Website review: Starfall

Very quickly - Isadora is hooked on this great website called starfall.com. It has multiple levels, but at Isadora's level it is just the alphabet. You click on the letters and it makes the sound of the letter. But more than that it has songs and activities and little animations associated with the sounds.

**HINT - click on the sparkly letters!! I am embarrassed to say that it took me a few tries to figure out that there were way more games, songs and activities associated with the individual letters because I didn't know that I needed to click the letters that sparkled. I thought they were just decorative. Yeah, I know. But my mom came over and did the exact same thing, so I'm thinking that there are other people out there that might not figure it out as well. :)

Making the most of reading aloud 2

Becoming aware of your own reading process can help your child notice details in a book that they might not otherwise.
Today Isadora and I were reading a book together. I don't even remember the name of the book, except that it was about a cat and it was illustrated by Steven Kellog, one of my favorite illustrators. But this is what Isadora did that made me so surprised. As we opened the book, I asked her one of my favorite questions, "What do you think this story is going to be about?" And she responded, while stabbing at the photo on the front, "About the cat!" So this actually wasn't the surprising part - I'm getting to it. The surprising part came as I flipped to the the title page where the illustration showed a girl and an orange tabby cat walking among orange and red leaves that were falling across the page. There was no text other than the title. But I paused because I realized that as a reader I was already starting to gather quite a bit of information about the story just from the cover and the title page. I believe at some point I remarked on the leaves, but I asked Isadora, "Well, what time of year do you think this story takes place?" I really didn't expect much of an answer, because she only just turned three, but without missing a beat she said, "Fall! Because the leaves are falling!"
Now I really couldn't believe it!! And maybe this is something that only a geeky mother like myself would love, but here's what she was doing: she was using the pictures to gather information about the story just as I was! So I shared this long and drawn out story for two reasons. First, as you read aloud to your child become aware of the process that you engage in as a reader. Because picture books have such little text, the pictures contain lots of details that enrich the story, and you may notice (as I did) that you gather information from other sources besides just the print at the bottom of the page.
Two, once you become aware of your own reading process, talk about the book as you go through and explore some of these things with your child. In this way, you are making your own process explicit. Some of the questions I ask Isadora are about the characters emotions ("How do you think the cat feels about that?") because they rarely go into this in picture books. And of course my famous, "What do you think this story is going to be about?" I'll also ask her, "What do you think will happen next?" Occasionally, if she makes a prediction, I'll ask her why she thinks that. That last question hasn't produced any results yet - she usually gives me a blank stare and says, "I don't know," as she impatiently waits for me to turn the page of the book. All in good time.

Why phonics?

What do you think has the biggest impact on your child's ability to read? Take a look at the list and see if you can find the top two...

• The ability to tell you the sounds in words (like sun begins with an 's')
• Knowledge of letter names
• Kindergarten teachers' prediction of reading success in first grade
• Performance on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (a measure of oral English Vocabulary)
• Parents' occupational status
• Library membership
• Number of books the child owns
• Amount that parent reads to their child
• Gender

All you Freakonomics readers probably guessed the amount that parents read to their children, or the number of books the child owns, but they're both wrong. Give up? They're already in order! A study by Share, Jorm, Maclean, & Matthews back in 1984 found that the top two factors that have the biggest impact on your childs ability to read is their PHONEME SEGMENTATION ABILITY (or their ability to tell you the first sound in the word sun) and their knowledge of letter names.
What does this mean for you and your child? PHONICS, PHONICS, PHONICS!! And while reading aloud to your child is wonderful, it is not enough to teach them to read.

Book Review: Fancy Nancy

Fancy Nancy is a series that exposes children to complex vocabulary in an appealing fashion.
We were at Costco last weekend and they had tons of the Fancy Nancy books, so I bought one for Isadora. I got the original Fancy Nancy book, although I will go back for more. :) Not only does she love the book because it has lots of fun illustrations that appeal to her girly side, but I love it because it introduces the idea of using more sophisticated vocabulary in a fun way. Bouquet is fancy for a bunch of flowers, says Fancy Nancy. Fuchsia is fancy for purple. I love it! I've used it to introduce other words to her over the last week - I can't remember all of them - but I do remember talking about how crimson was fancy for red.
But apart from the vocabulary, it has a great storyline that is very appealing to me as a parent. A rare thing with a lot of the books I have to read aloud in the evening (snooorre!!). Click here to see some of the other books in the series.

Stickers for Stories

It's been a while since I last posted anything. Holidays - baaah! Isadora just turned three, so we had a big party for her and she got tons of Hello Kitty stuff (she just adores it all).
One of the the presents she got was a big bag of stickers and some re-usable stickers with scenes to put them on. So much fun! She has been really big into this: "Mom, tell me a story about these..." (She points to the unicorn and the fairy). This was fun for a while until I just plain ran out of stories. So a while back the conversation shifted..

Isadora: Mom, tell me a story
Me: Who are the characters? (Isadora gives me a blank stare) Who is the story about?
Isadora: Kitty and doggy...and frog
Me: What's the problem?
Isadora: Um, the dog steps on the kitty all the time
Me: Okay... (I go on to create some weird story about her plot)

So here is the literacy connection...Isadora is learning about characters, setting, and plot. These are the building blocks of crafting a fiction story. This will also aid in her comprehension of reading stories as she begins to recognize the story structure and will become more receptive to literary elements.
Isadora has "quiet time" in her room (since she kicked her naps to the curb several months back) and I can hear her talking away, creating her own stories. By the way, that example I wrote about - the dog stepping on the kitty all the time - that was a real plot she came up with. Weirdest story ever!

Product: Trader Joe's Alphabet and Number Cookies

Letter cookies are a great way to entice your child to sound out letters and make up goofy words.
My mother brought us a plastic tub of the Trader Joe's Cinnamon Schoolbook Cookies. These have been a lot more fun than I thought. First, Isadora thinks they are a very tasty treat (a vewy tasty and delicious tweat, says Isadora - still can't get those R sounds). But they are also a great way to play around with phonics. I'll grab three or four letters after she is done with lunch and I'll ask her what word we're going to find in our letters. I spread out the letters in front of her, and while I probably would have inhaled them without caring what kind of word they spelled when I was a kid, she actually looks at the letters and tries to make sounds. All the while, dancing excitedly around the kitchen, in anticipation of inhaling them.
"Guh!" says Isadora, pointing to the letter S. Well, I didn't say that she knows how to sounds out words already, but she is making that connection that letters make sounds. "Mmmm," she says, pointing to the letter M. Okay - she knows the sound for M. Good for now. "That says UH," I tell her, pointing to the U. "What word do we have?" "Mooooo!!" she says with excitement! "It's a cow, a cow!" Cookies are now gone and Isadora is talking about something completely unrelated to what we just did, her mouth jammed with cookies.
What I find hopeful in all of that is that Isadora took one of the sounds - the M - and suggested that the word was Moo, a word that begins with M. Nice start! Now we just need to get some alphabet soup!

Making the most of reading aloud

There are entire books written about reading aloud to children and teachers take seminars just about reading aloud. But there are lots of little things that you can do at home without making it feel like they are in school. I'll talk about a few of them:

1. Starting with the cover, make sure you read the author. They'll start to recognize favorite authors after a while, and you can point it out as well. Also, the pictures on the cover at this age are a dead give away for what is going to happen. I always ask Isadora what she thinks the story is going to be about. It's all stuff we do as readers - we grab books and make predictions about what the story is going to be about based on the cover - it's just getting those habits started early.

2. As you read a story, draw their attention to the illustrations and ask them questions. For example, I was just reading a book to Isadora entitled Martha Doesn't Say Sorry. Many of the characters were unhappy with the things that Martha was doing, although the text didn't explicitly say that. So I drew her attention to the pictures, asking Isadora how she thought they were feeling.
Good readers tend draw on multiple sources for comprehension, and check their understanding as go along. As Isadora gets older, the goal is that she will sound out words and then automatically check her understanding to see if she is getting conflicting messages. One way of checking is by reading more text (as most of us do), but we can also look at other sources of information that is available to us, like pictures. If she sounds out the word "jeep" and there is a sheep in the picture, I hope that she will pause, realize that there is conflicting information, and then sound out the word again.

3. If you are reading nonfiction, always read the table of contents (if it has them)! Too often we skip over that and then our children do too. They are a wonderful tool that your child can use as they get older. It helps them understand that non-fiction texts do not have to be read the same way as a fiction text.
I recently purchased the cookbook Pink Princess Tea Parties, which has a wonderful Table of Contents at the front. So before we begin looking through it (and she wants to look at every single page because there are photos of each sugary confection) I have her look at the table of contents and ask her if she wants to look at the drinks, cookies and cakes, sweets and treats, or sandwiches and snacks. She decides and then we go from there. Nonfiction, in any form, is great!