Home Connections

Here are some fun ideas to get you and your young readers and writers working together with you at home, as well as some tips and "teacher language" to use to help stay consistent with what your child hears at school.

IDEAS

play Roadside Reading- reading all the signs, license plates and even things inside the car!

Read Around the House- read the cereal box together at breakfast, newspapers, the preview channel on the T.V.

Hide a Word- hide some cards or pieces of paper with words from a sentence on them. When your child finds them, they can put the words in the correct order and read the sentence. The funnier the sentence- the more fun you will both have!

Some Tips and Language

When reading or writing with your child try to reinforce the good strategies that he/she is using. Young readers typically use some of the following strategies:

picture clues
beginning sounds
ending sounds
prefixes/suffixes
looking for little words inside of bigger words
rereading
thinking about what would make sense
skipping the difficult word
sound chunks
blend sounds
reading ahead
thinking about if it looks right
thinking about if it sounds right
appealing for help

Young writers will:

use inventive spelling
make lists
try different genres
get stuck!
want to be perfect-may be afraid to take risks
write about what they know
enjoy the success of someone being able to read what they have written

I hope some of these things will help you enjoy watching your child grow into a fluent reader and writer!

Some other tips for parents

*try to read the story that you are going to read together ahead of time to familiarize yourself with new vocabulary and to know the outcome of the story.

*take a picture walk to reinforce using the picture to gather information.

*give the reader a purpose "Let's read to find out why...."

*try not to prompt too much- let them have lots of time to try on their own. Remind them of the strategies they can use.

*let your child reread it a few times so that the text becomes comfortable- gaining fluency.

*GIVE LOTS OF PRAISE!!!!!