Month: June 2017

Avoiding the Summer Slide

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“What can we do over the summer?”

As a teacher, this is one of the biggest questions parents ask at the end of the year. Many times parents inquire about additional worksheets or websites to help their child get ahead for the following school year. However, what parents don’t realize is that unless children are actively engaged in some sort of educational activities they can regress in their academic careers. This is known as the summer slide.

There are lots of different ways to avoid the summer slide without making it seem like summer school. Today I’m going to give song ideas for parents that can be done at home to help kids stay up-to-date.

Outdoor Ideas

Summer is the time for kids to be outside, so take advantage of the outdoors.

  1. Sidewalk chalk. There are endless possibilities for how to use sidewalk chalk. Kids Sidewalk Chalkcan write their names in funky ways (squiggles, block letters, backwards, etc). Children can also draw pictures of what they see in nature and label them.
  2. Write outside. Some kids love to write stories or poetry, so encourage them to sit outside while they write. If they see a butterfly, have them write a story about the life of the butterfly and allow them to draw a picture. Allow them to use their imagination and have fun, since the writing is not graded they have total freedom about the style and content of the writing.
  3. Reading place challenge. Challenge your little reader to read in as many different Readingplaces as possible. They can read in a tree, on a beach towel in the back yard, on a slide, etc. Feel free to take pictures and share them with friends and family to make it exciting. If you have a reluctant or struggling reader, you may want to challenge them to 10 different places and then they can buy a new book.
  4. Go to parks. State parks often have historical information throughout the park which are full of interesting facts. Not only will kids get some exercising walking through a park, but they will also learn along the way.

Travel Ideas

Many families use summer time to travel, which often means hours of sitting in a car or plane.

  1. Play games. For younger children, games are perfect for practicing reading skills. The license plate game and the alphabet game are two great ones to help little ones with their letter and reading skills.
  2. Sing songs. Rhyming helps little ones with language development and reading skills, so feel free to use the time in a car singing songs. Depending on the ages I would suggest nursery rhymes or other children’s songs.
  3. Books on tape/audio books. These are fantastic for road trips. You can get them at Audiobookyour local library or download them from audible. If you have an beginner reader, I would suggest getting a hardcopy of the story for them to follow along with. You want to choose a book with some pictures to help with comprehension.
  4. Independent reading. Make a trip to your local library and let your child stock up on books they want to read.

Additional Practice

Some families opt to use the summer to help their child catch up if they struggled during the school year.

  1. Hire a tutor. There are many different options for tutoring, so you may want to consider all of the choices before deciding on which is the best for your family.
    1. You can hire a teacher from the school your child attends. The pros of this choice are that previous and/or future teachers can communicate with the tutor about expectations and student weaknesses. A con is often times private tutors are more expensive.
    2. Online tutoring is another option and there are always new websites. The pro to this is the convenience. You don’t have to worry about driving somewhere or having a tutor come to the house since the tutoring is aTutoringll virtual. A con is depending on the service you may not be able to talk directly to the tutor, but rather go through another person for progress reports.
    3. A third option is a tutoring center. Centers like Huntington and Kumon havetheir own curriculums they follow , and private centers often allow the tutor to determine what a child needs. A pro is that centers can give families assessments to track progress and communication is easy. A con is the expense depending on the program a child is enrolled in.
  2. Workbooks/online practice. I am personally not a fan of workbooks, but for many families this option is great because the work is done independently by the child. All the parent has to do is tell the child what pages to complete and check the work with the answer key in the back of the book. Online practice is even easier because the website will grade work and reveal the score. Barnes & Nobles is a great place to get workbooks because they have a huge variety. Ask your child’s teacher if there are any websites they suggest or that the school has access to.
  3. Summer school. Some schools do offer programs during the summer to help students. Sometimes it is only open to students who are struggling, so check with your school to see what the criteria is.

Summer Assignments

Many schools require summer work, mostly middle and high school students. To avoid the stress of summer assignments, sit down with your child and discuss all of the work their school requires. This will help determine the workload, what materials need to be purchased, and if a tutor is needed. Once all of the assignments have been reviewed, create a homework calendar with your child. This is a great tool to not only break up the assignment into manageable chunks, but it also helps with time management skills. This works really well for student athletes because they can schedule their homework in around practice, camp, and training.

If your child has summer reading assignments, there are a few different approaches in tackling the work.

Option 1: Just read the book first. Many kids like this option because they don’t have to worry about taking notes or answering questions, they can just enjoy the book. This strategy also allows kids to practice their reading skills without relying on a set of questions to guide them. After they read it, have them re-read the book to answer any questions or complete summer assignments.

Option 2: Read and work at the same time. Kids are used to this approach in school so they know what works best for them. Some stop reading when they find an answer to a question, and some answer questions after every chapter.

Regardless of which option they use, make sure your child re-reads the book right before school starts. Some teachers give an assessment or use the summer reading for a project. Your child will be better prepared if they know the material.

Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do- Book Review

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A few weeks ago I posted about reading resources for parents and mentioned Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do by Daniel T. Willingham. I purchased the e-book version because I was too excited to wait for Amazon to deliver a paper copy, which was a blessing because I read it on my phone and Kindle over the last few weeks. It took me much longer to read than I anticipated because I couldn’t stop highlighting and writing notes.

Since I started teaching I’ve been on a quest to find a book to help parents (and teachers) address reading concerns and I believe I have finally found it! This book is truly one of a kind. Willingham’s writing voice is superb. He speaks to the reader as a fellow parent/educator with a calm demeanor. He never makes the reader feel incompetent nor does he command or belittle the reader.

One of my favorite ideas from this book is to start now. The introduction states this and it is repeated many times throughout the text. I love that Willingham doesn’t make parents or teachers feel that it’s too late. Many feel that by the time a child is in middle school it’s too late to improve reading skills and motivation, but Willingham constantly denies this with realistic, supportive ideas for adults.

The book starts off with a great explanation of general reading information including: the role of sound, the role of knowledge in comprehension, and motivation. As an educator, I loved his clear explanations of phonics and the role of sounds in reading. I was one of the those children who struggled with phonics, which resulted in my reading struggles and repeating kindergarten. I think if my parents had read the excerpt below during my struggle period it would have helped them understand.

“If reading is a code between written symbols and speech sounds, it’s going to be hard to learn the code if you can’t hear those sounds. Lots of research indicates that this reasonable supposition is right. Children who have trouble learning to read often have difficulty hearing individual speech sounds. At the other end of the spectrum, children who more or less teach themselves to read turn out to hear them easily. This relationship between the ability to hear speech sounds and reading is not unique to learning to read English— you see it across languages. So we have our first clue about how we can help kids become good readers: help them with this auditory challenge.” (Willingham, Daniel T. (2015-02-24). Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do (pp. 12-13). Wiley. Kindle Edition.)

Part one of the text examines reading in birth-preschool age children. My interests the last few months have been on this age group because of my daughter and the two classes I’m teaching, Mommy & Me Literacy and Children & Literacy. The author’s main points in this section are to create a love of reading and to prepare children for decoding. He gives great ideas/suggestions for parents, educators, and child care providers. One of my favorites he mentioned was using word games to help students with speech sounds.

“Here are some examples of word games that help children to hear individual speech sounds: Some children’s songs and rhymes center on word play, for example, The Name Game (“ Dan, Dan, bo-Ban, banana-fana fo-Fan, fee fi-mo-Man. Dan!”) and Apples and Bananas (“ I like to eat, eat, eat, eeples and baneenees”). Classic nursery rhymes use much of this sort of word play. So do Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, and other children’s authors. Sing songs they know, replacing the initial letter of each word with the letter of your choice, for example, “Mary had a little lamb” becomes “Bary bad a bittle bamb.” Find excuses for alliteration: “Great golly! Gobs of grapes!” (Willingham, Daniel T. (2015-02-24). Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do (p. 33). Wiley. Kindle Edition.)

Before a child can read, he or she must be able to recognize letters, which Willingham discusses. One of the easiest ways parents can help children with letter recognition is what Willingham calls “letters in the wild”. Caregivers should interact with children daily with letters they see on billboards, logos, etc. “If you prompt interest in letters in these daily interactions, it’s that much more likely your child will show interest in letters during read-alouds.” (Willingham, Daniel T. (2015-02-24). Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do (p. 36). Wiley. Kindle Edition.)

Part two of the book addresses kindergarten-second grade. I really liked how Willingham starts off this section by discussing the different reading programs used in schools, phonics vs. whole-word, and balanced literacy. Each school district uses a different approach, so it’s important for parents to be aware of the program their school uses. It’s also important to keep in mind that each student learns differently. “Programs vary, and kids’ experiences within a program vary.” (Willingham, Daniel T. (2015-02-24). Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do (p. 83). Wiley. Kindle Edition.)

The author also addresses the hot topic of technology: “With all the power we attribute to technology, that seems like a pretty wimpy effect. But the modest impact is actually typical for educational technology interventions, no matter what the subject: math, science, or history. More disturbing is a point made by researcher John Hattie: when you try anything new in the classroom, you see, on average, this sort of modest boost to student learning. Why? It’s not clear. (My guess is that the excitement of trying something new makes teachers enthusiastic, and that excitement rubs off on students.) The conclusion I’m emphasizing is that educational technology interventions in general (and those targeting reading in particular) have been less successful than we would have expected.” (Willingham, Daniel T. (2015-02-24). Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do (p. 85). Wiley. Kindle Edition.)

Willingham does go on to mention that technology apps and videos vary in quality and how they are embedded. On the flip side, he also does a great job of mentioning how technology can provide individual feedback and other positive ideas (I really appreciate how he can be so calm when discussing hot topic things).

I love that he follows up the discussion of technology with techniques and ideas parents can use at home with their kids. He includes ideas such as: reading with your child, choosing the right book, providing feedback and dealing with reading frustration. Reading is a challenging skill that takes lots of time to develop, so it’s only natural for children to get frustrated with reading while being at home with a parent. The author includes some great ideas for parents on dealing with this frustration.

“I can offer four suggestions if you find yourself frustrated. First, the habit of not talking much is not only good for your child (so she hears mostly her own voice, reading) but also good for maintaining your composure when you’re frustrated. Second, when you do speak, you can usually find an intonation other than frustration that carries your message in a positive way. When my youngest would look to me for help on the same word three times in sixty seconds, my inclination was to shout, “You KNOW this one.” I trained myself to say, “You know this one,” with the intonation of, “You sly dog.” I probably should have said nothing, but at least I used a positive tone. Third, remind yourself that the whole session is only five or ten minutes. Fourth, if you find that you just can’t keep it together, quit. Ask your child to read with you later. Grinding through the process gives a little practice in decoding, but it carries too high a cost in motivation.”(Willingham, Daniel T. (2015-02-24). Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do (p. 90). Wiley. Kindle Edition.)

The final part is third grade and beyond. Since I’ve taught middle school language arts for five years, I was really curious about his thoughts on motivating struggling readers at this stage. Fluency is discussed in great detail in this part of the book, and it’s fascinating how Willingham connects fluency to spelling.  “It would be nice to get kids to fluency faster, especially given that national tests indicate only about half of kids have reached desired levels of fluency by fourth grade. Is there a way to hurry the process along? Three techniques can help. First, explicit spelling instruction seems to improve fluency. Although the spelling knowledge you use to read is not identical to the knowledge you use when you’re thinking about how to spell a word, there is some overlap. So that’s a reason to include spelling instruction in schools, even though we all use word processors with spell-checkers.” (Willingham, Daniel T. (2015-02-24). Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do (p. 137). Wiley. Kindle Edition.). I have worked in environments where administration feels that students don’t need to spend time on spelling after a certain grade, but it is evident that spelling does translate to an increase in fluency.

The next big concept Willingham tackles is reading comprehension. This is the number one struggle I see with struggling readers in middle and high school. The author addressing the importance to reading comprehension strategies which include ideas like activating prior knowledge, listening actively, summarizing, visualizing, etc.

However, it is important to note, as the author does, that texts become increasingly more challenging the older a child gets. By third grade students are starting to read more nonfiction texts (articles, textbooks) and they are expected to understand the material and then interact with it in some aspect. In addition to that, some schools have made the transition to digital literacy. Instead of simply stating a positive or negative stance, the author breaks down and examines the different components which include general tech savviness and the ability to evaluate information. He then follows up his thoughts with information about the digital revolution.

“One change wrought by the digital revolution is that kids are actually reading much more than they used to, even though reading is commonly thought to be in decline.” (Willingham, Daniel T. (2015-02-24). Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do (p. 156). Wiley. Kindle Edition.). If you think about what students today are doing, this makes total sense. Kids are constantly reading tweets, captions on Instagram, blogs posts, etc. They may not be reading novels, but they are constantly reading.

Overall, I am in love with this book. The ideas and suggestions are explained in a clear, concise manner that is extremely user friendly for those not familiar with the education or reading world. It is the perfect book for any parent because it addresses all stages of reading. It is the perfect book for an educator to use to provide parents with guidance.