Reading Taught Wrong

I've done posts about how I teach reading. Now I want to do a comparison of what I think I do right compared to how I believe traditional instruction does it wrong. 

Can all my methods be incorporated into a traditional setting? 

Absolutely not. There is not the time. However, some of what I do can be, and should.

1. Expectation that children can read

Pretty much every developmentally on-track child can read by the age of 7 when they enter the next Piaget level of concrete operational. In many countries, reading instruction begins at the age of 7 when every child can be successful. Each child is unique. I've had children read at 3 and many more read at 5. However, EXPECTING every 5 year old to be able to read is not developmentally appropriate. Yet, we do that in this country. Under 7, it should be the child's choice and ability to read early, not an expectation. Under age 7, children are in the preoperational stage, where they CAN learn symbolic representations such as phonics and early sightwords.

Making their own books with markers
and cardboard to read to their friends

2. Teaching methods

Children under the age of 7-8 learn through movement and play. Which is how I teach early reading skills. Yet, traditional instruction has children sitting still and being instructed, which is again not developmentally appropriate.

3. Time and attention

Children have an attention span of, on average, one minute per age, increasing to 2 minutes at the age of 5. So a 5 year old has an attention span of about 10 minutes. This is greater if they are learning through play and movement and engaged in the activity. However, traditional teaching has them sitting in a group for up to 30 minutes and listening to a teacher or one another, or waiting their turn to read aloud. Again, not developmentally appropriate. My instruction takes no more than 5 minutes at any one time. The best is that they ASK for it, and they will choose to keep practicing and playing with it on their own after the lesson. Because, you know, it is FUN and ENGAGING, developmentally appropriate and at their skill level.

4. Skills introduction

Pre-reading skills are begun here from birth. Turning pages, left-right convention, one-to-one correspondence, crossing-the-midline ability, etc. I will use a baby's finger to point to the words as I read them. After doing this daily for 2 years, it is muscle memory for them to do it themselves. Kindergarten classrooms focus so much on reading, that they forget that there are pre-skills necessary for success. When those pre-skills are not embedded, reading is much more difficult.

5. Letter names

I could care less if a child knows an A is an "A". It has no bearing on reading. I do, however, care that a child learns the phonetic sound for an A, which is absolutely necessary in teaching reading.

6. Upper/lowercase letters

Uppercase letters comprise such a small percentage within print. I teach uppercase, lowercase and phonics simultaneously. Just as a child can learn mom, mama and mommy all have the same meaning, so can a child learn that A, a, and aaaa have the same meaning. Traditional methods often focus on a "Letter of the Day" or week. Again, random letter recognition has NO BEARING on reading, yet so much school time is wasted on this. Knowing that lowercase a stands for aaa DOES. It is the most important instruction, but done through meaningful experiences, not isolated instruction.

7. Phonics

Phonics are music. Traditional methods want to teach phonics as written symbols first, without recognizing that phonics are tones, lilts, blends of sound. They are magical sounds with meaning. Teaching them as this, brings them life and a richness that traditional methods simply don't engage. Much of my early reading skills learning is done through music. I start exposing phonics of lowercase letters to my kiddos at the age of 2 1/2. They often have them down by 3.

8. Giving meaning to symbols

Traditional instruction has children practicing phonics unconnected to anything engaging. They are taught as representatives of a letter symbol, and the letter phonics are taught individually, one letter at a time. Nothing engages a child more than attention to himself. By beginning spelling with children's names, they have an instant buy-in. We do it with their name songs each morning. After they do their spelling song for their name, we review the phonics. The children quickly learn how to spell their friends' names and how to sound them out. We sit in this stage for awhile.

Miss A 2yo, yeah, she did this

9. Timeline

As stated, we will sit in a learning stage for awhile to ensure that the children are fully engaged and have MASTERED a particular skill/stage before moving forward. Traditional methods push through a curriculum agenda, and poor readers are dragged along, often not mastering skills but sliding through.

10. Developmentally appropriate

Children up to age 7-8 learn through play and movement. Phonics here are learned through music and games. I will make a phonetic sound and the child will run and jump on the letter laying on the floor. Early reading instruction here begins with simple sightword sentences with a movement component and some silliness. "I am a ______." goes on the wall in large letters with dots under each word. Each child takes a turn reading the sentence and putting his finger on the dot for one-to-one correspondence, adding in the word. Whatever the word is the child chooses, the whole group acts it out. This adds an element of anticipation and surprise, keeping the whole group engaged. The next week it may be "I can ______." always adding only one or two new sight words at a time. Then the sentences can be combined. "I am a MONKEY and I can CLIMB TREES." Further along, I will write in the words and we will sound them out phonetically after they do the movement, before moving to the next child's turn. For another game the current sightwords are attached to the wall and the children run around and I will call out a sightword as they come around and they hit it with a swat frame. Learning always has a movement attached in the early stages.

11. Books are engaging and complex

Our early readers are created around the child. "My name is...," "I like..." The books I teach with are from Nora Gaydos [affiliate link.] The stories are repetitive, building skills slowly with the ability for mastery, but complex and rich with vibrant illustrations. The children want to know what is going to happen next, which keeps them moving forward and eager to read another book. And, they are very appealing to both girls and boys. Often traditional methods focus on very simplified books with simple illustrations. The focus is on the READING rather than the STORY. We focus on the story, with the reading as a by-product. We talk about the characters and the story, working on comprehension and analytical thinking. Again, engaging the child with what he is reading, providing meaning and context. Children learn new skills because they are useful and fascinating, not because someone says they have to do so. Retention and mastery are dramatically higher when children are engaged with their learning. The Gaydos books also introduce phonics, digraphs, blends, sightwords and advanced reading skills in a perfect timeline for easy mastery. Often, books used in schools do not.

12. Individualized instruction

Since I read books individually with each child, they are never allowed to develop bad habits. They flow through reading instruction in a very linear, clear method. Instant, constant correction keeps them on the correct path. Traditional methods of group instruction at the early stages of learning to read allow children to become muddled, develop bad habits and become afraid to speak up about their confusion or to participate out loud for fear of sounding wrong and being corrected in front of their peers. Individual instruction and attention is simply something that doesn't happen in traditional settings to the extent that it needs to in order to create excellent early readers.

13. Optimized Instruction Time

The children here have a choice of whether or not to read. Some days they are engaged in something else and don't want to do it. Some days they will read 5 books in a sitting. Some days they are tired and unable to focus, and I will decide that this is not the day to be reading. Traditional settings don't have that option to optimize instruction time.

14. Sight word Instruction

I believe that everything is learned better in context. My children learn their sightwords more through reading and me telling them that it is a sightword, than learning individual sightwords through other activities. Traditional methods teach a sightword then the child reads a book focusing on that sightword. It just isn't as engaging and meaningful. Any word is a sightword if a child sees it enough, and time spent reading, which occurs through engaging stories, is what makes a good reader. Once we get enough sightwords and phonics to begin reading my Nora Gaydos books, reading instruction occurs through READING only. Only if a child is having a really odd, difficult time with a specific word or sound will I add non-reading instruction, which is usually just a few seconds, a few times a day, for a few days before he will get it down pat. This focused attention to a specific issue for a specific child is more impactful than a general instruction to everyone.

15. Reading aloud

Children still in the preoperational stage have a lot of trouble reading silently. Or, they simply CAN'T. They also have a lot of trouble with comprehension, even if they have the ability to sound out and recognize words. Asking a child under 7 to read silently is not developmentally appropriate. My 5 year olds need to hear those phonics to spell out words and read. They need to associate the letter and word symbols to the sound representation. In traditional settings, unless reading together as a group, this can be unreasonable in a class of 28. One of the benefits, is that the children will correct one another if they hear something another child says that is off or wrong. They also will ask one another for assistance, and they usually provide the same answers I will give, such as "try to sound it out," "that's a sightword," "igh says I," and not just give the correct answer. Teaching another is a powerful learning tool. 

Mr. G 5yo

Reading ability, and time spent reading and being read to, are the key to a child's future success. Time spent on reading instruction is never wasted. I wish traditional school settings could incorporate more of my methods and allot more time for individual instruction. 

So many children under the age of 7 are being labeled failures for not being able to read, when they are simply just not YET in that developmental stage where they have the ability. The joy of reading and learning is being stripped from them for simply being young children. That is something I can't forgive or forget.

FREEBIE Reading / Book Log

Historically, this is the time when I would feel a sense of pride and accomplishment knowing that my newly minted readers were proficient and ready for the new rigors of kindergarten language arts. 

However, these children have been a step ahead since they were infants, and I still have them for another year. 

Since the newly classified PRE-K ladies have completed all EIGHTY of their emergent readers, and Mr. G is only 8 away, we needed another method of recording their reading efforts as they dive into leveled readers.

The children helped me come up with this style. They picked the layout, the fonts, and how many they wanted per page. As their writing improves, they wanted the lines big enough that they could comfortably write down their own information. Available for FREE on TPT, it includes a couple of layouts.

This is the one we are using, but there are two other simpler ones with just title and title/author.

It is hard to believe that I began this reading journey with these children 20 months ago. At that time, they couldn't even put two letters together to form a word, but did know their letters and phonics, and now they are reading at a nearly 2nd grade level at the age of 4. 

We have moved at their pace, working at it when and how they wanted to, and not every day. As they got better, their interest soared.

They each have very different reading styles. Miss A is a whole word reader, and HATES sounding out words, but does it as a last resort when she absolutely can't figure it out in her head. Mr. G, on the other hand, prefers phonics and sounding out words, and will continue to sound out even words he knows. He's getting over that gradually. Miss H is the happy medium between the two.  

We started book reading soon after they gained the ability to identify joined letters as words and had down many of the first level sight words. Their first pages were...

and the last pages of the emergent readers were...

What they are reading now, really seems like a step back.

So we are looking for good regular books to read. Today, Miss H read Ten Little Caterpillars by Bill Martin Jr., and only had trouble with the word "patiently." Not bad, considering it is Grade Level Equivalent for 2nd grade.

To find Grade Level Equivalent, Guided Reading, DRA, or Lexile score, I use the Book Wizard from Scholastic. 

Tags: reading, books, book report, book log, reading log, log, instruction, language, language arts, kindergarten, pre-k, child, care, daycare, preschool

Sight Word On-Line Games for Beginners

I wanted to find interactive games for my beginning sight word learners. I started this post thinking I was going into a great deal of research, would be playing a ton of games with the children, and having to sift through to find my 10 favorites. Sadly, I only found a handful of FREE on-line sight word games appropriate to the youngest learners, and only about half could I recommend. Even then, there were issues I had with nearly every one. PLEASE feel free to comment with any additional ones you have come across and can recommend! 

Popcorn Words

by Fun 4 The Brain

Pros: 

• It has 3 levels of play.  It automatically moves to the next level once one is completed, but offers the chance to play the same level again. 
• Offers four choices each round, a good quantity, and allows the child to keep playing words until the correct one is chosen, marking out the incorrectly chosen ones.
• Visually appealing, words are easy to read, smooth play.
• The in-between movement game, you only have to get relatively close, not exactly below the target to get the point. 

Cons: 

• Hard to understand the words. May be hard for a child to do independently. I had them on my lap and simply repeated the words for them. 
• It offers to take you to the next level even if the first level was not mastered. I would like for it to remain at the same level until a certain percentage of accuracy had been obtained.
• For younger children, the movement game in-between levels may be difficult as well. Even I had trouble moving the monkey quickly and accurately enough with the arrow keys. The mouse doesn't work on that game.

Concentration

by Cookie

Pros: 

• Automatically goes into full screen mode.
• All 5 levels of Dolch sight words to choose from.
• Background is blurred so the cards really stand out.
• Text is bold and easily read.
• Matched cards disappear, making the game board cleaner.
• Graphics are sharp and visually stimulating.
• Narration is distinct.

Cons: 

• No "all words" option for play.
• No option to change the game board size.

Concentration

by Dolch Word

Pros: 

• Visually appealing, with movement. Cards stand out from the more muted background.
• Words are bold and clear.
• Narration, even though it has an accent, is clear.
• Different, with the sound on the bottom and the words on the top row to match.
• Full screen option.

Cons: 

• With the movement, young children may become distracted from the task at hand.
• Games are only available by level, no all-word or mixed level play.

Jigword

by Dolch Word

Pros: 

• Full screen option.
• Visually appealing and easy to read.
• Manipulation of graphics is good for little hands...drag and drop is relatively forgiving and clicking anywhere inside a yellow box will give the narration, not just in the little bubble.
• Every new game has a fresh list of words for continuous learning.

Cons: 

• No way to set the words you want to work upon 
• No way to change the number of words presented for younger students.

Color and Color Word Matching

by Roy the Zebra

Pros:

• Visually interesting.
• Progress indicators/rewards.
• Drag and drop very forgiving, anywhere in the box.

Cons: 

• UNDO button a little hard to find. will need to be pointed out to children.

Word Bingo

by ABCya!

Pros:

• All 5 levels of Dolch words, plus just nouns and all words.

Cons: 

• The green and white words against the green and white background, along with the smaller font of the words, made them harder for the children to read.
• The game board takes up less than half of the screen size. I wish it was larger or had a full screen option.
• With 16 choices, it was more difficult for my beginning readers to remember the word long enough to go through so many selections, especially since the words were harder to read. Since I do computer work with my students, I just kept repeating the word for them.

They also have an Sight Word Bingo ap in iTunes for .99 that may work better on the iPad where it would possibly show larger. I still don't like the lack of contrast between the background and the words. It has a rating of 4/5 stars in iTunes.

Concentration

by Sightword Games

Pros:

• Game board can be adjusted for 6, 12 or 24 squares. 
• It is progressive.
• It uses both Dolch and Fry word lists.

Cons: 

• Wish that the game board was larger or had a full screen option.
• Wish the words were in bold so easier to read from my lap for the little ones.
• Just my own opinion, I prefer concentration games that create an image afterward, or something to give the children a visual reward.

Others I don't recommend:

Starfall - Concentration: No choice of levels, automatically goes to a much higher level each round, no chance for mastery at a given level. Repetitive and limited words used.

ICT Games - Dinosaur Words: Difficult to understand, no indication to click to start, no indication of error, no choice of levels. 

ICT Games - Word Reader: Difficult to understand, no indication of error, no sense of progress, no choice of levels.

BBC Education - Star Words: Small screen, where the words go is the same color as the background, making it difficult to see the shapes, repetitive words, no choice of levels, drag & drop is a little touchy.

 

Crickweb - Color Words Match: Wish there was narrative of the word, but other than that it's just a simple game appropriate to the subject. I like the one I listed above better.

Crickweb - Number Words Match: Again, wish there was narrative of the word. Simple game appropriate to the subject. I re-opened it several times and the board never changed around, so limited use.

For more advanced sight word learners and readers, there are additional spelling games, fill-in-the blank games, and drag/drop games. Not many, but some. Since we are just beginning sight word recognition here, I focused on the games appropriate to my students current development for this post. 

Tags: sight, words, sightwords, literacy, games, on-line, computer, free, reading, Dolch, fry, teaching, preschool, pre-school, child care, child, care, early, elementary, kindergarten, interactive, English, book, books, pre-reading, frequency, kid, kid's, children, number, color, colour, 

Teaching Sight Words

SIGHT WORDS!

These children may seem very young for such a huge undertaking as reading, but they are ready. How do I know?

• They have mastered letter recognition, both upper and lower case.
• They have mastered phonics.
• They have excellent comprehension of stories.
• They spell their names.
• They recognize each other's names in various print.
• They have extensive vocabularies.
• They speak with proper grammar more than 90% of the time.
• THEY WANT TO.

I also know that they are cognitively ready. They can all swing independently on a swingset. That may seem rather odd to throw in here, but there is a scientific correlation between the ability to swing independently and the cognitive ability to read. 

HOW I TEACH READING

As with all my teaching, it is child-led, teacher-facilitated, physical and interactive. You may wonder how that could be with reading.

We began by watching MEET THE SIGHT WORDS during our pre-lunch educational video time. The children say the words with the video, and act out any actions going on to the best of their ability. It isn't just sitting staring at a screen. Memory retention is shown to increase by 10% per sense used. This enables them to use speech, hearing, sight, and touch in concert to help remember the sight words displayed. They do this independently, by choice, while I fix lunch. I try to participate and reinforce the concepts as much as possible .

Our first hurdle was getting the children to truly understand that words were letters stuck together. We had covered vowels, and the children had watch LEAP FROG WORD FACTORY and LEAP FROG CODE WORD CAPER, so the concept was not new to them. We have always used the phrase, "Blue is the glue that holds the words together." 

However, after pointing to each letter for so long, it took a couple of days to get them to point to words as a unit. To help with this, I added green dots below our first sentence strips for them to touch as they read. I used the blue vowels on the first simple sentences just to reinforce the concept of them sticking together.

On our next one, I did it both ways, black/white text and color coded.

Then I created our Dolch sight word cards. The unit with the word cards, pre-writing word cards, and BINGO cards is available through my TPT store. 

You might think that I would start with the pre-k word list first. If this were a teacher-directed learning activity, or an elementary activity, I probably would. But it isn't. Teaching little ones requires it to be personal and active. I have to use the words that interest them and convey what they want to say and learn to read. I can't be confined to a pre-set selection. We are actually using more of the kindergarten level than the pre-k words. We will also be adding in non-sight words such as mom, dad, cat, dog, baby, etc. to personalize the experience.

Each child has very individual wants, needs and desires. By throwing out a ton of words, each child will choose the ones that speak strongly to them and learn those quickly. It can be a particular cadence to the word, a particular letter sound that strikes a cord, or a specific meaning that holds some tangible force within it that grabs a particular child's attention. By limiting their choices to a few chosen words, a teacher may be denying a child a richer experience and discovery.  

While a few words are universally being learned in equal measure by the children, each one has their favorites, and they are different. This is super important because they are learning from each other in a collaborative effort. Basically we have four teachers, me, and each of the children presenting their favorite words to the ones who don't know them.

I said that it needs to be movement based. For our first sentence I chose, "I am a..." The children took turns touching the green dots and saying the words. Obviously they already knew "I" and "a," so it was an easy one. After they read the sentence, then the child chose what to be for us all to act out. Since it was Halloween time, many of the first ones were, "I am a GHOST!" and we would flap our arms and wail around. The next child would say, "I am a WITCH!" and we would cackle and fly around. They enjoyed this enough, that they would choose to do it as a group independently, always pointing to the words first and taking turns to choose. Penguin, lion, snake, dog, cat, airplane, elephant, frog, kangaroo, countless critters and things have been used with that sentence. They know the word "am" now. We moved next to "He is a..." and Mr. G got that one to himself while the girls still used "I am a..." Now we have "She is a..." as well. 

Our big sentence, "My big dog can go to the..." is a good one. It's chock full of sight words, and all the children are interested in their dogs. It's fun to stretch their minds. They first would say park, dog park, or store. I added in moon and they all got the idea that they could be silly with it. He's now gone to school, the zoo, museum, etc. We always add in a physical activity to go with it, such as swinging on the monkey bars at the park, or petting the goats at the zoo.

We used our sight words to add above the sentence to break it down and learn them individually and out of order. The children get to take them off and match them back up as an independent activity.

Here are some of the other activities we have been doing.

Sight Word Swatting

Letter Match

Sight Word Hunt

Stamping and Writing

But most of the time, we just stand at the door where we have them posted and make sentences that we act out. 

Learning should ALWAYS be fun.

UPDATE: A few months down the road, and they have all the pre-primer and most of the kindergarten words down, along with about 25% of the 1st and 2nd grade words and a few of the 3rd grade.

We also do story extensions. For instance with Eric Carle's From Head to Toe, I put the words on the white board, using our sight word cards and writing in as needed, and the children took turns reading it and filling in the blanks. The words they added, they sounded out and told me the letters to write, then we sounded them out again once written. This enables them to start transitioning from the cards to environmental print. 

The next stage in reading will be sounding out words and phonemic awareness. We are already working on digraphs and I'm tossing in some sound outs, such as with AND, the sight words that can also be sounded out. 

In teaching sight words first, it lends itself to seemless transitioning to more advanced skill sets, while setting the stage for early success. When a child can recognize a good portion of the words on a page, they innately desire to learn the others, to have mastery over the reading experience.

In anticipation of that, we also are reading some of our beginning readers. My favorite is the NOW I'M READING sets from Nora Gaydos. I've used these for 10 years with great success. The stories have meaning, but build one word at a time, working one sound a book, to gently build reading ability.

Advanced reading skills will be a steady progression at the individual children's pace of learning, taught more through exposure and one-on-one experiences than formal activities.

UPDATE: 7/11/2014 They have read all 80 of the Ready to Read! books! Woo hoo! 20 months after they first started putting words together and began their reading journey. They know all their blends and digraphs, can sound out pretty much anything, and are reading at a kindergarten-1st grade level. 

 Mr. G and Miss A turned 4 in April, 

and Miss H is almost 5.

They know all their pre-k, kindergarten and 1st grade Dolch sightwords, and many of the 2nd and 3rd grade ones. We continue to read daily.

UPDATE: 10/17/2014 They put on their first Reader's Theater show for the parents and grandparents. They performed The Ant Bully, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, and an owl poem. They are now all reading at a 2nd grade level and working on synonyms, antonyms, big words, and expressive writing.

Tags: reading, read, sight words, sight, words, word, phonics, phenomes, language, literacy, english, beginning, preschool, kindergarten, teaching, teach, kids, kids, children, class, group, dolce, fry, first,