Whether your kids are being homeschooled or not, you should sit down to educate your children. My children go to school but I know what they are learning there do not fuel their love for learning. The problem is I sometimes wonder “What should I teach them?” Are you like me? There are so many things that we can teach our children, it is difficult to know where to start or what to choose.
Well, as you know, the internet is a great resource. I found a site that has lesson plan ideas from grades K-12. The site is by Scholastic. Go to their homepage and you’ll find a button for teaching resources. Great stuff there. I also like the “top news” section they have. For example, currently there is the Icelandic volcanic ash issue. Did you tell your children about it? you can actually branch off to learning about volcanoes.

I’m going to browse through that site some more. Hopefully my children will be as excited to learn about these stuff as I am. Here is the website’s link: Scholastic’s Teaching Resource

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Introduce to your children the countries of the world with this song.

The New Year is fast approaching. Maybe one of your goals is to help your young children learn to spell or to improve their spelling.

With my kids, I used both the phonics and whole word approach. I laminated the different alphabets so they could put them together to make words. I thought them how to listen to the different sounds in a word. Of course I started out with very simple words like cat, bat, sun, hit, hot etc…. I also would use their guided reading books and dictate sentences from there. This was more fun for them because it was like writing a story. Sometimes I would create funny sentences for them to spell. I also would write new words like a flash card and stick them on the wall. I would have them read the words 2-3 times in a day. This are just some of the things I did to teach my children to spell.

Children learn best when learning is fun. You can inject some fun into your child’s learning by using ClickN SPELL. It uses the highly effective method of Copy Cover Compare (CCC) approach to learning spelling. Animation and the game like learning makes it fun for young children. Click the following affiliate link for more information: ClickN SPELL

Here is a hilarious video on why spelling is important. You may need it to save a life one day

Do you want your children to succeed in school? Then work on developing their reading skills. You should instill the love of reading in children when they are still young. Yes, you can start even when they are still babies. Here are a few tips on how you can help your children become better readers.

• Read aloud to them everyday. Reading sessions don’t have to be very long. 15 minutes will also help them.
• Build a home library. Have a collection of different kinds of printed materials such as board books, lift-the-flaps, picture books, fiction, non-fiction, magazines and coloring books that have stories.
• Keep the reading sessions lighthearted and full of praises. Don’t get frustrated or scold. Your bad emotions will rub off on them. Be positive and they will also have a positive attitude towards reading.
• When you are out with your children and have time to kill like waiting at the doctor’s or at the bank, give them a book to occupy their time instead of a toy.
• Point to the words as you read. This will indirectly teach them about correct reading methods. It also helps them to focus.
• Most of the time children will have a favorite book or books. They’ll want you to read it over and over again. I know it is boring for you to read the same book repeatedly. However, by doing so, you are building their fluency.
• Don’t just read monotonously. Vary your voice. Children love it when you use different voices for different characters. Use facial expressions to match the story too.
• Take time to ask questions. Not too many questions though. It is not a quiz or a time of testing.

I know of a place where you can buy children’s books at a good bargain. Click here: CHEAP CHILDREN BOOKS

You can also help build your children’s reading skills with phonics. Click here to LEARN PHONICS ONLINE.

Why Phonics Is The Key To Strong Reading Skills
By Rich Daniels

To date, over 180 research studies have confirmed that phonics is the best way to teach children how to read. Unfortunately, 80% of our nations schools do not use an intensified phonics approach for reading instruction.

They use a whole word approach (see and say) or a combination of phonics and whole word.

While children can learn using the whole word method, it is not the best or most efficient way to learn how to read. The whole word method teaches reading through memorization and guessing.

Unlike the Japanese and Chinese languages which are picture based, the English language is phonetic. There are only 44 sounds while there are about 1 million words in English.

These facts readily explain why having to memorize 44 sounds as opposed to memorizing hundreds of thousands of words is the most efficient way to learn to read.

Reading and writing is simply talking on paper. When children learn to talk, they do so by imitating sounds. They then combine the sounds to form words.

The brain is programmed to learn language in this fashion. Therefore, the most efficient way to learn to read is through phonics because it teaches children to read the same way they learned to talk.

A two decades study on the best way to learn how to read, funded by the National Institute of Health, discovered that the three important aspects of reading – identifying letters, identifying sounds associated with the letters, and reaching for meaning of the written word – are each accomplished by different parts of the brain.

A three-part plan that incorporates this information to guide you as you help your child learn to read.

- Part 1: Phonemic awareness, or learning the individual sounds that constitute a language, for example, “kuh” as the sound of “c”.

- Part 2: Phonics, or the letter-sound relationships available in the language, for example, “kuh—aah—tuh” sounds out “cat”.

- Part 3: Exposure to meaning of the written word through reading and being read to, for example, “kuh—aah—tuh” sounds out “cat” which is “a furry mammal that purrs”.

These elements should be used as building blocks, each necessary to support the next. With phonemic awareness as the first block, a child can begin to puzzle out words in books.

With the help of a parent or sibling by his side he’ll begin to have the answers to questions he will soon begin to ask.

Now is the time to point out important clues, such as how letter sounds blend, how an “e” at the end of a word changes a vowel sound from short to long, how some consonants have more than one sound.

Discuss lower and upper case letters. Point out the eighteen frequently used words best learned by sight. And remember to keep reading to your child to include exposure to meaning, the all important part 3.

What does your child need in order to read well?

You need to provide 4 things to your child, preferably at an early age, to build a proper reading foundation:

1. Phonics information and the ability to manipulate the sounds that make up spoken language.

2. Phonics skills and the understanding that there are relationships between letters and sounds.

3. The ability to read fluently with accuracy, speed, and expression.

4. To apply reading comprehension strategies to enhance understanding and enjoyment of what they read.

There are many commercial reading programs available that combines whole word and phonics based principles. Whatever reading program you decide to use, make sure that it’s recommended by parents and teachers, find out how long the program has been on the market and verify it’s success rate.

how to choose a reading program

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rich_Daniels
http://EzineArticles.com/?Why-Phonics-Is-The-Key-To-Strong-Reading-Skills&id=57310

LEARN PHONICS ONLINE
ClickN READ Phonics is an award winning phonics program. Based on scientific research, it effectively teaches your children to read using fun animation. Kids love it coz’ learning becomes a game.
Click here to discover more about ClickN READ phonics program.

Phonics Bingo Games

Author: Sunil Tanna

Phonics is a very popular method of teaching children to read and write. It is based on the idea that particular letters or groups of letters can be associated with a particular sound. Teachers use a variety of teaching techniques, and classroom activities to teach children these phonics rules – typical classroom activities include flash cards, reading and writing games, and group activities. One particular classroom activity that is especially suitable for teaching phonics is phonics bingo.

All versions of phonics bingo are based on the same general principle: Each child is given a bingo card or worksheet, the teacher or parent reads out words or clues as bingo calls, and the children mark off squares from their cards which correspond to the bingo calls. The winner is the first child to achieve a winning pattern (for example, a straight line of five marked off squares) on their bingo card and call out “bingo!”.

The most basic phonics bingo game is “phonemic awareness bingo”. In this case, the children’s bingo cards are printed with a random selection letters. The teacher calls out words, and children must try to identify the beginning sound of the letter, and find the matching square on their card. For example, if the teacher called out “apple”, the children would look for a bingo square containing the letter “a”.

As students progress, more advanced versions of phonics bingo can be introduced. In these, children have to recognize a word called out by the teacher on their card. Generally you might start with “CVC words” (words consisting of consonant, short vowel, then another consonant), and then gradually progress through more advanced phonics concepts, such as consonant and vowel digraphs, r-controlled vowel words, bossy E words, etc.

One additional variation that can be a lot of fun, and again is good practise for students learning to recognize word sounds, is rhyming bingo. In this version, the teacher calls out a word, and students look for rhymes on their bingo cards. For example, if the teacher called out “bat”, students could match a square which contain “cat”, “hat” or “mat”.

About the Author:

By S. Tanna. Discover more about phonics bingo and download free phonics bingo printables at http://www.phonicsbingo.com/

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Phonics Bingo Games

p.s. Click here for more phonics games ideas.