Literacy Update

We are continuing to work towards meeting the writing goals we set for ourselves this year as part of our School Development Plan. Before Christmas we collected a writing sample from each student in the school and the classroom teachers analyzed the sample. We gathered 3 samples throughout the year and in fact the second sample was collected on Monday. The process has been rewarding for the teachers as the analysis of the samples gives them valuable information about each students skill level which  improves instruction in the class by focusing on the individual components of the writing process. We will keep you updated on our progress. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact your child’s teacher or myself.

Ross,

LITERACY BITS FOR PARENTS:

Introducing a New Book

Taking the time to introduce a new book to your child will pave the way for more success in reading and understanding the book. This is true for books that your child is reading or books that you are reading to him or her.

• Encourage your child to look first at the front and back covers of the book.

• Check out any author’s notes or a table of contents

• Let your child have a quick look at any pictures or diagrams.

• Discuss any connections that can be made between family happenings, life experiences or other books you have shared.

Creating Ideas for Writing

Your child may do most of his or her writing in the classroom but their ideas will come from their life experiences.

• Share recreational, social and cultural activities with your child.

• Share vacations or short visits to points of interest with your child.

• Share celebrations with your child.

• Share lots of books together and talk about where the author got his or her ideas.

• Ask questions that encourage your child to talk about his or her ideas and observations.

To attempt an unfamiliar word in reading, your child has to think of a word that would make sense, sound right and look right in the sentence.

• Pre-read your child’s book and determine what might be challenging words. Include those words in your conversation about the book before your child starts reading.

• Resist the temptation to point to the word in the book before your child has the opportunity to problem-solve.

• Remind your child to check the pictures for information.

• Ask your child to reread the sentence and think about a word that would make sense, sound right and /or look right.

• Ask your child to look for a part in the word that they know, e.g.‘ing’ in swing.

• If your child is beyond the beginning stages of reading, ask him or her to read to the end of the sentence to find more information that might help.

• If your child has attempted the word without success, praise their efforts and say the word.

• Make sure your child knows the meaning of the word that has caused the difficulty.

Establishing a Homework Routine

Homework is meant to develop independence and to reinforce skills that are being taught in the classroom.

• Provide an uncluttered area that is free of as many distractions as possible.

• Make sure that the tools needed are within easy reach, e.g., a dictionary, erasers, sharp pencils.

• Work out a regular time for homework that works for your child and your family’s schedule.

• Be supportive with the understanding that assigned homework should be work that your child can do independently.

• If needed, consider incentives for completing homework within a certain time.

• Contact your child’s teacher as soon as possible if there are homework issues.

Oral language skills impact on school achievement and need to continue to develop throughout your child’s school life.

• Ask your child about her activities. If needed, continue to probe for more than a one word replies.

• Sharing books, watching movies and viewing sporting events are great opportunities to encourage your child to make predictions. Those predictions need to be supported with evidence.

• Encourage your child to give convincing arguments for common requests, e.g., Why do you think we should go to the beach today?

• Ask your child the directions to get to certain places, e.g., local park.

• Ask your child to describe an object, e.g., shoe, toy, building

• Reading books together gives multiple opportunities for verbal exchange, especially around clarifying thoughts and feelings.

• Listening to your child helps him or her to understand that his or her opinion is valued. It also teaches that he or she should listen to others when they are speaking.

To develop a love for reading, your child needs to learn to choose books that are ‘just right’ for him or her.

• Encourage your child to use the cover, back, table of contents, pictures, or other text features to decide if he or she would be interested in the book.

• Encourage your child to read the first two pages and ask themselves if they understand the book so far.

• Suggest to your child that if there are more than three words on a page that they don’t know, then it would be better for them to read it to an adult.

• Talk to your child about how you choose a book to read.

Learning to spell unfolds over time, very much like learning to speak. Successful spellers are developed with lots of meaningful writing experiences.

• Reserve an area of your home for writing activities with all tools within easy access.

• Discuss with your child some ideas or words that he or she may want to use in his or her writing project.

• When your child shares a piece of writing with you, always comment with praise and encouragement to the ideas that he or she is able to express.

• Spelling is often a concern for beginning writers. Focus on the many words that are spelled correctly rather than the few that might be misspelled.

• Praise your child for taking risks with unfamiliar or challenging words.

• Remember that corrections on your child’s piece of writing are usually taken as criticism.

The prime purpose of reading is to gain meaning from what we read. Conversations around books are essential for developing comprehension skills.

• Ask ‘why’ questions while you are reading a story with your child.

• Share comments like ‘ I wonder.... . I remember when.... as you read together.

• Encourage your child to predict what is going to happen in the book, on the next page or in the next chapter.

• Make connections to another book with similar ideas, characters or text features.

• Make connections to life experiences or people you know.

• Continue to share books long after your child is reading independently.

All the writing that your child does will be an expression of their ideas and talents. Only some of his or her writing will be meant to be read by other people. That is when he or she may need some adult help to make it look right and have a clear message.

• Encourage your child to reread his or her writing out loud to you.

• Comment first on the ideas that are in the writing or a good choice of words he or she has used.

• Ask questions about the writing content in the hope that your child might like to add more information or changes that they might want to make to his or her writing.

• Make sure that any suggestion you have is accompanied by a good reason.

• Resist the temptation to take over. Your child is the writer and should make the final decisions on any changes.

• Encourage your child’ s use of words that he or she has not mastered yet for spelling.

• Be positive! Too many corrections will be taken as criticism.

Successful readers are continuously building on the number of words they are able to read without hesitation.

• Welcome any opportunity for your child to reread familiar books from home or school.

• Using words from your child’s familiar books, play word games like Bingo, Go Fish, Concentration or Word Hunts to increase fast recognition of high frequency words, e.g., where, some, they.

• After reading a book with your child point to a few high frequency words and ask him or her to read them.

• Remember that your child can be a successful reader without mastering every word in isolation.

When you ask your child to tell you about the story he or she has just read, you are letting your child know that reading is much more than getting all the words correct.

• Ask your child to tell you what he or she remembers about the story or article that they have just read.

• If necessary, ask the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, why’, ‘when’ questions.

• Ask about how he or she felt about the events, characters or facts in the book.

• Encourage your child to make connections between the book and his or her life.

• Ask your child if he or she has learned anything new from the book.

Strong talkers usually develop into strong readers and writers.

• Share two way conversations with your child every day.

• Give your child the time he or she needs to express his or her ideas or observations.

• Watch a movie or read a book together and talk about what is or going to happen. Some discussion around interesting characters also leads to good conversation.

• Correct sentence structure by repeating what was said in the correct form without drawing attention to it, e.g., "I want go."/ "Oh, you want to go."

• Together explore new words encountered in your child’s daily life.

Your child’s reading can be supported at home by reading with your child every day. Like any good habit, it takes a conscious effort to establish a routine of reading regularly at home.

• Set aside a specific time and place for reading with your child. Be flexible with this time when family schedules demand flexibility.

• Free the reading area of as many distractions as possible.

• Assure that the reading area is comfortable and well lit.

• Stop reading before your child gets tired. It is best to stop any activity when it is still enjoyable.

Making Writing Purposeful

Meaningful purposes for writing will increase your child’s motivation to write.

• Encourage your child to write a letter or send an e-mail to relatives or friends.

• Send a letter, thank-you note or e-mail to your child.

• Encourage your child to share his or her writing accomplishment with someone special. The decision to share has to be the choice of your child.

• Share your writing with your child - memos, e-mails, letters, ‘to do’ lists, grocery lists.

• Post a written calendar of weekly commitments for all family members to use.

When your child’s reading sounds like talking, it is usually an indication that he or she is reading with understanding. Fluent readers read more in a given amount of time so it is only natural that his or her reading skills will improve at a faster rate.

• Model fluent reading whenever possible with appropriate expression and speed.

• Welcome the fact that your child’s teacher is sending home familiar books with your child so that the homework focus can be making the reading sound like talking. Rereading those books is essential for the development of fluent reading.

• Have fun with books by sharing character and narrative parts with your child and other family members.

• Praising your child’s attempts to read phrases or whole sentences in a smooth or fluent manner. Sometimes he or she may repeat a phrase immediately to make it sound right!

• If your child stumbles over a word in a sentence, ask him or her to put it all together to make it sound like talking.

• Provide books on tape or CD for listening to in the car or other convenient times.

• Expect even the very beginning readers to make his or her reading sound like talking.

Children learn the purpose and importance of reading from the literacy enriched home environment.

• Let your child see you reading some thing everyday - newspaper, magazine, recipes, novel, directions on packaged food, sale flyers, road signs, e-mails, menus, television guides or travel brochures. Research has proven that dad’s daily reading can make a positive impact of their son’s reading habits.

• Visit the local library or the book store together and make your individual choices for interesting reading materials.

• Study those written directions together as you assemble the latest family purchase, e.g. game, bike, barbeque.

• Share the daily newspaper cartoons, sport scores or pets for sale ads with your child.

Reading aloud is the foundation of support for your child in both reading and writing. The books that you read to your child will develop an enjoyment in reading, increase his or her reading and speaking vocabulary, and further develop his or her comprehension skills. Reading aloud also introduces ‘ book language’ that might be slightly different than the talk that your child is accustomed to hearing.

• Expose your child to quality picture books or novels that may be slightly too hard for him or her to read independently or books that may not be his or her first choice for reading independently.

• Share informational books with your child. Your child’s interests may lead him or her to books that are too hard for him or her to read independently.

• Stop a read aloud activity when it is still enjoyable. Don’t let your child get bored.

• Reread a page or two of a book you are sharing with your child over several days, so he or she can remember what is happening in the story.

• Accompany any read aloud with conversation before, during and after reading.

• Continue to read books to your child who is reading independently for as long as he or she enjoys the activity.

Asking your child questions about books he or she is reading demonstrates that you value reading as a preferred activity, much the same as the questions you ask about their social activities or sporting events. Conversation about books also increases understanding of the ideas presented and helps develop your child’s ability to express themselves.

The following questions could be helpful.

• Why did you choose this book?

• Can you tell me what the book is about?

• Is this book too hard, just right or too easy for you? How do you know?

• Are there any parts of the book that are confusing to you?

• What is your favorite part so far?

• Were there parts of the book that surprised you?

• Can you think of someone else who would like this book? Who? Why?

• Would you like to read another book by this same author? Why or why not?

• Does this book make you think of any other book you have read? Which one?

Reading Poetry

The repeated readings of familiar poems add greatly to a beginning readers understanding of how our English language works. Children love the rhyme and brevity of the stories in poetry.

• Ask your child’s teacher or the librarian for the names of popular poem collections.

• Invest in one or more well written poetry books available for children.

• Bring the poetry book off the shelf often. The more familiar the poem is to your child, the more he or she will enjoy it.

• Enjoy the humor in children’s poetry.

• Read poetry with expression to demonstrate the flow and rhythm of our language.

• Take advantage of the rhyming words of poetry to help develop an awareness of similar sounds in words.

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Newfoundland and Labrador Teacher’s Association, Literacy for Life..

Taylor Barbara M. and Dianne L. Monson. Reading Together. GoodYear Books, 1991.

Timmons, Dr. Vianne. Families Learning Together. University of PEI., 2005.

Centre for the Improvement of Early Reading (CIERRA). Put Reading First.

Oglan, Gerald R. And Averil Elcombe. Parent to Parent, Our Children, Their Literacy. Illinois: National Council of Teachers, 2001.

P.E.I. Department of Education, Let’s Talk about... How You Can Help Your Child to Read.

Home and School Federation, Literacy Alliance, Provincial Library Service, Department of community and cultural Affairs (pamphet). How to Help Your Child Learn to Read and Love Reading.

Pinnell, Gay Su and Irene C. Fountas. Help Canada Read A Handbook for Volunteers Toronto: Irwin Publishing, 1997.

Hammond, Anne and Leanne Reynolds. Developing Literacy Partnerships. Australia: Addison Wesley Longman Australia PTY Limited, 1999.

Bradbury, Joan, et al. Classroom Helpers A course for parents, helpers and aides. South Melborne: Pearson Education Australia Pty Limited,. 2000.

Lucas, Bill and Alistair Smith. Help your Child to Succeed. Markham: Pembroke Publishers Limited, 2004.

Richard Gentry. Bright Idea.. Ontario: Scholastic, 1997.

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