for when considering an app and evaluating its educational value. Use app review sites and advice from literacy experts — including your local media mentor or librarian — to find materials that match children’s needs.
Get practical tips on how to use various visual supports can reduce your student’s anxiety, by providing much-needed information about the school environment and routines.
If a child’s history suggests increased risk for reading difficulties, it is critical that he or she receive high-quality reading instruction, early intervention, parent support and special education, if needed.
Find out how you can support your child before and after taking a standardized test, as well as ways you can support your child’s learning habits on a daily basis so that test day is not so stressful.
The holiday season is a time for family togetherness, fun, and friendship. But children who struggle with social and behavioral problems can feel lonely and excluded during this happy time. This article gives you a dozen ways to help your child join the fun.
Three research based practices help students with learning disabilities improve their writing. Read this interview with Steve Graham, author of Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High School who explains how you can help your students succeed in communicating through the written word.
Quality can look different in individual primary grade classrooms. However, there are certain characteristics of effective early reading programs that parents can look for in their children’s classrooms. First Lady Laura Bush presents a list of these characteristics in this guide for parents.
Knowledge does much more than just help students hone their thinking skills: It actually makes learning easier. Knowledge is not only cumulative, it grows exponentially. Those with a rich base of factual knowledge find it easier to learn more — the rich get richer.
Learn how to quickly transform the beginning of the school day to make it more inclusive and welcoming for all your students. Get tips on how to use your morning greeting, seating arrangements, visual timers and schedules, and sponge activities.
Classrooms today have students with many special needs, and teachers are often directed to “modify as necessary.” The following article takes the mystery out of modifying your teaching strategies with concrete examples that focus on students’ organizational skills.
Play is the work of children — through play and interaction, children learn how to talk, listen, read, and write. Read about typical behaviors of emergent and beginning readers, and how each of these behaviors relate to reading and writing.
Background knowledge is crucial to a child’s academic success. Young children, especially those from at-risk communities, need broad and deep exposure to informational text and rich vocabulary in order to develop more complex thinking skills.
Phonemic awareness training is essential for students who are at risk for reading difficulties. This article describes the components of phonemic awareness and provides activities that special educators can use to provide this training to at risk students.
Parents are often the best educational advocates for their children, especially children with a learning disability. Discover nine tips to help you be a strong champion for your child.
Good communication development starts in the first year of life and goes far beyond learning how to talk. Communication development has its roots in social interaction with parents and other caregivers during everyday activities. Here are a few tips for supporting your child’s social communication.
Is your school using the Common Core standards? Get to know what the four main areas of the Common Core reading standards mean and simple things you can do at home to help your child build skills in these areas.
Is your school using the Common Core standards? Get to know the four “anchors” of the Common Core writing standards and simple things you can do at home to help your child build skills in all of these areas.
For today’s students, smartphones are essential tools for processing and documenting the world. A field trip offers the perfect platform to show students how phones can offer extra context to their experiences, not distracting but enhancing. This blog post from Common Sense Education shares three ideas to try: scavenger hunt, guided tour, and re-captioning.
Electronic children’s books are becoming more widely available. Here you’ll discover practical tips for sharing e-books with your child, and how to keep the focus on reading and the story.
Many kids love to read about science and nature as well as real people, places, and events. Nonfiction books present information in engaging and interesting ways. Find out how you can help your child learn to navigate all the parts of a nonfiction book — from the table of contents to the diagrams, captions, glossary, and index.
