Value Bookshop's Reading Notes

A few days ago, I was using a workbook to teach my son.  The lesson was on animals and he had to learn the animal names in Bahasa Malaysia. It seemed such a waste to throw away the book after he was done. So, I had this idea on how I could recycle his workbook.

I cut out the pictures and pasted them on a blank card. Well, I got my son to do the gluing, so I got him involved too. Then I wrote the names of the animals on another set of cards.

There are a few “games” that we can play using these cards to help him learn his vocabulary.

• Memory game:  Turn them all over. Opening 2 cards at a time, he has to find the matching cards.
• Matching game: I show him the picture, and he has to show me the matching word.
• Snap: He holds the picture cards, I hold the word cards. Together, we open one card at a time. If they match, you have to slap your hand over the cards and yell “SNAP”.

By cutting the pictures out, he gets to do this lesson over and over again until he gets it (or until he is bored of it). You won’t get this kind of repetitive learning with just the workbook.

So, if you have preschool workbooks lying in your house, be creative and find ways to recycle them and make learning more fun for your children.

I like to use phonics when it comes to teaching my children to read and write. There is one book that has helped a lot and that is READING REFLEX: THE FOOLPROOF PHONO-GRAPHIX METHOD FOR TEACHING YOUR CHILD TO READ

It is not exactly phonics. There are some differences. The correct term for it would be Phono-Graphix. For example, they don’t encourage teaching letter names, just the sounds. This is to make it less confusing on the children. They also emphasize that you do not ask “what sound does this letter make?”, instead you ask “what does the sound picture represent?” (Because letters don’t make any sounds. Cows, dogs, cats and other animals do, but not letters.)

Well, that is just one of their ideas about teaching reading to children.

The book is actually a manual. I just follow their methods and their steps. It works.

The picture above is a lesson I did with my son. It helps train his auditory processing skills. The goal is to help him understand how he can manipulate sounds to create and change words. This is how the lesson went:

• First, I wrote the different alphabets onto individual cards.
• Then I called out the word “rug”. He had to select the letters for that word and then spell it out by putting them in the right order.
• I would then call out the next word “bug”. As you can see, all it takes is to replace the first sound from /r/ to /b/.
• After “bug”, the next word is “dug”.
• And so we go through the list of words until the end. Each time, only one sound needs to be manipulated. It could be either the beginning, middle or ending sound.

I took the lesson one step further. I had my son write down the words that he spelled. We are working on his writing skills you see. He wrote them all down without complaining. He enjoyed the activity and was happy he could do it. (Oh, forgot to mention that my son is 4 years old).

Well, I hope this gives you an idea on one activity you can do to teach your child to read and write. If you are looking for a good way to teach your children to read, give Phono-Graphix a try.

p.s. Learn more on Phono-Graphix at their site: Read America!

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I did this activity today with my 4 year old son. He liked it and so I’ve made a video to show you what it is.

This activity helps reinforce the learning of positions and directions such as above, below, next to, left, right etc….

How To Do

• Find a box that you can recycle.
• Make it look like a building with windows. You can either cut out the windows or stick on flaps.
• Decide how many floors you want for your box building and how many windows
• On a separate piece of paper, I drew animals. Then I cut them and taped them behind the “windows”.
• I then made up a list of directions to help my son find what animals were behind which windows.

Tips

• You don’t have to use animals. You could have your child find family members and friends. Another idea is to use country names. You could say something like “the boy from Australia lives on the highest floor”. It is up to your creativity.
• If you want them to learn how to read, you could include words below your drawings.

I hope you find this activity helpful. If you like it, leave a comment, tweet this, share it on your FB, digg it or stumble it.

ClickN READ Phonics has been used successfully in more than 2000 schools nationwide and has become an invaluable resource for home school students, ESL adult students, autistic and dyslexic children, as well as international students in more than 120 countries
Now they have ClickN SPELL. It teaches children how to become proficient spellers on their own, at their own pace and having fun too. Check out this online kids spelling software that is ideal for struggling spellers.

What Are Unit Studies?

Unit studies are also known as thematic studies. What you do is choose a topic that your children are interested in and then integrate science, social studies, math, language arts and other relevant subjects to it.

So here’s an example of a unit study on insects:

• Maths: There are 5 spiders. Each have 8 legs. How many legs are there in total?
• Science: How do spiders spin their web? How many types of beetles are they in the world?
• Art: Do a butterfly craft or painting
• Language arts: Reading, comprehension, grammar, writing skills, spelling
• Music: Nursery rhymes such as Eensy Weensy Spider, Ladybug, The Caterpillar Song etc….

Tips On How To Use Unit Studies

• How long you should stay on one unit study depends on the interest of your children. If you see their interest waning, it is time to move on to something else. It also depends on how broad is the topic. Some homeschoolers spend an entire month on a unit study. Some topics may only take a week.
• Observe what your children are interested in. Their interest could be born from television, books, magazines, something they observed or even a conversation. Let your children decide on the topic they want to learn. The more interested they are to explore that topic, the easier the learning and the more they will gain.
• Know how your children learn best. Are they visual learners? In that case, include visual learning materials such as pictures, slide show, videos, books and museum visits. If they prefer hands-on learning, include board games, experiments, cooking and art projects. Make learning fun, don’t just feed them tons of paperwork. Go on field trips occasionally.

Benefits of Unit Studies

• If you have children of different ages, you can use one topic but cater the lesson to the different levels. Since everyone is essentially learning the same thing, it makes planning and teaching easier. Plus, younger children can learn from the older ones.
• This type of learning allows children to have an deep understanding on the topic. Their level of retention and mastery is high.
• They are motivated by their interest. You don’t have to “force” them to learn.
• Children can learn at their own pace. There is no time limit on their learning. They can take their time to experiment, discover and digest the topic.

You can put together your own unit study. However, it will require a considerable amount of your time to research and find the materials. There are tons of homeschool unit studies conveniently available.

Need an online reading program for your children? My 4 year old son has been using ClickN Read. He is now on lesson 23 and so far, he still likes doing using this phonics program. I don’t get any complains from him. The material is well laid out so I don’t have to think about lesson planning. I just see what the online lesson is about and then reinforce that learning offline.

ClickN Kids is always offering discounts. For this month of March, the following is the coupon code and link:

Kids Love to Learn at ClickN KIDS. Save $5 on ClickN READ and ClickN SPELL Code: CLICKN5 exp. 3/31/11

A while back, I wrote a brief description about how I combined some offline phonic exercises with ClickN Read. Click here to read about it: Teaching children to read with phonics.

Click here for up to date coupon codes and a detailed review of ClickN READ phonics.