Today I gave my kids a fun break by playing hangman with them. It’s a great way to increase children’s vocabulary and also encourage spelling. The best part is, the kids don’t feel like its studying but it does contribute to their learning.
If you want to have a hangman break, try out this website: Hangman
I really like it.
You can select words in existing categories such as countries around the world, musical instruments or cartoon characters. (I did better at cartoon characters than my kids, what does that say about me? hahahaha)
You can make your own list of words. I got my kids to make a list of animals. They had to think of the animals and figure out how to spell them. Then they played the game they created. They enjoyed doing that.
You can play 2 players. One person keys in the word, the other have to guess it. Just make sure the other person doesn’t cheat by peeking when you are keying in your word. PLUS, make sure it is a legit word. My 4 year old was keying words like “hygthd”.
The music is not that irritating either. You can turn it off if you want.
Anyway, it was a fun activity for us and the kids want to play again. Thought I’d let you in on a fun, educational game you could play together.
ClickN READ Phonics and ClickN SPELL online learning programs have everything you need to teach reading and spelling guaranteed or your money back.
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My 3 year old son is using this program and loves it. Why don’t you give it a try too.
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When you’re on the computer and your kid comes to you asking for some attention, why don’t you plop him/her on your lap and open up to the following website and read a short story. Reading to your children doesn’t have to take long. If you are very busy, you can still squeeze in 5-10 minutes of reading. Reading aloud is one of the best ways to teach children to read.
Since my son D1 had no problem with ClickN Read Phonics lesson 3 & 4, we moved on to lesson 5. He was very enthusiastic to start his lesson. Probably because he successfully completed the last 2 lessons and that gave him confidence. In lesson 5, he still had opportunities to practice listening and identifying the letters A, M, S and T. However, 2 more letters were added: C and D. Still no problems for my son. He breezed through the lesson. Ermm… okay, maybe he still needs more practice with blending sounds.
Like before, after finishing 1 lesson, my son asked to do another lesson. So we continued to lesson 6. Still on A,M,S,T,C and D. But looking at his report, he seemed to have done better this time round. A sign of improvement I guess.
Then ClickN Read Phonics is a wonderful tool to teach reading to kindergarten children. If you would like your children to try out ClickN Read Phonics, you can do so for free. Just click the affiliate banner below:
Just so you know, how I teach my son to read is not just confined to using this online software. I do other reading activities too. For example, one of the words introduced by the software is “at”. So I did a quick activity where I put different beginning sounds in front of the word “at”. First of all I wrote down the word “at” on a whiteboard (for some reason, my kids all love to use the whiteboard). Then I wrote the letter “c” in front to form the word “cat”. I would make the individual sounds /c/ /a/ /t/, then blend it for my son to hear. I had him repeat after me too. I went through a few words such as “fat”, “rat”, “mat”, “pat”, “bat” and “sat”. After which I listed down all the beginning sounds on the left side of the board. On the right side of the board I had the word “at” with a blank in front.
___ at
As I called out a word, I had my son point to the correct beginning sound. So if I said “rat”, he had to point to the letter “r”.
Here’s another reading activity we did. This one is to build up his phonemic awareness. We went out to run some errands yesterday. In the car, I played a simple game to help him learn rhyming words. I would say 2 words, and if he thought it rhymed, he had to clap his hands. Before this, I haven’t really done much to help him identify rhyming words. He was doing a lot of guessing. We’ll definitely need to do more of this.
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Well, there are lots of people writing reviews online. But how do you know if what they’re saying is trustworthy? There is no guarantee that they’ve used the products or services themselves. So why should you trust them?
I don’t want to be one of those people. So, I’ve decided to let you follow along as I teach my 3 year old son (soon to be 4) how to read using this online reading program. I’m inviting you to take a peek at how I teach my child to read. Then you can decide for yourself, if your children can also benefit from this reading software.
Let me first give you a little background about my son’s reading ability. He knows all the alphabets and their corresponding sounds. He also knows quite a number of words by sight. We did 80 words from the Dolch list. But I’m sure he knows more words than that as he will take some of his favorite books and read them by himself.
I tried starting him on ClickN Read Phonics a few months back. I didn’t continue as I realized he still couldn’t blend words. To develop this ability, I played the “can you guess what I’m saying” game. I would stretch out simple words like “cat” and “mop” and he would try to guess what I’m saying. For example, I would say “mmmmm ooooooooo p” for the word “mop”. I also used alphabet cards to let him see how to put a word together. For example, I would lay out the alphabet cards m-o-p to make the word. I would point to the individual letters and say the corresponding sounds. Then I would blend it for him to hear. After which I would mix the cards up and ask him arrange it back to form the word. Sometimes I would put a whole bunch of alphabet cards on the table. I would say a word and he would have to pick from the pile the correct alphabets and arrange them in the right order to form the word.
So today, we started with ClickN Read Phonics again. Since he already knows all the sounds of the alphabet, I started him on lesson 3. There are 5 parts to the lesson.
He had to listen to the sound and the click the corresponding alphabet.
He had to listen to the sound then find on the keyboard the corresponding alphabet.
He was tested on beginning sounds. He was shown 6 words and he had to choose the right word that had the specified beginning sound.
He had to listen to sounds being blended into words. Then he had to click on the right word.
Reading practice. He was shown a sentence and he had to read along with the doggy instructor.
At the end, this is his individual lesson report.
As you can see, the report shows what he knows, what he’s not sure of and what he needs practice in. I can see he has progressed from a few months ago. At least now he is able to do the exercises. He can now blend words. Not perfectly yet, but at least he knows how. As you can see, the focus in lesson 3 is on the letters A, M, S and T.
I asked him if he wanted to stop and he said he wanted to do some more. So we went on to lesson 4. Not much different from lesson 3. Still on the same letters and sounds. I guess it’s a good reinforcement for the previous lesson. In the end, this is his report for lesson 4.
To tell you the truth, I was a bit occupied with the baby when he did lesson 4. But he managed to get through it by himself. It’s good there is a report at the end. At least I know how he performed. Not bad.
Okay, so that is the first peek at my son learning how to read. Stay tuned for more.
p.s. Did you know you can try ClickN Read lessons for free? Just click on the banner below. And if you are interested, save $10 off your order today with coupon code: CNKB2S10 exp. 10/31/10
Children learn quickly when learning is enjoyable. Using games is a way to make learning fun. Here is an idea on how to make it fun for your children to learn to read high frequency words: Use the memory game. Some people call it the concentration game or matching game.
How to do it?
Select the words that you want your children to learn by sight. Write them on individual index cards. Make sure each word is written on 2 different cards. So if you have a list of 10 words, you should have 20 cards. Shuffle them around and lay them out face down on a table or floor. Have your child open one card and read the word. Then open another card and read that word. If the word is the same, your child keeps the matching pair of words. If not, the two cards must be flipped back facing down again.
It’s more fun to play when there are 2 players or more. So if your child has no other children to play with, why don’t you join in the game. Each person takes a turn. The one who finds a match gets to go again.
Tips
If your children are very young or don’t have a very long attention span, don’t use too many words. Maybe start with 8-10 cards and then slowly increase when they get better.
If you sign up for my free e-course “Teaching Your Children To Read and Spell”, you will receive a teaching toolkit which includes a list of Dolch words (high frequency words). You don’t have to go to the internet to do anymore searching. I’ve got it ready for you to print out.
Just fill in the form below to receive the free e-course that will run for 8 days.
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