Introducing A New Reader

I sometimes get asked about readers and those children that are in their prime learning to read stage. One question that often arises is that of, 'how do I introduce a new reader to my child'. This is by no means intended to be the only way, it is simply what I have found that works for us here.

I am now onto our third and final child that is just about at the stage of reading early chapter books and my time as a homeschool mum introducing early readers to my kids will be over.

Step 1

So you have brand new beginning reader on your hands. Maybe they know all of their alphabet sounds and possibly can sound out a few simple words and so you feel it is time to make a start on introducing readers to your child.

"Readers are most often a set of books that children (and their reading mentors) utilise to work their way through the sounding out of simple words and letter combinations, slowly and systematically progressing them into more detailed texts."

Most readers at this stage will have a focus, it may be a short vowel sound in the middle of what is known as a CVC word (vowel consanant vowel). So could be something like 'dig' where the focus of the book is to practice words with the short vowel sound 'i'.

This step in the process is to introduce the new sound, in the lower level readers it is most always a single letter sound but will progress into letter combinations, such as blends, like ch, ck, sh and then onto longer combinations of letters that make a single sound.

For example here in this particular reader titled 'Mark and Mars' the new sound is made up of the letter combination 'ar'.

We will read the title together, talk about the sound combination and try and come up with some other words that might use that sound all before we even open the book.

Step 2

I read the story. Yes, I read it from cover to cover, not my child. Let's face it the whole point of introducing a reader like this to a child is because they don't know the new sounds that are going to be presented. If they could already read the words why would we bother even introducing the reader. However, because they don't know the sounds it can make for an anxiety driven time trying to focus on what they've recently learned in earlier readers, sounding out words that may be familiar to them and then also trying to add in the brand new sound in a series of words that they most likely have never come across before. Let's not forget that at the same time they are trying to read for comprehension. Put all of this together and many young children simply do not cope.

So together we cuddle on the couch and I read. That way we both to get to enjoy the story (the stories generally get better as the readers progress in levels), we get to know the story and we understand the premise behind the text. We will have a brief chat to check for comprehension at the end of the story.

Step 3

We go back through the story looking for the words that contain our new sound, which in this book is 'ar'. We spend time sounding out those words and saying them out loud to ensure we have the correct sounds coming out. This is often a time for lots of giggles, especially with letter/sound combinations that may be a little different.

That's basically all we do on the first days introduction of a new reader. We always have a couple of books that are at a lower reading level which we use to help build fluency and practice recently learned sounds. So now is the time the child reads those out loud.

Step 4

This step happens the following day. We remind ourselves of the story and the new sound that we are on the lookout for.

Then it's time to begin reading. As you can see from this particular reader we are at the stage of having several short sentences on each page. So that my new reader is not overwhelmed we take turns. Sentence by sentence. That way he can focus on what he needs to focus on, he hears me reading and modelling with every new sentence and he isn't overwhelmed with the length of each page and in turn the entire book. We continue in this turn taking fashion for the remainder of the book. Then it's time for fluency reading with some lower level readers.

Step 5

This step happens the next day. Step 5 in essence is exactly the same as step 4, however we swap. If I went first in step 4, then he goes first in step 5.

Step 6

Step 6 happens the following day. By now we are on our fourth day of reading with this new book so the story line and the new words are mostly becoming quite familiar. Sometimes this is a slower process depending on the particular sound combinations.

Here we read an entire page each, but still taking turns until we've come to the end of the book.

Step 7

Day five into our new reader. This particular step is when I need to assess how things are going with the book and the new sounds. If he has picked things up with relative ease today will be the day that he reads the entire reader out loud and it will then get added to the fluency pile. If it was a little tricky we will complete step 6 again, but swapping with who goes first, so we are reading different pages.

Depending on the book, the sounds that were introduced and the child we spend somewhere around a full week on a new reader. This can be easily shortened or lengthened in time depending on how much progress is being made.

Step 8

It's time to start all over again with a new reader. And really, it is as simple as that.

I am not a qualified reading instructor. I am simply a mum in her eleventh year of educating her kids at home and this is a process that, through trial and error, I have found, works for us.

If you are struggling with introducing new readers to your child, I encourage you to give something like this a try. Be sure to let me know please if it helps in anyway.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

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Reading Response Activities - Play With Me

This term with our co-op group we decided to break our kids up into two smaller groups, which has been much more effective to be able to give them more targeted age appropriate activities.

So whilst the older group are off working on Creative Writing, the younger group have been working on Reading Response Activities, using picture books.

As I normally run the Creative Writing Group I haven't had the opportunity until this past week to have some picture book fun with the younger kids. I love Picture books, they are such valuable learning tools, even for kids that may feel they are beyond them.

Given that this was the seventh week for them doing these activities, the book I chose was much to young but as I already had everything prepped we went along for the ride anyway.

This particular activity is given a one hour time slot, so whilst you could absolutely extend the learning, what I am sharing today is everything we did in that hour.

Play With Me is the gentle story of a little girl trying desperately to interact with the animals she encounters at the pond. Only realising that after she is quiet will the animals actually come out to play.

Whilst I read aloud, everyone water coloured a pond, some of them chose to add in drawings of the animals from the story. We housed all of the related items to this book in a file folder, so they glued their ponds to the front of that.

Each week they have been working on quickly and easily being able to summarise the story of the day. On week one they were introduced to this simple Summarising Sheet. They were able to easily identify each part of the story based on what they have learned using this sheet every week.

You can find a copy of the Summarising Sheet over at Nicole's TPT store in her Reading Notebooks. She has a reading notebook for several grades in her store. I'm unsure if the sheet above is in each of them though, you may have to ask Nicole that question.

After our summarising discussion we moved on to a Story Puzzle, the children are free to draw or write on these, whatever they choose. Basically another simple round table chat about the elements of the story. It is really nice to see them interacting and having the opportunity to bounce off each other, often this is one area in home education that can possibly be lacking.

This particular reading response sheet is from this big Reading Response Sheets pack on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Each week, each adult (we take turns with running the various groups) chooses their picture book and the activities to go along with it, apart from the summarising which is done each and every week.

This reading response pack covers all of the basic elements of dissecting a story.

Finally, we played a quick game of Who Am I? Because I knew this would be very simple for them I placed the focus on giving one person at a time the opportunity to speak.

These kids have been working closely together for some time now and so with familiarity the more confident children generally are holding the floor and doing most of the talking and answering of questions.

So we played a little game of, 'who has the ball'. Whoever I threw the ball to was the only person allowed to speak, therefore they had their chance to answer in any way they chose. They really liked this little game!

You can download a full pdf of prinable activities to go along with Play With Me  over at Homeschool Share.

The past seven weeks has been a nice gentle way to ensure each of the children understood many of the reading response concepts and a good refresh for others that had already been exposed to these terms.

Next term they are branching into a Literature study based on an abridged classic (not sure which one yet) and I know that this term has been a good introduction to that.

Happy Homeschool,
Kylie

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The Morning Basket & Table Time

{Our Morning Basket is overflowing with great reads}

I first saw the idea of a Morning Basket over at this lovely blog, well over twelve months ago. I knew then that one day I would implement something similar into our daily routine.

I've been procrastinating on this one for some time, there was always one element that just wasn't quite right so I never made a start.

But, plans are only plans, if you never put them into action, they don't amount to much. So I gathered what I had and just got started. Simple as that!

{During Read Aloud I Set Challenges For Drawing}

Currently in our basket we have:

• A read aloud (this week it's Judy Blume, something short and sweet)
• Real Science 4 Kids Chemistry
• A Really Short History Of Nearly Everything
• Story Of The World
• Life Of Fred
• Memory Work

{This term we are reading Pre Level Chemistry and learning a lot}

How we use the basket:

For each item in the basket the kids have a spiral bound visual arts diary that they use to make an entry. During this part of the day the only expectation that I have set is that they 'make an entry'. How they do that is up to them and this changes on any given day. Some days their entries are elaborate and others not so, that's completely fine by mine.

During our read alouds the kids use their 'Drawing Challenge Notebooks". I've been giving them the Sketch Tuesday Challenges, plus any other challenge I can think of.

Can I tell you that simply calling this portion of the routine a challenge, has completely changed the way the kids view it. They are now generally very eager to jump in and have a go.

{Life Of Fred at this level is certainly too easy but I felt to understand Fred properly we needed to start from the beginning}

We spend about 60 - 90 minutes at the table with our Morning Basket, so I don't get to everything in the basket every day (except our current read aloud). That was always my plan anyway, I didn't want every day to be the same as the previous. I simply rotate things around so that we try and get to everything at least once a week.

I have a growing list of other items that I'd like to add to the basket and over time this will surely change and evolve with our needs.

The one thing we do complete daily is memory work. Oh dear, the dreaded memory work, I can hear the gasps from some of you now! I'm a big believer in ALL things in moderation, which is why I've never been able to fit in to any one homeschooling style. We are very much an eclectic family when it comes to our home school. We do what works at the time!

Anyway back to memorisation. Whilst I'm not a fan of drill and kill, I do see some merit in memorisation work so currently, Lego Lover is reviewing math facts, with Twist & Check Times Tables Cards, Fairy Princess is reviewing phonics and Little Surfer Dude his working on letter and number recognition.

Just on Little Surfer Dude (4) there is absolutely no expectation for him to participate during our morning basket/table time. He has a drawing challenge book (which he doesn't always do) and his memory work, apart from that he comes and goes as he pleases. My only requirement of him is that if he chooses to be at the table with us, he is quiet and not disrupting our time, otherwise I send him off to play.

So whilst its' not perfect I'm very happy with how this newly implemented part of our day is traveling. It gives a positive, light hearted way to start the day all together, before diving into book work!

Do you use a Morning Basket? I'd love to have a look at yours, please leave a link in the comments.