Inferences are what we figure out based on an experience. Helping your child understand when information is implied (or not directly stated) will improve her skill in drawing conclusions and making inferences. These skills will be needed for all sorts of school assignments, including reading, science and social studies.
Help your child begin to see the connection between what she does as a reader and what she can do as a scientist. Here are two simple ways you can encourage your child to put her prediction skills to work.
Every time you pair a book with an experience, you are giving your child an opportunity to learn more about their world. Find suggestions for books and corresponding activities to extend your preschooler’s reading experiences.
Every time you pair a book with an experience, you are giving your child an opportunity to learn more about their world. Below are some suggestions for books and corresponding activities to extend your child’s reading experiences.
Students often have difficulty understanding abstract map symbols. Learn how to introduce map skills with literature that contextualizes mapping in a narrative, can be related to where in the world each student lives, and engages students by actively “doing geography.”
Language plays an important part in math instruction, particularly for ELLs. This article offers some strategies for making language an integral part of math instruction, and for ensuring that ELLs have the tools and language they need to master mathematical concepts, procedures, and skills.
Hands-on measurement activities are fun to explore with children. Introduce your young learner to these interesting new vocabulary words and knowledge, and help your child develop an early love of measuring everything in sight!
By reading and writing about the lives of real scientists, students can learn more about the nature and history of science and how important scientific discoveries were made. Students may also begin to see themselves as scientists by trying on scientists’ lives for size.
Critical thinking, the ability to think deeply about a topic or a book, is an essential skill for children to develop. Here are some helpful tips and recommended books to strengthen your child’s ability to think critically.
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.
Music stories are compositions of a narrative or descriptive sort. Students can listen for the story in the music, and this type of music can be integrated with literature, literacy, social studies, science, mathematics, and the other arts.
A classroom teacher examines the importance of the nonfiction read aloud as part of ongoing daily instruction, and highlights the need to empower students in both academic achievement, and as life long lovers of nonfiction, through focused informational literature.
By providing an environment rich in language and where thinking is encouraged, you can help your preschooler develop important numeracy and literacy skills. Here are four everyday examples of ways to integrate language and math.
Oral history is a method to learn about past events from the spoken stories of people who lived through them. When students conduct oral history research with members of their families or community they are participating in active learning rooted in the student’s own experience. Students are actively engaged in collecting data when they do oral histories. Not only are they learning history, they are learning to be historians.
Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) teaches children reading comprehension through the integration of science and reading. Learn more about how CORI aims enhances students’ reading engagement in order to increase reading ability.
What is background knowledge, and why is it so important for reading comprehension and motivation? In this introduction, you’ll also discover simple, everyday activities that helps build a child’s knowledge about the world.
Children begin using their senses to recognize patterns and categorize things at a young age — skills that play an important role in early learning. This tip sheet provides some simple activities, as well as recommended books, that parents can use to help their kids build pattern recognition and categorization skills in science and math.
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.
With the Common Core, literacy is intentionally taught within content areas. See what a CCSS mini-thematic unit in science might look like for children in the primary grades.
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.
Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to teach students how to generate questions while reading. Research shows that generating questions at different levels of thinking can strengthen students’ memory, integration and identification of main ideas, and overall comprehension.
