If you haven’t met Annie Connors yet, you should
introduce yourself to Franklin’s literacy specialist. Or better yet, visit her
in her cozy office surrounded by books!
I sat down recently with Annie to better understand what we can be doing
to support our kids and why early literacy is so important.
·
Reading with your child is incredibly valuable.
·
Reading proficiency by third grade is an
important predictor of later successes in school.
·
Reading to your child helps expand their
vocabularies and word awareness, and helps them to develop language.
For children ages
Kindergarten – 2nd Grade, one of the most valuable things you
can do is read together at home. When a
child listens to an adult read to them, they are learning what it sounds like
to be a good reader, such as fluency, expression and pacing. If your child is a reader, you can also share
a book together by taking turns reading every other page. Even just ten minutes of listening comprehension
is valuable for children so don’t worry if you don’t have 20-30 minutes on any
given night. As you read, there is also
an opportunity to talk through the new vocabulary words as you discover them.
In this age of technology and increasingly busy families,
it can be easy to default to screen time for kids while running errands or
driving to visit grandma. Annie
recommended a few fun, easy games to help build phonemic awareness which is the
ability to hear and manipulate separate sounds in words.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when hearing jargon like
“phonemic awareness” and “phonological awareness”. Annie has the ability to explain this in
laymen’s terms and make you feel prepared to help your child(ren) continue to
build these skills outside of school. If
you’re curious, phonological awareness is the ability to listen to and
manipulate all different parts of words, such as syllables or rhymes. Try one
of these games:
·
“I’m thinking of a word the ends in ‘N’ and
starts with ‘B’.”
·
Segmenting words – “Say ‘cupcake’ without saying
‘cake’.”
·
Rhyming games
·
Make up funny songs to help learn how to spell
sight words
·
“I’m thinking of a word that starts with /b/. Can you think of a word that starts with /b/?
·
“/b/ /a/ /t/”– what word is this?
For children ages
2nd-5th Grade, carving out 20-30 minutes three times
a week for reading is essential. You
could go to the library and find a book to read together or to help your child
select books that they are personally interested in. If your child prefers to read to themselves, you
could read your own book or magazine in the same room. Asking questions about what they are reading
is a great way to help them to develop their reading comprehension:
·
Who is the main character?
·
What happened?
·
What kind of person do you think the character
is? How do you know?
·
Why did the author organize the book this way?
·
If you were the author, what would you have done
differently?
·
What’s the most interesting thing that you
learned?
At this age, it becomes increasingly more important to be
able to write about what you have read.
By having a conversation with your child discussing what they are
reading, you are helping them to synthesize the information.
While you should encourage your child to read anything
that they are interested in, try to help expand your child(ren)’s interest in
other genres such as graphic novels, poetry or non-fiction. Not sure where to start? Ask a librarian! They have tons of great age-appropriate
recommendations.
Other
recommendations to support your child(ren):
·
Help them build knowledge in an area that they
are interested in by taking out several books on that subject form the library.
·
Get audio books for long drives, pause the story
and ask questions
·
Check out the teacher’s website for your child’s
classroom for age appropriate resources: http://franklin.newton.k12.ma.us/classrooms-staff
·
Check in with your child’s teacher on the sight
words they are learning and try to be echo what is happening in their classroom
·
Celebrate small successes – start a list of the
books you’ve read and keep it on the fridge
Finally, attend the school-wide writing celebration
on Tuesday, November 25th from 8:25-9:20 am!
