Blog Revamp

A good friend made some suggestions to me about blog etiquette and how important privacy is in this major technological world of Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and well you've got the picture.  My husband had once upon a time mentioned that he didn't like that I used the kids names in my blog (although I used their faces) - I guess I never quite understood the theory behind share the face but not the name.  In talking with these two (my friend is nearing 200 followers on her blog whereas right now I have eleven) I have decided that I need to make some serious changes to my blog.  I want to keep it, because it has taken me quite a while to write all this content - but I need to revamp some things.  While I do this I will be editing many of the posts and do a reworking of the entire blog.   If you have any suggestions shoot them out to me.  Although I have been blogging here for almost two years I still feel like a baby when it comes to all this!.

After much thought - my children will be known for their knew names on the blog - DD (Because that is what his nickname is!), Chase - because it almost was his name, and he keeps us on the go, and Emma (After my sister, and one of my favorite novel heroines - Yup, I'm a Jane Austen fan.)

Meet Chase

The name Chase has a duel purpose -  It provides anonymity to our middle child (He almost ended up with the name Chase Henry - but his brother insisted on calling him something else and we went with it).  It also is a perfect description of our life with him.  He is constantly on the go, and we often find ourselves in hot pursuit!  I start of at the beginning - because there always is one - 

Once upon a time . . . . 

Alphabing, Alphabags, and Rosie's Walk

I have been working on creating activities to work on with the kiddos. I will be working on activities  that adapts a multicomponential instruction framework that  balances alphabetic instruction with other literacy skills. Children need to become familiar with the letter forms, names and corresponding sounds which are all part of alphabetic knowledge.  Piasta and Wagner’s (2010)  acknowledges the reciprocal relationship between literacy skills and  assert that children, such as my Chase, who already struggle with alphabetic knowledge will “fall further behind their peers in reading acquisition, leading to gaps in spelling, reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension skills” (p. 8).  Although Emma-bear doesn't struggle (she knows her colors, shapes, can count to 15, and is starting to recognize letters) she would definitely benefit from the same activities. 

Gross Motor Skill Activities

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Two years ago I sat in a room with one of Chase's teachers as she discussed academic concerns with me.  I felt calm and ready to hear what she had to say.  I knew he had issues, I had been discussing them with his physicians his entire life (although they just said not to worry about it at this point).  She expressed a concern that Chase was developmentally behind in all areas, and that it might be a good idea to begin testing.  One area of concern included Chase's delay in motor skills. Research shows that motor development is the cornerstone to success in school (Cohen and Cowen, 2008).  When I learned this I was surprised.  No wonder P.E. and Recess are key components in a school setting!!!!

Book Review Friday - The Goodnight Train

It is interesting how life can swallow you whole at times - and then when you think back you wonder to yourself, "Did I get anything accomplished?"  I guess the answer is both yes and no! 
Here is a book that we recently discovered:  The Goodnight Train by June Sobel

This little gem of a book has been a great read as I have settled the kids down for the night.  This fantastical train picks up sleeping cars, which are illustrated as beds and chugs towards dreamland.  On their way the train filled with passengers (children and a skunk), the conductor (a pig), and the engineer (a dog with a lovely striped train cap on) lumber, roll, fly, whiz, glide, curl, and crawl on the tracks.  Make sure that as you read through the lyrical rhymes and train sounds that you pause and spend time discovering the artwork on each page.  It took my son pointing out the wheels coming out of the smoke stack for me to notice, and It was the fifth time I read through the book that I found the mermaid putting on night cream.  This book is a great book that sets up bedtime routines, the inevitable moments of children getting revved up before they calm down for slumber.

How to use this book to increase literacy skills?

Fill in the blank

The text is set up in rhyming couplets, perfect for leaving out the last word of the second line which prompts the child to provide the missing word.  I found that I was able to do this on almost every single couplet.  The only ones that I had to provide were the ones that weren't rather obvious.  Chase really enjoyed it. As children begin to recognize rhymes they are in fact building phonemic awareness - they are learning to decode and create new words.

Using Words You Know

Take the words that are familiar and have your child create a longer list of other rhyming words.  This strategy is called Using Words You Know (Cunningham, 2000).  Here are the basic steps for this activity:

1. Have children divide a chart into four columns with the words hose, ink, past, and might ,.  Remind your child(ren)/student(s) that words that rhyme often have the same spelling pattern.  
2. Write the words nose, blink, fast, and light on index cards to show the students. 
3. Instruct the children to write the word under the correct rhyming column.  
4. After each word is written down say the words out-loud so they can hear the rhymes.
5.  Explain that thinking of rhyming words also helps students to spell correctly.  Then instead of showing the word on an index card say the words out-loud and have the students write the words using the same spelling patterns.
6. Only use words that not only rhyme but have the same spelling pattern
7. Provide the children with the words instead of having them come up with words that rhyme, since they can come up with words that don't have the same spelling pattern
8. Here are some samples of words that can be used:
1. close          sink     cast     sight
2. pose          think     fast     night
3. suppose     chink    last     fight

The 37 Rimes

Wylie and Durrell (1970) labeled 37 rimes that are found in over 500 common words.  As I learned about these rimes I made a side note in my textbook that reads "Make stories and games using these rimes", for when children become familiar with these 37 rimes they are then able to decode other words.  Interestingly, these following ending rhymes found in the book contain those 37 common rimes: hill, ink, blink, flat, that, light, might, snug, chug, train!

I came across several case studies in which children were taught explicitly using these 37 common rimes their reading accuracy improved. 

Improved rapid accurate word reading (automatic recognition) enables readers to use more memory and attention to focus on comprehension, phrasing and fluency. By improving the automaticity of the students’ word reading, this intervention should lead to improved prose reading (Belli, pg. 12).

 While the studies can be a bit dry reading they do provide by step the activities that they used for the study, making me think it was an assignment they all were given while completing their masters program (expecially since one of the studies provided the authors name and student id number - interesting).  I know that I will be returning to these studies to put some of their suggestions to use for strengthening onset-rime!

Explicit Rime Unit Teaching using the 37 Dependable Rimes - Belli, R.

Explicit teaching of dependable rime units - Thorne, S.

Explicit Teaching of Analogy Using Dependable Rime Units Wealands, J.

Resources

Cunningham, P.M. (2000).  Phonics they use: Words for reading and writing (3rd ed.). New York: Addison Wesley Longman 

Wylie, R.E., & Durrell, D.D.  (1970).  Teaching vowels through phonograms.  Elementary English, 47, 787-791

Frogs, Farms, Fish, and Naps. What do we have in common?

At the end of the school year my husband and I met with Chase's teachers and the Special Education coordinator for the district.   With the wonderful help he has received from the school he scored in the normal range, however his ADHD diagnosis will keep him under the other health impaired (OHI)  umbrella.  Good!!!  We also learned that he definitely has Sensory Processing Disorder on top of everything else.

On Thursday we met Chase's Service Coordinator through the Developmental Services.  She recommended that we ask for a  "Sensory Diet"  in his IEP.  I look forward to learning more about this and incorporating these types of sensory activities with our reading excersizes!!!!  She recommended a weighted blanket (He likes to sleep under about 5 or six blankets each night) and she is going to see if he qualifies for Touchpoint Autism Services, which would be a great help for our entire family. His coordinator is also going to see what the age limit for Exceptional Equestrians Research Program for Autism.  If he is too young than she will help us get a scholarship for next fall.  How awesome would it be for him to be able to learn how to ride horses.

A few thoughts stood out to me as I prepared this weeks activities.  These include the importance of the words children learn before they even begin to read, realizing the importance of knowing how to break language into smaller components, and how comprehension is found in all aspects of life.  Here are a few tidbits that I pulled out of my readings as I prepared:

Building Literacy Through Rosie's Walk (prek-K)

Lesson Plans

This past week I incorporated activities that built phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, math, and art.  The thing that I love about education is that so often a lesson can incorporate and overlap with other content areas.  It is fun to see how many skills can be taught in one little lesson!!

Phonemic Awareness

A key component of learning to read is building phonemic awareness.  What this means is that a child has the ability to recognize that language contains a sequence of phonemes (the smallest unit of sound that is used to create meaningful words.  For example the phoneme /k/ that can be heard in the words kit and skill).  Students gain phonemic awareness through differentiating the separate sounds in words. Once a child is phonemically aware they are able to hear, identify, and manipulate the sounds into words (Cowen, 2006).   Students who achieve phonemic awareness are able to recognize and create rhymes; they are able to break words down into their syllables (Yopp & Yopp, 2000).  It is important that children are provided with instruction that is explicit and authentic.  To become familiar with phonemes it is imperative that children learn the alphabet first, and then start to put the sounds to those letters.  Especially since in English there are 44 different sounds, which means kids aren't JUST learning 26 letters!!!!  To build these skills Amelia and Gavin played:

Alphabetic Knowledge Activities

1. Alphabet Bingo
2. Practice writing name
3. Saying the alphabet while pointing to the letters.  So often Mia and Gavin lump LMNOP together, and having them point out the individual letters allows them the time to slow down and get those letters out!

Phonemic Awareness Activities

1. Rhyme detectives: Listen to “Way up High in the apple tree” with rhymes.  The kids guessed the rhyme pairs To aide in recognizing rhymes.  I made a tree with felt leaves and five little apples.  Each time they would take off an apple they would pretend to eat the apple. 
2. Alpha bags.  I originally had it planned that there would be three toys with the same letter and than one toy that was different.  I could already tell that today was a rough one so I simplified the activity.  I pulled out the toy that didn't belong and had Chase identify the letter each toy started with.  He did great.  I then had both of them find the letter T on the alphabet chart.
3. For the first time ever I had Chase sit by himself and play starfall.com.  I was super surprised.  I told him to move the mouse until the arrow disappeared and he saw a hand.  I then told him to click.  He went through the entire letter A on his own with no help from me.  He did awesome sorting the Big A from Little a.  After it was his turn I sat Emma on my lap and we did it together.  She also did awesome sorting the letters.  Can I just say I love startall.com.

Vocabulary 

Vocabulary both determines how well a student will comprehend what they tread, but also how well as facilitate their verbal language.  Chase has a receptive and expressive language disorder.  His ability to articulate is often hampered, as well as his understanding.  One of his goals at school has been to increase his vocabulary.  This has been crucial to improving his language.   One of the main things they focused on was improving his vocabulary!   

1.  I used a PowePoint presentation to introduce the words over, under, through, around, across and back from Rosie's Walk.  I used pictures of the kids so that they could use their personal experiences to activate prior knowledge.  It was great.  When I asked her what she was doing in this picture she immediately said "I'm going over the rocks."  Such a smart little girl!!!
2. We went for a walk to the library.  As we walked we went through a tunnel (it was an open ended storage facility), over a bridge, over railroad tracks, across the street, around a puddle, under a tree, and back to a car we had passed.  Chase made me so proud when he said 'Mommy, you came back to the stroller."  The kids LOVED this activity.  I know I will be finding other opportunities to have vocabulary walks in the future!!!

Comprehension

Comprehension occurs as children start to put everything together.  As parents and teachers our job is to aide our children in this process through building comprehension skills: predicting or prior knowledge, answering and forming questions, thinking aloud about reading, visualizing, using graphic organizers to create visual representations, and summarizing.  You begin to teach these skills to children the moment you read them their first story book. 

1. After reading Rosie's Walk I asked the children who, what, when, where, why questions.  This helps with recall, and allowed me to assess their comprehension of the story.  I was surprised how Emma struggled answering these questions.  This will definitely be a skill we will continue to work on.
2. Use picture cues to retell the story.  I love how I was able to turn the page and the kids would tell me the story in their own words.

References

Cowen, J.E. (2003). A Balanced Approach to Beginning Reading Instruction. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association, Inc.

Yopp, H.K., and Yopp, R.H. (2000).  Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom.  The Reading Teacher.  

Edited 6/28/2012