Books About Fire Safety, Fire Fighters and Fire!

Don't you love that there are books on every subject?  And that stories and books and reading and text all relate to things in real life?

A new friend of mine, Stephanie Goodman of Safety Mom Enterprises, is part of the nationwide effort to draw attention to Fire Safety Month (October).  Any of you with children should be especially interested since, during the coming month, in most schools, children will be hearing about what to do in case of a fire.

I thought it might be fun to share a few book titles with you on the subject of fire, firefighters (and, in a few cases, fire safety) and then provide some important information from Stephanie to help you make sure you know what to do in your home if a fire breaks out.

Big Frank's Fire Truck by Leslie McGuire (ages 4-8)

Firefighters A to Z by Chris Demesest (ages 3-6)

I Want to Be A Firefighter by Dan Liebman (ages 4-7)

Fire Drill by Paul DuBois Jacobs (ages 4-8)

Fire Fighters to the Rescue by  Bobbie Kalman (ages 4-8)

Even Firefighters Hug Their Moms by Christine McClain (ages 4-8)

The Buddy Files: The Case of the Fire Alarm by Dori Butler and Jeremy Tugeau  (ages 8-10)

Fire Horses by Margaret Fetty (ages 9-12)

Wildfire Run by Dee Garrettson (ages 9-12)

Forgotten Fire by Adam Baqdasian (ages 14+)

Fahrenheit 541 by Ray Bradbury (ages teen to adult)

Playing with Fire by Melody Carlson (young adult)

The Big Burn:  Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America by Timothy Egan (young adult to adult)

 TIPS ON FIRE SAFETY - AN EMERGENCY EVALUATION PLAN

October is fire safety month, and most schools will be talking to our kids about what to do in case of a fire.  But how many of us really practice this at home?   How many of us have taken a few moments to read the instructions on our fire extinguisher?  Would you know how to use it in a fire?  

Take some time in the coming weeks and put together an emergency evacuation plan and practice it! Here are some additional tips to keep in mind: 

• Having properly installed smoke alarms cut the chances of dying in a reported fire by half.  Install smoke alarms in every bedroom, outside every sleeping area and on every level of the home.  Consider purchasing one with an escape light built in as well.  Put a note on the calendar to test the smoke alarm on the first of every month.

• Be sure to place specially designed stickers from the fire department on the window of each child’s bedroom which will alert fire fighters that a child could be present in that room.

• Keep fire extinguishers in various places around your home including the kitchen, garage, near the furnace and near any fireplace.

• If you use a portable space heater, be sure it has built-in safety features, such as automatic shutoffs, anti-tipping devices and heat guards.

• When you have small children in the home, install a baby gate around the fireplace to prevent access.

•  Purchase a 2-Story Emergency Fire Escape Ladder and keep it somewhere in or near your bedroom.

•  Teach your children never to try and put out a fire themselves but to leave the house immediately and call 911 from a neighbor’s home.  Have a fire drill once every few months so that everyone can practice.

You can learn more safety tips and give your kids a chance to ride a fire truck during Safety Saturday at your local Lowe’s store on Saturday, September 25^th from 10AM – 2PM.  And, your kids can even build a fire truck for themselves!  Visit www.lowesbuildandgrow.com  and be one of the first 50 to sign up and reserve your spot. All Build & Grow attendees will receive a free apron and goggles.  

To support this important effort and my new friend, Stephanie, I'm donating my Fire Truck Building Kit to a child in my community.   Send me an email and you could win a free book (be sure to put "FIRE BOOK" in the subject line and indicate what age child you have.

BE SAFE!

And don't forget . . .

Meet Ellen Richard - Teacher, Mom and Creative Resource

Meet Ellen Richard and her family!  Via the Internet, I recently met this amazing teacher and innovative entrepreneur and she's doing something incredible to encourage young children in writing and spelling.  I was so impressed that I asked her to post a guest blog for me here so you could gain from some of her ideas.  I'm also posting her ideas and comments on my sister blog for educators. The topic is spelling and handwriting.  Take it away, Ellen!

Spelling is tough.  But,as a teacher from down in the trenches, I can tell parents that demanding kids write the same words over and over again is not the most productive use of your (or your child's) time. Educators, as a whole, have shifted away from rote memorization and endless tracing of inconsequential spelling lists and instead are spending their time figuring out ways to engage kids.  It's my experience that kids who truly are excited about the subject matter learn more and learn it faster.

Kids who have issues memorizing (there are many of them out there, not even counting those with identified learning disorders), are in a real pickle.  There is not context for the words, and there is not connection made.  Now, in all fairness, sometimes the words rhyme but more often than not they are just a group of words that the publishers of the textbook happened to think were appropriate for all the kids in a class.  One size doesn't fit all.  There are so many kids whose brains just work a little differently and, for those kids, spelling can be a huge problem.

I know, I know -- we have computers who do all our thinking, right?  Wrong!   Even in the age of SpellCheck and T-9 Alpha, kids need to know how to spell.  Why?  Because we still need to use a standardized, easily understandable common spelling for ease of communication.  That will never change and it applies whether your child is just learning to spell or whether they are an older student.

So what can you do to make spelling easier?
Three words:  authentic learning experiences.

Kids need to be engaged in what they are doing.  They need to see how and why spelling is so important.  Tracing or copying a list of words does not help the kids make essential connections that they need to learn how to spell words, or retain that information.  Whether you are thinking young children with growing small motor abilities or older students who've had some experiences with spelling, engagement is key.

I believe it is just fine to have young kids trace words to help them learn how to spell and/or print but here's the catch:  the words have to be meaningful to them.  A list of random words is not meaningful.  A letter to a friend is.  A story written by the child himself is also meaningful.  An article about the child's favorite sport or musician is too.  It's our jobs as educators (and yes, parents are the most important educators in a child's life) to find out what interests our kids and connect writing to it.

Ask questions; dig a little.  What is it that makes your child tick?  Use that to help her spell (and read and form letters and practice handwriting).  Here's the greatest part -- you can do all of this easily at home.  With your older students, let them do the writing while you write something together (a story, a book review or editorial, a fan letter, whatever).

If you are working with young children, you don't need fancy fonts on the computer to be able to have kids trace the words and become better spellers.  Simply make the dotted font yourself using good old paper and pencil.  Ask your child to tell you about his favorite character in his favorite book and jot down what he says in that dotted format.  Then, while he's still excited about the story, have him trace over what you just wrote and he just dictated to you.  Let him use blue marker if he wants.  He'll probably want to read it over and over and over again.  Why?  Because that story is the most interesting think in the world to him, at that moment in time.

Why Does This Work?

Just by talking to your child and writing down his story in a handmade dotted form, you are:

1.  bonding with your child and learning more about her likes and preferences

2.  giving her the opportunity to trace over her own story (that you jotted down)

3.  allowing her the chance to see the words that are important to her, her story and her vocabulary in the written form, and

4.  providing new reading material that is exciting, yet familiar, and fun for her to read.

Many of these ideas from Ellen can also be adapted with your older kids and the bonding is certainly as important as they grow older as it was when they were very young.

Thanks, Ellen!  What great ideas she has given you.  You're going to have a lot of fun.  I really like the way she balances a child writing over someone else's words and writing over her own.  Both are important.

Ellen has done more for us and young children.  She has taken these simple ideas and made them into a small business.  She started Letter Learning while on maternity leave from teaching this past January.  She missed teaching students, and had a million thank-you cards to write.  Because both of those things were on her mind, the idea for educational greeting cards was born!

She remembered how her own students sturggled often with spelling and handwriting and knew how much they love their family and friends.  She also knew that young kids love to "be like Mom" and since 80% of greeting cards are sent by women, it seems that greeting cards that help kids learn to write and spell are a long overdue instrument. Check out the birthday card above; it's an example of Ellen's cards.

Now It's Your Turn

Take time to sit down with your child and really talk with him.  Every child has at least one thing that really piques his interest.  It is your job to find out what that is.  Once you do that, the rest is easy!  So, now it's your turn.  Tell us what has helped you work with your child on spelling and writing at home.  Send a link to this blog to another mom or dad you know.  Share the complementary teacher blog with an educator you know who is enjoying a bit of R&R this summer.  It's when we take action from the words we read that we make a difference.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

The Reader Who Most Influenced Me

On this week's Share A Story Shape A Future blogging event sponsored by The Reading Tub, they pose the question:


Who is the person who influenced you most as a reader?


Here she is with her first grandson (someone she also influenced as a reader):

My mom

She's gone now from this earth but she sits on my shoulder every day. I see her putting a bowl on her head and prancing around the kitchen, reciting Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, The Land of Counterpane. I expect it was a meaningful poem since my brother and I both had times of extended illness in which we were confined to bed. It made us giggle and we loved the rhythm and rhyme of the poetry.

I see her pouring over a book, occasionally with those silly black framed glasses from the 1950's on her nose - do you know the ones with the wings? Her two most favorite authors were Phyllis Whitney and Eugenia Price (Momma loved historical fiction). As soon as I was in 5th or 6th grade and was a strong enough reader to attack these novels, she began sharing them with me and we'd have play fights over who would get the newest title first.


Although I cannot remember the first time I heard this phrase, I can still see that dreamy look in her eyes when she would tell me "you can go anywhere in a book" I believed her and I still do.

All her children believed her and their children (Nana's grandchildren) do too. What an incredible legacy this little feisty woman from the coal-mining country of Virginia has passed along, simply because she loved reading and books.

Today, she remains an influence not only in my personal reading (I have a good book or three or four on my bedside stand all the time) but also in my work as The Literacy Ambassador. Her passion for reading and stories and talking and sharing inspire me to this day. They are the reason I am an enthusiastic and passionate speaker, writer and advocate for the fact that "there is a book for every child". I know that without the indelible impression she left, I would not be doing what I am today. She, in fact, is the core of the revolution I am starting with my two new books, Anytime Reading Readiness and Before They Read. To learn more about that revolution, visit Reading is For Everyone
You can also stay in touch on Twitter and Facebook where you'll find me as litambassador and on Linkedin

Engaging Older Readers (3rd grade and up) With Personel Connections To What They Read

Personal connections aid in understanding a story, whether your child is the reader or the writer (a composer like these two fellows in the picture to the right).  I encourage families to find great books that connect to your child's a passion so they will show more interest in reading.  I know you've heard that from me before but it is worth repeating.  

When a reader makes personal connections to text, he then becomes part of the story, adding his or her own memories, ideas, experiences to that of the author. He moves from reading on the surface into deeper connection and the understanding (what teachers call "comprehension") goes through the roof.  

So How Do You Get Your Kids to Respond That Way To Reading?

Good authors like Willie Morris (author of My Dog Skip) give us a large hook to connect with.  Nearly everyone has experienced a pet and/or the loss of that friend sometime in our lives like he tells about in his book.  If your young person is more into baseball, skateboarding or jazz, try Under the Baseball Moon by John H. Ritter.  Have a youngster who likes history?  A Wish After Midnight is a combo historical fiction and time travel adventure that will hold them til the very end.   Relationships and self-image important?  Try Nothing But The Truth by Avi.  If you want to share an adult book with your teen, feel free.  The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba is an incredible real life story of inspiration.  Sharing books you are enjoying (as long as you are comfortable with the content) is a terrific way to connect.  The key is that

if we are going to expect our young people to be readers in the midst of all the possible distractions in this modern world, then we must give them an authentic, meaningful-to-them reason to do so.

Carve Out A Little Reading Time

Once you have a good selection for your child to choose from (and have involved him/or her in the selection process, pick one time a week (protected from interruptions and outside distractions) in which the whole family will spend time reading. I've got news for you; it may not be easy at first, especially if this isn't already a habit with your family.  However, it can start with as little as this once a week, 15 minute time slot, but think of ways to expand it into travel time in the car on the way to soccer, or home from school, time just before "lights out".  It may be easier for you to start on the weekends.

Set a goal 

Your goal over the course of the next 6 months is to move from one such time a week to two and then to three.  Don't try to jump in all at once, especially if your family isn't used to this dose of reading.  Find the balance for you but know that consistence is very important.  Also, pay attention to your family schedule, your children's extra-curricular activities and school homework level, etc. when considering that is reasonable for your family.

W\hat you will often find is that your children will actually enjoy themselves, the adults will feel the benefit of a little down "doing something all together" time, and you'll be fostering a habit for reading.  In the meantime, you'll also be giving your child a dose of practice (something we all need to do if we are to improve our skills whether it is in reading, exercising, riding a bike or playing a video game).

Of course, the earlier you begin this in terms of the ages of your children, the more they will value reading as a habit and valuable use of time so my advice to those of you with younger children is to start early.  Don't believe the myth that some children just won't be readers.  Every child needs to read and read strongly for information, pleasure and, yes, even escape.

If your family can only manage 15 minutes to start with, begin at that level.  The goal is for everyone to be reading something during that time.

Give Them Control

As you allow your children to make choices - sometimes assigned materials from school, but other times magazines, ebooks, Wii manuals on the latest interactive games, a novel or a "fact" (nonfiction) book -- anything as long as it is reading, you will all be gaining benefits.  If you and your family have invested in an IPOD Touch, a Kindle or a even laptop, the novelty of reading "online" might appeal to your children more than holding a traditional book.  

Especially if you haven't done this a lot in your household before and regular reading together wasn't a part of your earlier lives together, this can be a challenge to get started.  However, I assure you, with the proper approach, even those who are at first reluctant will come "on board".

Need a little jumpstart?  Maybe some of the reading is tandem (you and your young child read a book together while Dad and Junior are pouring over an article in the lates Sports Illustrated. Your example of being interested and excited is essential here:  any child will see through you if you are just biding time and not invested in the experience.  Yet, on the other hand, if you are involved and getting something out of the reading, your child will feed off that too. 

A few more ideas for this "everyone is reading" time:

1. Give your children cool, colorful post its or sticky arrows (or even colorful strips from junk mail or old funny paper panels with a dab of rubber cement on the edge - did you know that its temporary if you only put it on one paper surface?).  When they run across a word they don't know, can flag it, then skip over it, if they can get the meaning from the rest of the sentence.  Later, you can spend a few minutes exploring the definition and pronunciation of the word together. 

2.  Everyone has one "pass" to interrupt and share about something they are reading (a particularly juicy description that makes pictures in your head, reminds you of something that happened last week, or was just fall out funny.  Print a paper ticket or coupon to hand out at the beginning of the reading time if you like (click here for a template "Polar Express" train ticket).  As an extra incentive for your kids to do this, they can also earn points toward freedom from a chore for a day, a small monetary reward (a quarter or dollar), or a special trip to the ballpark with a parent.  Again, choose those rewards based on what is meaningful and desirable for YOUR kids.

3.  At the end, with five minutes to go, you can also do something teachers call, "turn and talk".  Pairing again two family members together, you "turn and talk", telling each other about the best part of what you read.  If you run over (and you just might), don't announce "time's up".  Let the conversations go on as long as they will.

Don't turn your family reading time into a quiz, drill and skill, where you are pummeling your child with questions, just to see if he or she understands what she read.  What a turn-off and they get enough of those at school.  Instead, pose questions like these in conversation so your children see that talking about books is a natural activity.  Let your child's answers and reactions lead you to the next question:

What is your phrase or word you related to most in the book you read?

Have you ever experienced the feeling those words described?

When and how?

Can you imagine what it would be like to .....

Why do you think he/she reacted that way?  How could he have reacted differently to the situation?  What would have to be different in the relationship between Willie and his dog (or family member or whomever the interaction or emotion is shared with) to change his reaction.'

So what?  What is the significance, the importance, of his reaction, interaction, response?

I am taking this from knowledge (what I call regurgitation of fact) up through Bloom's to analysis, synthesis, etc.

You and your family will be practicing higher level thinking skills without turning your home into a academic "hothouse".

Share, Share, Share

Come back to this blog after you try this experiment and post your results.  Share what you are already doing with your children in this regard and how you squeeze reading into busy lifestyles and schedules.  We'll all benefit when we learn from one another.

 

A last tidbit:  You don't have to do this "encouraging your child to be a reader" alone.  All this week,  my friends at the Reading Tub and many of their friends are blogging about reading and children in their Share A Story: Shape A Future Event.   You will also find fun giveaways. I'm going over there right now to jump in; won't you join me?

Happy Reading!

A Few Tidbits - A Little Off the Channel But Always Returning to Children and Families and Books

Over the last few days and week, I found a few resources sure to help you in your busy days with children of all ages (and in your own life).  This seems a hodge-podge to me' just consider it a smorgasbord!

All these topics connect to parents (or any other adult) and kids and learning and reach across the spectrum of beginning and pre-readers into the world of older more independent readers (my two alternating focuses in this blog).

You know, reading with your children is really bigger than the book.  It's about developing a relationship and learning to share and listen, it's about playing and all the terrific tidbits you learn when you take those few minutes out of your busy day to connect with your child, it's about identifying everyday learning experiences and encouraging that nature "investigator" in our children to shine.  In the real world, it's difficult to separate out literacy from any other type of learning; it often happens at the same time, overlapping and intersecting.

1)  Work of Childhood.  This blog is for home schooling families but it's actually a great resource for anyone who has children (I always said when people asked me if we homeschooled our son, "Yes, but he goes to public school too - after all, there should be no lines where learning happens). 

2) Although I'm not into pushing products, I have found two new friends who often search out the very best for young families and share them.  Here are links if you'd like to check them out to My Wee View and Mom Audience.  If you are a mom who is in business for yourself, Mom Audience also gives you a chance to list your great idea and business for free!

Now back to the business of literacy.  Every month this year, my friend, Anastasia Suen, is hosting a Carnival of Children's Literature!  I made a note on my electronic calendar to "buzz" me as a reminder to visit each month for terrific information about reading and children of all ages.  This month it is hosted by Jenny's Wonderland of Books and next month it will be Sally Apopkadek, a blogger on publishing and published children's literature.

Do you know that my friends at the The Reading Tub have a blog?  Terry and her friends always put together terrific resources for families AND educators so share this one!  In fact, they've also listed the Carnival in their February 17th post!

Look for The Literacy Ambassador to be featured in their Author Showcase soon; we'll give you a heads up when that's available.  In the meantime, you can find a few young adult books that are in need of reviews, listed to the right of the February 17th blog!  If you're looking for great books for your children to read, why not get them involved?


Last but not least, my new friend, Hester Bass, has been visiting all over the country to celebrate and share her book, The Secret World of Walter Anderson.  Learn more at Hester's website.  Here's a picture of her beautiful book at an artist we all need to know (I almost feel when I look at this illustration as though I'm out there on the water).

Calling All Parents: Practical Reading Ideas for Gifted Kids

If you missed the live show with host Audrey Borden and literacy expert, Cathy Puett Miller, now is your chance to hear a podcast of that event.  Lots of practical ideas to match up with our recent post.  You may need to listen to the hookup intro for a few seconds before the show actually starts so settle back, be ready to be inspired about reading with your child and finding the perfect book to share with your gifted child.

This podcast isn't just for parents of gifted children.  It has excellent tips for anyone interested in promoting their child's literacy.  Focusing on helping your child have positive experiences with reading, tons of references to great books and solutions to finding time to encourage reading and writing at home are all included. 

P.S.  Be on the lookout for a revolution starting in just a few weeks with the release of Cathy Puett Miller's two new books - Anytime Reading Readiness and Before They Read.  Never before have two books been so relationship-building between the teacher of 3-6 year olds and the parents of that same age group.  With these tools, parents will learn the three big essentials to getting their children ready to read and preschool and Kindergarten teachers will find fun skill-building activities to integrate into your curriculum with great results.   Stay tuned!

Helping Independent Readers Think About What They Read

I think this time we are on the "older reader" channel. Those of you with young children, read this too because you'll be here before you know it. I was reading a message from the President of the International Reading Association in Reading Today and was impressed with her comments about comprehension -- understanding what we read in more than just a "can I regurgitate simple facts" approach. She emphasized in her comments that it is most important that our children learn to think logically and deeply about what they read. Elizabeth Drew, an author who has written about Washington personalities in politics, says, "The true test of literature is, I suppose, whether we live more intently for the reading of it."

When was the last time your independent reader was moved by something he or she read? Certainly we don't need to be pressing "heavy-duty classics" on them all the time but reading text that makes us think is important. We need to exercise that "muscle" power in our brains to help our brains reach their potential. That's true for us as adults just as well as children.

How can you help your child learn to think about what he or she reads?

First, be interested. That may mean reading or re-reading the same novel they are in class and talking about it. I remember that when my son was reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, I re-read it myself. In turn, it made me want to read more written related to Harper Lee and Truman Capote (they were neighbors as children), especially since I had just seen a movie about Capote's life. I read his novel, In Cold Blood, for the first time and then Harper Lee's autobiography. All those three books together were a great study for me and I learned a lot about these authors and the period of time in which they wrote.

If you can't take time to read an entire novel, read a little at the first and ask your student to keep you up-to-date on what is going on with the story (a TV guide version, if you will, of each chapter). Don't make this a drill or lesson; just have a conversation about an interesting story.

When your student has trouble understanding assigned reading, there are two things you can do: first, read segments with him, stopping every couple of paragraphs or so to talk about the meaning behind the words (that's helpful sometimes with the antiquated language of Shakespeare). Secondly, find other, easier reading materials that help your student build some background knowledge for understanding the story. Sometimes there are simpler versions of Shakespeare's plays that use modern English. Reading it along with the original text can help. Both of these options mean that you have to make some commitment of time. Believe you me, it will be worth it for your student immediately (and it will be good for your brain too!). Beyond these immediate rewards, it will solidify your relationship with your child, something that is important to every parent. They see you investing time with them and it is meaningful.

Be a poser of questions - why is my favorite. If a simple statement is made, ask "why is that true?" or "why did that happen?" or "why did she do that"? Follow up with "would you have done the same?" Great readers are thinking, active, engaged individuals, experiencing the author's intent and drawing from it ideas that can appeal to, enhance and improve our own lives. Questions help us think about what we read.

And that's the true power behind reading, not what is on the page alone but what we take away from the page.

Where the Radio Shows Left Off

We're breaking the pattern from alternating between the "snuggle and cuddle" stage and older, independent readers. I am visiting a couple of radio shows this week on reading, families and young children and there's just so much to share that we never have time to talk about everything. One is with my friend, Stacey Kannenberg, the Ready to Learn mom.

If you get to this blog tonight (9/22) or in the morning of 9/23, you may be able to listen in live at 11EST at The Get Ready to Learn Mom Radio Show. Otherwise you'll be able to find a podcast after the fact at this same website.

FAMILY FRIENDLY DEFINITIONS OF A FEW TERMS


COMPREHENSION - understanding what you read (and the real reason we read).

DECODING - refers to the various skills we use to decipher text into understandable words. It has more specifically been used to talk about the phonics approach of breaking apart words into different single sounds, then calling those sounds and blending them together to figure out a word. No all words can be decoded strictly in this way, only those that follow regular phonics rules.

DIBELS - a screening used by many schools to determine whether a child has competency in several key early literacy skills including at the beginning of Kindergarten alphabetic knowledge, an ability to attend to single sounds in words and break words apart into single sounds (orally, not by reading). This same screening later (up to 3rd grade usually) is used to evaluate fluency (whether a child sounds like they are talking when they read), comprehension, and decoding abilities.

FLUENCY - as readers move beyond calling out one word at a time and having to decode, sound by sound, most words, they begin to sound more like natural speech when they read aloud. Not only is the pace regular and smooth, but the reader adds expression and phrasing and recognizes most words in that given text easily.

GUIDED READING - in simplest terms, that is the time in class when children read text that is fairly easy for them to "decode", concentrating on understanding and being fluid in what they read (sounding like they are talking). Guided reading or leveled books have a limited number of words in them and the vocabulary is more "controlled".

HIGH FREQUENCY WORDS - these are words that appear most often in real reading text. Drs. Dolch and Frye created age level lists of these words, from the simplest in Kindergarten to higher levels in the upper grades and, if our children practice with reading that contains those (mostly sight words, see definition below) and maybe practice reading them off a list as well, our child will be able to automatically read those words with little mental effort. Knowing the high frequency words helps a child become a more fluent reader who understands more of what he/she reads.

LEVELED Readers - Books that have been carefully written to include a limited number of words (and words from a certain Dolch/Frye grade level list). Teachers carefully select these books for each child so that individual child has a chance to read something that contains lots of words they are already familiar with. If a child can easily read about 95% of the words in a book, they can put more mental power toward understanding what they read and less on recognizing and decoding words.

METACOGNITION - thinking about how you think

ORAL LANGUAGE - This is more than just speaking. It is the complex system that we humans use to relate sounds to meanings. It has three parts: the phonological (how we combine sounds in words to translate/transfer meaning in speech -- not reading, just speaking and listening); semantic (understanding that the smallest units of meaning, whether those be words, prefixes, or suffixes, can be joined together. We deal with semantics when we make single words plural for example) and syntactic (rules that enable us to combine those smallest units of meaning into sentences so meaning is communicated - in the beginning, humans use short syntactic phrases to communicate like "more cookie" which are later expanded as our abilities with language grow to "I would like another cookie, please.") Who knew speaking and listening was so complex. It is amazing that our children develop all this without direct instruction!

SIGHT WORDS - those are words that don't follow the phonics rules so we have to know them "by sight" as soon as we see them. Learning sight words takes seeing them over and over until you immediately recognize them. Think of the word "give". It breaks the rule that when you have two consonants and two vowels, the first vowel most of the time says its name (is a long sound) and the second vowel is silent/quiet. In the word "give" the first vowel is short and the second one silent.

If there are other terms that you need a translation for, add a comment and I'll edit this blog to include them.

Some of my favorite quotes for parents on reading:

If we do not give our children mostly positive reading experiences, they will not choose to be readers . . . Dr. Michael Pressley

If you are reading regularly -- every day -- to your children, taking a reading time of fifteen or twenty minutes, whenever it can occur, before bed or whatever, that shows a respect for books. It shows that you have a reverence for books. That's the only way to reallky get kids interested in reading. Show how interesting it is and how much fun it is. If you read, your child will follow your example, as the night follows the day . . . Bob Keeshan AKA Captain Kangaroo

What we teach our children to love and desire will always outweigh what we teach them to do . . . Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Handbook.

FIVE OF MY FAVORITE PLACES ON THE WEB
FOR PARENTS READING WITH CHILDREN

Reading Rockets and Colorin' Colorado - sponsored by PBS
Just One More Book, a podcast about children's books we love
The Reading Tub, a source for great book reviews for parents
Planet Esme, a website full of great resources about reading with your children
Stories for Children Magazine, an ezine for children ages 3-12, with a great interview with Stacey, complete with stories and advice

News flash - I just saw that Jamie Lee Curtis (one of the few "celebrities" writing quality children's books) has a new book out in October called Jamie Lee Curtis's Books to Grow By Treasury. I can's wait to read it!

That's all for now. Stay tuned next time for answers to the question: My child is beyond the "snuggle and cuddle" stage - what do I do?

Remember, if you have questions or want to share what works in reading with your kids, feel free to add your gems of wisdom.