321 Learn! » reading resources

How to Create a Literacy Rich Environment

Jennifer Wagaman — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 20:56:29 +0000

Having a print rich, or literacy rich environment is an important aspect of a child’s literacy education. According to one study, exposure to written language helps children develop a number of things including: awareness of print, phonemic awareness, letter naming, listening comprehension and eventually word reading. (Gunn, Simmons, & Kameenui, 1995, 3).

So understanding that an environment rich in literature and language is important, but how do you accomplish this? Obviously this will look different in different classrooms, but here are some basic ideas to help those preschool and young elementary classrooms begin to transform into the literacy rich environment that will give their students a step up to reading.

Label objects in the room (eg. door, books shelf, light switch, chair, desk)
Have a variety of alphabet games available for children to work with (this can include alphabet letters on a magnetic surface, letter matching games and more)
Include important signs from the children’s environment into the classroom. (This can be a bulletin board display or incorporated into the classroom and include things like a stop sign, street signs etc.)
Product labels are another great way to introduce language to students. When using glue, show students the word glue on the bottle, for example.
Books! Have lots of books available for students to look at, read and share with others. Read to students, have students read to you.
Dictation. Have students draw pictures and dictate to you a caption for the bottom of the picture. You can also have students dictate short stories that can then be read by the whole class or sent home for parents to read.

Use you imagination and take advantage of the variety of literacy in the world around us.

Read more about creating a literacy rich environment in the preschool classroom.

Tricks for Kids Who Need to Follow the Text as they Read

Jennifer Wagaman — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 20:25:48 +0000

Many children who are learning to read need to use a finger or other aid to help keep their place in the text while they read. While there are some good and bad arguments to both of these, here are a few cute ideas for teachers who choose to use something to assist a child.

Oriental Trading carries witch fingers.

Popsicle sticks with google eyes or other items glued on.

Princess wands.

Themed drink stirrers from the dollar store.

Fake nails on the end of Popsicle sticks.

seasonal unshaprened pencils.

Finger puppets.

Ruler or 3×5 card on top of the line the child is reading. (not under the line as this prevents the child’s eyes from learning to look ahead.)

My favorite idea is the last one – this helps children keep their place and yet allows them to learn to keep looking ahead. You can also teach them to look ahead and improve fluency by moving the 3×5 card along the same line they are reading, as they read it. This causes the eyes to jump ahead quicker to stay ahead of the card, but is not appropriate for all students.

How to Read with Children: Secrets From a Tutor

Jennifer Wagaman — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:50:50 +0000

Reading with children is a simple task, right? Sit down together, open book, read words. Here are a few secrets that can help anyone sit down with a child turn a reading time into a rich learning time.

Talk about the pictures. Ask the child questions about what is going on in the pictures. Young children (preschool age) can be asked to point to various objects in the picture to increase vocabulary. Ask questions about non-verbal communication happening in pictures.
Ask Questions. Ask simple to complex comprehension questions about the story based on the ability level of the child. Questions can include who, what, where, when why and how. Try to ask one question per page.
Emphasize Inflection. When reading to young children, parents are often overheard making silly voices and being overly dramatic to keep the child’s attention. When the child gets older, parents should not lose this inflection. While the silly voices may disappear , the emotion in the book needs to remain in order to teach children how to read with inflection.

While these tips will help enrich reading time, the simple act of reading to your children is important and can make a huge difference in your child’s education.

Free Reading Activities

Jennifer Wagaman — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:56:33 +0000

FreeReading is a great website that provides an open-source resource for teachers and parents who want to work with their children on phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension.

Free registration is required to use the resources on the site, but all materials are available free of charge for printing and use for teaching.

The resources are focused for children in grades K-3. There is a 40-week plan on the site for using the materials as a reading intervention program if teachers so desire, or the materials can be used as supplemental work for a current curriculum.

For more information, visit FreeReading

Sample Reading Prompts

Jennifer Wagaman — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:10:58 +0000

Prompt: Get your mouth ready for the first sound

Use this prompt to: Help a child when he is stuck on a word

Child behavior that might elicit this prompt from the teacher: Child is not attending to initial sound of a word

What do you need to teach? To look at the letters and the sounds they make.

Prompt: You made a mistake on that page, can you find it?

Use this prompt to: correct a child who made a mistake on one page of text

Child behavior that might elicit this prompt from the teacher: Child did not self-correct the mistake.

What do you need to teach? To self-monitor reading.

Prompt: It could be… but look at…

Use this prompt to: correct a child who says a synonym.

Child behavior that might elicit this prompt from the teacher: Child said a word that worked for meaning but not what was written.

What do you need to teach? Notice the whole word when reading.

Teach Reading by Teaching Writing

Jennifer Wagaman — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:18:06 +0000

Children can learn a lot about reading when they write, and in fact, many students who struggle with reading may improve with some focused attention on writing. Here are some of the things that writing teaches a child:

How to hold a pencil
Directional cues on paper (right to left, top to bottom)
Spelling of sounds
Extending reading cues
Syntax – what structurally sounds correct
Grammar
phonics
phrasing
punctuation – how you read writing like you would say it
one to one correspondence.

Using Running Record Data

Jennifer Wagaman — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:54:50 +0000

After having completed a running record, a teacher has a huge amount of valuable data regarding an individual student’s ability to read.

Be sure to make notes of any of the following behaviors immediately following the completion of a running record:

The use of a finger to read
How choppy or smooth the reading is
How expressive and fluent the reading is

If the selection was timed, the teacher can figure out the fluency rate. For information on how to figure out fluency, read Understanding Fluency.

It is also possible to determine what skills need to be focused on through the data provided from a running record. For example:

A child may consistently mess up the beginning of words, indicating that work in initial sounds is needed
A child may consistently mess up at the end of a word, indicating that the child does not read through the whole word and needs to be reminded to slow down and read all the letters.
A child may consistently mess up the middle of a word, indicating that the child is focusing only on the initial and final sounds. Vowel sounds and blends are likely needed to be worked on.

Look for patterns in mistakes, and pay closest attention to meaning changing mistakes. Making mistakes in names is not as important because that does not change the meaning of the text.

Using cues to when reading to children can be very helpful in teaching children to be strategic readers. Here is a great list of cues to use: Helping Children Become Strategic Readers

Learn how to use running record data to determine student instructional reading level.

How to Do a Running Record

Jennifer Wagaman — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:38:44 +0000

There are book and resources available for teachers to complete a running record, but there is a simple way to keep a running record that takes no special materials other than pencil and paper.

What is a Running Record?

A running record is a verbatim record of how a child reads aloud, including all mistakes and corrections.

Supplies to Take a Running Record:

Stop watch (if you want to determine reading rate)
Blank or lined paper (I prefer blank)
pencil or pen (I prefer pencil)
clip board (not required, but it makes it easier to hide notes from the child)
Book or story for child to read a portion

How to Take a Running Record:

The point of a running record is to understand what mistakes a child makes when reading and find out where the child needs additional instruction. The school or county requirements may provide additional reasons including grades and other data points, but the bottom line is that a running record provides teachers with the necessary information for future instruction.

With this in mind, a simple dash or check mark will suffice for correctly read words. When the student misreads a word, there are a couple of ways to document this:

Write the word that the child said (spelled phonetically) with the correct word written underneath (draw a line separating the two like a fraction)
Simply write the phonetic word the child said. If you don’t have time to write the correct word, you can count correct words on your record later to go back and find the word later.
Write the correct word and make phonetic changes to it
For words that are started and repeated before completing the word, notate that as a mistake: S-/Sing-/sc (see below for notes on SC)

When the student inserts a word not in the text, use a carrot and write the added word.

When the student omits a word, there are a couple ways to notate it:

Write the correct word and cross it out
Write the correct word and put it in parenthesis
Write an x or a dash (something other than the correct word mark) to indicate a missing word

When a student self-corrects a mistake, put a slash next to the notation of the incorrect word and write the letters “SC”

When a student attempts a word several times there are a couple of ways to notate it:

If the word is correct and simply repeated, write the word and draw a squiggly line under it (squiggly line under squiggly line for multiple repeats)
If the word is incorrect and repeated several times the same way, use the same squiggly line
If the word is incorrect and repeated with changes, draw a separating line between each attempt and phonetically add each attempt. If the student ends with the correct word, add SC to the end.

Learn how to use running record data to determine student instructional reading level.

5 Day Plan for a Basal Story

Jennifer Wagaman — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:00:17 +0000

Day 1: Initial reading of story

Build vocabulary background
Vocabulary, especially proper nouns
Interest
Purpose (Predictions/questions are best if set by the children readers)
SILENT reading of the story
Return to purpose questions and have students prove answers from predictions/questions by reading to provide closure

Day 2: Reread (oral/silent) for a specific comprehension skill.

Determine skill (sequencing, literacy feature, elements of a story…)
Set purpose for rereading : includes a mini lesson where students can read orally (ie. story elements)
Explain expectations : Reread to …
Allow time for both rereading and assignment. (can be in pairs)
This is probably an assignment you will collect and grade
Favorite parts, readers theater and partner read

Day 3: A Skill

Direct explicit instruction works well if a particular skill is being taught, but i must be based upon the story read to the previous days.
Examples might include: phonics, quotation marks, tense, prepositional phrases, pronouns, genres, context clues…
This can take two days with many lessons.

Day 4 or 5: Follow UP

Based upon the story, the teacher creates a lesson to further extend the story.
Excellent time to bring in science, theater, art, singing, physical eucation
multiple intelligences

After Reading Strategies

Jennifer Wagaman — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:56:09 +0000

Here is a list of after reading strategies:

Go back and reread parts of the story that you did not understand.
After reading, retell the main point of the whole story to ensure understanding.
Think about how the story fits with what you already know.
Think about something you learned or reviewed.
Think about whether your predictions were correct.