Archives For preschool

Reading and writing go hand in hand!

Julie Haden —  : Jan 21, 2014 — 1 Comment

When learning letter sounds and identifying letter names, your child is also ready to add handwriting into the mix. Here are a few ways to do this:

  • Teach your child how to make letters that have similar curves. For example, c, o, a, d – since all have similar ways of being made. Start by mastering making lowercase letters first and then tackle the uppercase letters since your child will be writing primarily in lowercase letters.
  • Use an arrow as a marker for your child to demonstrate the direction in which to form the letters. As directionality becomes second hand, making additional letters will become easier for your child.

Zaner Bloser Manuscript Model 2010Zaner Bloser Manuscript Model – 2010 (A-Z and Numbers)

  • Have your child say the letter name and sound as they make each letter. This will help further reinforce that a letter has three components: a name, a sound and a way of making it. For example, c goes cah as your child writes the letter c.
  • Use tactile activities to help make practicing letter writing fun for your child. Some examples are forming letters with shaving cream on a cookie sheet or in sand on a sand tray, and tracing a letter that you write on very fine sandpaper.
  • Use small golf pencils to help encourage your child to use the correct pencil grip. Its small size will encourage your child to use the correct pincer grip which makes forming the letters so much easier and gives your child greater control over the pencil. It also will help your child more successfully maneuver their fork and spoon while eating, an added bonus!

These are a few ways to make letter formation part or your child’s reading learning too – letter name, sound, and formation go hand in hand!

What are some ways you encourage letter formation with your child?

In Blog , , ,
 permalink

Top five board books! The most chewed list for your early readers!

Julie Haden —  : Dec 18, 2013 — Leave a comment

Board books come to mind when I reflect on the beginning of my daughter reading. These books are important to your babies and toddlers because without your help they can choose and explore them in a very developmentally appropriate way. Appropriate because these books are sturdy, generally no more than ten pages, and can handle little hands’ roughhousing.

Here are my top five recommended board books for your child:

 1.)  Goodnight Moon Goodnight Moonby Margaret Wise Brown offers a great story that helps your child develop a good sleeping ritual. The story progresses as the mother bunny puts her baby bunny to sleep by saying goodnight together to everything in the bedroom. Its cadence and rhyming patterns provide great practice for these prerequisites to early reading.

bear hunt2.) We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury takes your child on a family adventure to find a bear. It plays on courage and allows you and your child to act out and pretend you are going on a bear hunt through sound effects and dramatic reenactment. Together you can swishy swashy through the tall grasses and splash through the water until you find the BEAR! (We’re not scared.)

3.) Five Little Ducks Five Little Ducksby Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey is an invitation to sing. As you read to your child, you may find yourself putting a tune to the words. Your child will begin to learn basic math skills – adding and subtracting to five as the mother duck looks for her ducklings as they leave one by one and then come back. You may hear your child recite the book back to you – a success at the beginning of becoming an independent early reader.

The Runaway Bunny4.)  The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown encourages your child to use her imagination to be anything she aspires to be. The story plays on the love between a mother bunny and her child. Additionally, Clement Hurd’s beautiful illustrations will challenge your child imagination as they look for the missing bunny in the pictures as he tries to run away from his mother.

5.). Barnyard Dance Barnyard Danceby Sandra Boyton will make you and your child dance with delight as you read the book that gives instructions like “stomp your feet” and “clap your hands.” All the dancers in the book are barnyard animals, so your child can bounce with the bunny and strut with the duck.

These books are short with great attention getters to keep your child engaged, motivated and asking you to read them again and again – all preliminaries to early reading. You just might find that one of our most chewed board books becomes your child’s favorite.

Please let us all know some favorite board book your child loves reading again and again.

In Blog , ,
 permalink

Toy trends can benefit your early reader!

Julie Haden —  : Dec 10, 2013 — Leave a comment

A recent article points to toy trends that can benefit your child, and confirm that roadmap2reading apps are on the right track.

Trend – gender neutral games. Your child has the freedom to explore without the usual themes of princesses for your girl or trucks for your son. Our games are like taking a trip to the beach or into the forest, and will appeal to your child regardless of their gender.

Trend – games for young preschoolers. We have designed our apps to help your two year old successfully navigate, as they get ready to read. They allow you as the parent to collect data on your child’s progress and for your child to feel successful and have fun while learning to read. Also, an adjustable recommended time limit of 30 minutes helps you keep track of how long your child has been playing.

Trend – games with instant gratification. Your child may be accustom to receiving instant gratification when playing games. While playing our games, instant gratification includes your child adding treasures to their treasure box just for playing. In addition, our games provide positive motivators throughout to encourage learning even if your child misses an answer. Instead, our games redirect your child in a way that is constructive and positive.

Our apps recognize the changing trends for toys that your children play – qualities that they will experience while playing our apps. Your child as young as two, whether boy or girl, will enjoy escaping to a world of reading that is fun, engaging, and motivating.

Click here for an informative article about toy trends: toy trends link

Which games does your child play that are gender neutral and for young preschoolers?

In Blog , ,
 permalink

The power of your expectations! Motivating your early reader.

Julie Haden —  : Nov 11, 2013 — Leave a comment

Knowing what motivates your child is important to cultivating an early reader. As a teacher, I am aware of what motivates my students and have a clear outcome in mind. Especially when my preschoolers are learning to read, I am aware of what engages them and what does not, because the end goal is clear – reading enjoyment!

What motivates your child? Is it a toy, a sweet treat or a visit to their favorite fast-food restaurant? As parents, we often forget just how our words, action, and gestures influence our children. It is especially easy to forget this when tired or rushed. However ultimately, your clear and high expectations will motivate your early reader. When you have a clear goal for your child to succeed, you are inherently building your child’s self-esteem. In the end, your belief motivates your child’s good decision-making and choices.

Dr. Angela Duckworth

Dr. Angela Duckworth gives a TED Talk about grit. Click her photo to link to her talk.

Your high expectations help foster your child’s academic achievement and motivation. Research supports this view. Dr. Angela Duckworth studied motivation, and its measurement. She studied kids and adults – including teachers working with students in tough neighborhoods. She found that students with passion and perseverance where most likely to finish the school year. In short, they found that these kids had grit. Grittier kids were more likely to graduate, regardless of IQ or family background. How do we build grit? Building your child’s self-esteem and setting clear expectations builds grit.

“Grit is the tendency to sustain interest in, and effort toward a very long-term goal. It often correlates with self-control.” – Dr. Angela Duckworth

You know this. I know this. However, so much of society is antithetical to making our children gritty. Opportunities and rewards seem to come without effort in the world around us. Many games and TV shows make it seem that success comes easily and deal with mistakes negatively – not as learning opportunities.

roadmap2reading games motivate and provide positive feedback through data that is clear to you and your child. For example, when your child learns a letter sound, the letter begins to glow and fireworks go off. Your child’s play receives intermittent rewards for her hard work and persistence. She keeps her rewards in her treasure box. Intermittent rewards in our games are like a rewards card from your favorite store. You get a reward just because you frequent their establishment and purchase their products. This is very motivating because you get a payoff for just showing up. We want your child to learn, have fun, and be motivated to play. The payoff is huge – your young child learns to read, which leads to her self-esteem and success!

What activities capture and motivate your child’s sustained attention?

In Blog , ,
 permalink

Your early reader at home

Julie Haden —  : Nov 8, 2013 — Leave a comment

Your home is your child’s learning environment. So what might the environment of your early reader look like?

Books will become a huge part of your child’s learning environment. As your child becomes an early reader, she will delight in a bedroom that holds many books in shelves, and a comfortable bed, table and chair for reading. A reading light over your child’s bed that is dim enough to sooth, but not too bright, will help support their likely wish to read before nodding off. As your child becomes a more proficient reader, she will likely to return to favorite books. She may be almost 8 years old and still look back at board books in between venturing into Harry Potter or an encyclopedia of North American frogs. Books become friends to your early reader who may want to keep many of her books – so consider more bookshelves. Of course, toys and clothing are in your early reader’s room too but hidden in bins to free her of distracting clutter.

Bella room

Distractions can influence your child becoming an early reader who is motivated to learn as much as possible. Screen time can become a major distraction. If you have TV, consider keeping it behind cabinet doors and on only in the evening after bedtime. Consider limiting your child’s time on the iPad, too. Interestingly enough, you may find your child will want to craft or pursue other creative outlets instead of iPad time. The key point is that your early reader’s environment is set up so that reading is what he wants to do, because other distractions like TV and the computer are a controlled privilege.

Clutter can be another distraction. Consider keeping your child’s toys in her room in containers. Fewer toys can foster creativity. Contrary to what some might think, more “stuff” does not necessarily lead to a happier, smarter child. Instead, more seems to lead to a child who is only satisfied with the latest toy.

Cultivating imagination and creativity can help cultivate your child’s interest in early reading. Creative play that encourages imagination can help motivate him to become an early reader. To foster your child’s imagination and creativity, focus on providing materials and places inside your home dedicated to your child learning. Elsewhere in your home where you and your child frequent, consider providing an easeBella sewingl and stocking a craft cabinet. Supply obvious things like glue, crayons, and paper to the less obvious like recycled clothes, tape, cardboard tubes and boxes. You will find your child may choose to create if they are not far from the action in your home with less screen time and clutter. Once your early reader is comfortable in their learning environment that you create, and wants to learn to do something, like sewing or building a model rocket, he will read about it first and then give it a go. Free of screen time distractions and clutter, he will find entertainment in what is available in the current environment rather than wanting new toys or more time on the computer.

If possible, a backyard or other outdoor space can benefit your early reader. It doesn’t have to be big – but it should be secure and private. Ideally, it is fenced in and private enough your child can easily explore and play without your constant attention. A sandbox is a favorite areMud Pies.indda where your imaginative one can make cakes for backyard fairies  or pursue a career as a famous scientist. A garden is another favorite for learning the names of various herbs and plants, which become material for creations or samples for the microscope. A birdfeeder too is an endless source of inspiration for research, drawing and storytelling. Again, only a few toys hidden in containers – mostly tools for creating, exploring and moving the body.

Regardless of where you live, your early reader is most likely to thrive in an uncluttered environment where easily accessible books are the main entertainment and screen time is limited and tied to privilege – where toys fulfill needs rather than to satisfy wants and are a special treat.

What is your early reader’s home environment? How do you cultivate early reading?

In Blog , , ,
 permalink

The early reader’s advantage!

Julie Haden —  : Oct 8, 2013 — Leave a comment

Many people ask me, “Why is it important for a child to be reading at an early age?” I answer:

  1. Choice motivates early readers and reading opens the world of choices. Yes, reading to your child is a great way to start. the blue marble - Earth seen from Apollo 17Even before they can read independently, they can tell you what they want you to read to them. When they start to read independently, they can choose the words to ask about. As they become more proficient, they begin to decide what they want to learn. Their advantage is that they can learn about subjects you may have never thought to teach – motivating them to want to learn more by reading more.
  2. Early readers develop interests and expertise in subject areas because they can read advanced texts independently – unlike children who start reading in kindergarten. My daughter is a nonfiction buff – particularly in the area of animals. Because she started reading at two, she was able to read adult texts when she was four. She excels in the areas of science and social studies due to this backlog of information that she learned when she was much younger. In a nutshell, that expertise “effect” makes early readers very motivated to read and take in as much information as possible.
  3. Reading early is a great way for a child to build their vocabulary. Once in elementary school, early readers have a wider range of vocabulary and ideas which makes learning more complicated texts – like nonfiction – much easier for them because of their advanced vocabulary skills.
  4. Early readers are confident and successful. You may have noticed that school has gotten more academic in nature. No longer do we have half days or nap time in kindergarten. Our children are expected to be ready to go once they enter kindergarten. If they are not ready to read, they get left behind quickly. Children who come to kindergarten with a strong reading foundation or who are already reading independently can keep up with the quick pace of the curriculum. They tend to be confident and secure about their abilities in school. This leads to greater enjoyment and overall motivation within the classroom environment.

When I track the kids I have taught and my daughter’s progress, I see success continue throughout their school experiences. Children who are successful in school go on to take that success through their lives and help to make the world a better place.

I would love to hear your views of the advantages of being an early reader! How has early reading helped your child or a child you know?

In Blog , , ,
 permalink