What is this about?

Comprehension is an important part of reading. Sometimes children have trouble with comprehension because they are worried about all the other things going on in the reading, particularly phonemic awareness and fluency. Children who struggle with reading often have the most difficulty with comprehension.

One way to help children with comprehension is a fill in the blank story. You an take a common story like The Three Little Pigs and create fill in the blanks. For instance, "Once upon a ---- there were three little pigs." Children will learn to use context clues to fill in the blank to make the story make sense. This is a fun and unique way for children to work on comprehension.

Miscues: Reading Strategies

Has this happened to you when you listen to a beginning reader? The text says, "Dad cooked a meal and the rain came down," and your child reads, "Dad cooked a mill and the rain comes down." You might be thinking, "oh no what do I do she missed two words in the sentence." But don't worry this ok. Beginning readers often have many miscues while reading. Miscues refer the he readers' unexpected responses to written text.

When listening to children read, many teachers and adults refer to miscues as errors. Errors are perceived as negative and teachers often correct these errors for children. It is believed if teachers don't intervene and correct these errors then children will continue to make them all their lives. "However,after a half century of miscue analysis research and practice,there is no doubt that ALL readers make miscues and that reading development CANNOT occur without them (Brown, Goodman, Marek 1996). Also, we must trust the child's learning process. Their miscues will change over time with practice and as the child learns from the text as they read. Children will develop reading strategies and their miscues will become more sophisticated.

Some ways to support children's growth are demonstrate reading strategies and demonstrate what a miscue is and what you did to make the miscue and how you learned from it. When teachers model this they instill confidence in their students and it helps students see that everyone makes miscues even teachers. Another way is to record a child as they read a text. Then have the child listen to the recording of themselves with you. They can hear their miscues and both the teacher and the child can work together to develop strategies. It's a team effort and the teacher is not correct the miscues they are working with the child so that the child identifies their own miscues and develops strategies to prevent and improve miscues.

References: Owocki, Gretchen and Goodman, Yetta. 2002. Kid watching: Documenting children's literacy development. Portsmouth: NH:Heinemann.

Sounding Out

Growing up many of us learned to read through sounding out our words. Children today still learn this approach, but how effective is it? Many children find it difficult to use the sounding out approach. The trouble is that there are many words in the English language that have silent letters or can be pronounced a number of ways. One way that children define a good reader is someone who can sound out all the words on the page.

While sounding out can work for some, it does not work for all. Sounding out works on phonemic awareness, but once the child takes all that time to sound out a word in the sentence they are less likely to remember what it was about. They don't comprehend what they are reading when they are so focused on getting every word on the page right.

A great way to teach reading is through meaning, structure, and visual representation. What is the story about? What do you think will happen? Look at the pictures and see what is going on. A lot can be said from a picture. Look at the text pattern.  All these are great strategies to use with children who are learning to read. Once a child had a good understanding of what the story is about and the pictures then they can begin sounding out words.

Literacy Digs!

LIteracy digs is a great way to get children invested in the community and create community involvement while teaching important concepts to children. You can pick any place in the community to do a literacy dig. The Goodwill is a great spot to do a literacy dig. Children can observe the environment and the literacy that goes on there. Children view the environmental print and how the customers interact with it. Children learn about the donation process and how it contributes to the community. They will also learn how donation gives back and who it affects. Literacy digs could be the start of creating a project based learning experience.

What is Literacy?

What is literacy? It seems like a simple question. Merriam-Webster defines literacy as "the quality or state of being literate; especially the ability to read and write" (Merriam-Webster, 2007). Most children would define literacy the same way. Literacy is much more than just reading and writing. Children understand and know more about literacy before they every enter a classroom. Environmental print is all around them. Children know the sign for McDonalds, Target, Starbucks, etc. They reading and recognizing print before they know about letters, blending sounds to form words, and writing. Another form of literacy is wordless picture books. With wordless picture books children are able to read a book and understand what is going on without the stress of sounding out words to read. The pictures tell the story and can depict some difficult concepts that children are able to understand.

Author Shaun Tan uses a wordless picture book to depict an immigrant's journey to a new land and the struggle to survive. Here a deeper concept is easily understood and depicted through pictures. Literacy in the form of pictures goes beyond reading and writing.

Exploring Writing in the Classroom

Already Ready: Nurturing Writers in Preschool and Kindergarden by Lilian G. Katz discusses the importance of having a well rounded literacy experience. It especially delves into the topic of read alouds. Children today often read books in their childcare settings, but what they aren't learning is who wrote the book and who drew the pictures. It is important for teachers and caregivers to introduce who the author and illustrator are of a book. It helps children relate to the book and to know that someone wrote the book and maybe they might want to be writers or illustrators too. As teachers it is important for us to talk about all the components of a books for instance the people who make books, what makes a picture book, a picture book, talk about different kinds of books, the purpose for books, and the decisions writers and illustrators make. When children are learning about these components they are learning about new opportunities for themselves.

Another great book that talks about developing literacy with children is Castle in the Classroom: A Story as a Springboard for Early Literacy by Georgia Heard talks about developing certain characteristics of a story for example plot, setting, characters, etc. In the book it talks about a teacher who converted her one classroom into a literacy experiment. The children broke off into groups and chose certain scenes to depict such as a castle, forest, and a beanstalk. Through this real life experience the children explored the setting, developing the characters, and writing the plot for their stories. The children learned about all these aspects through a hands on experience. I think this is very doable in a preschool setting. Children are learning through play and developing literacy and writing skills in a fun and unique way.

Children and Technology

In this day and age technology is everywhere and children are starting to use technology from a very young age. Toddlers are using Ipads and computers to play games, draw, and talk to grandma. Some are wondering, is it too early for children to use Ipads and computers at such a young age? Is it appropriate?

It depends on the reasons behind it. If teachers and parents are using technology as a replacement for interaction then yes it is inappropriate. But if they are using it as a learning tool, then it may be okay. While computers and Ipads don't take the place of the teacher or hands-on learning it is an alternative to conventional methods of teaching. There are so many applications and programs for children that are age appropriate and geared toward learning that children and teachers can use in the classroom and parents can use at home. There are programs for letter recognition, letter sounds, colors, numbers, math, science, social studies, art, etc. The uses of technology are endless.

There has to be a balance. Children learn so much through play with their peers and their environment. Children can also learn a lot through technology. Teachers and parents have to find that balance between the two. Technology can be use to extend a child's learning experience or to present material in a new way. Children also need to get out there and get their hands dirty and learn through doing.

So parents and teachers get out there and find that happy medium and learn with your kids!