Course Sample

This sample gives you an understanding of how down-to-earth and teacher-friendly our courses are. There are nine lessons in this valuable course.

Like you, we are teachers who work in today's classrooms with today's children. We know you want to courses that will help you deal with day-to-day classroom issues. That's exactly what we have to offer today's busy teachers.

Thank you for taking time to review this material. Barbara & Sue.

Systematic Activities to Boost Reading Achievement (Grade K-4)

What is ahead in this lesson?

This lesson has a wealth of ideas for reading together in kindergarten through third grade. Reading together gives teachers opportunities to teach skills in context. And, it's a confidence-building activity for children. Reading together is a favorite reading activity for many children.

Introduction

Reading to children is the most important thing parents can do to help their children be successful readers. Do your best to help parents understand that they should continue to read to children even after children are reading independently. Encourage parents to substitute family reading time for some of the time spent watching television.

Everyone has four vocabularies: listening, speaking, reading and writing. When children have rich language development, they have large listening and speaking vocabularies. Those children become skillful readers and writers. One vocabulary builds on another—we say words that come from our listening vocabulary. The easiest words to read are words that are already in our speaking vocabularies. And, the words we write are words we can read. Children who read well also write well.

Whole Group Reading, Writing and Oral Language Activities

Benefits of Large Group Activities

Reading together as a group is beneficial in many ways.

When the whole class works together, it bonds the class.
Reading and rereading builds fluency.
Children enjoy reading with others.
Everyone participates when the group reads aloud together.
Reading aloud with others helps children read expressively.

Materials for Reading Together

There are many kinds of materials you can use for reading together.

Use a bold marking pen to print on a teacher-made chart.
Buy commercial charts with large, bold print.
Use a big book and matching mini-books if available.
Give each child a copy of the poem or sentences.
Write poems or sentences on the board.

If you have individual copies of a poem for each child, hold them until you have all worked together on the poem using a chart or the board. Then, everyone will be focused on the chart. After you have completed the activity, give each child a copy and read the poem aloud in unison one more time. If you are using poems and nursery rhymes, children can have folders in which they save the poems. When they compile a collection of poems in the folders, the class can make poetry booklets. Children can arrange the poems in a sequence they prefer and illustrate some of the poems. Keep the poetry booklets at school. They are perfect as independent reading activities.

Buy an inexpensive magnetic photo album to use as a class poetry album. Each time you give children a copy of a poem, place a copy in the class album. Keep the poetry album in your classroom library.

Teach Skills in Context during Group Reading Activities

Seize opportunities to teach skills in context during group reading activities.

Lessons on capitalization, punctuation, compound words, plurals, word families, contractions, and rhyming words can be integrated into group reading activities.

When you want children to focus on a particular line of the poem, clip a blank chart over the poem to cover the other lines. If you want to teach a poem over a period of days, cover up the parts you are not ready to use with a chart or sentence strips. Use clothespins as clips!

Here's a handy tip. Place a piece of clear plastic over each chart (just clip it on with clothespins) so you can write on the plastic overlay without marking on the chart.

Consider using a worksheet as a follow-up activity to provide skills practice and review.

Enjoying Poems and Nursery Rhymes Together

Monday to Friday Poetry is an activity children enjoy. It involves selecting a poem or nursery rhyme and writing a line or two a day on a chart. If the poem has 5 lines, you can write a line a day. If it has eight lines, write one or two lines each day so on Friday you are adding the last line or two to the poem. Gather your class in a group and have children watch as you print the title and first line or two of the poem. Say the words as you write them. Then, read the lines aloud pointing at the words as you read. Then, have the class read aloud in unison. The next day, reread the chart aloud with the class. Then, have children watch you write the next line or two of the poem on the chart. Read aloud and then have children reread aloud in unison. Do this each day. By the end of the week, you'll be reading the entire poem aloud. If you do a different poem each week, you'll end up with a whole collection of poems on charts that children can read. Post them around the classroom or fasten them with binder rings into a Big Book of Poems.

Consider using nursery rhymes for this activity. It's amazing how many children are not familiar with nursery rhymes. Fill in this gap in their literacy with Monday to Friday Poetry. A book of jump rope rhymes can also provide a goldmine of fun rhymes to teach the class.

Add fun and interest when rereading with these ideas:

call on pairs of children to read lines aloud

divide the class into groups each reading different lines

read ......

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