Over the summer months, you may find yourself making a few extra trips to the library. Though your children will enjoy finding their own books, they are bound to choose some titles that are beyond their reading levels. Attempting to read beyond their levels may be fun for awhile, but can also become discouraging. You may be tempted to help choose the books they read in order to avoid this problem. However, allowing them to select their own books is extremely important.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Summer reading: Helping young readers find a “just right” book
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
10 ways to bolster your struggling readers’ self-esteem
Imagine going to work every day feeling that you were not capable of doing your job. If you struggled with the basic tasks you were asked to complete, if you couldn’t meet the goals and expectations of your boss, and if you felt less adequate than your coworkers, would you want to keep going?
It is common for struggling readers to feel that they are failing at their “job” as students. Learning to read is key to being successful at that job, so when students struggle in this area, they can easily become discouraged, overwhelmed, and frustrated. Such feelings not only affect their peer relationships and academic success, but their image of self-worth as well. How can you tell if a student is struggling with low self-esteem? Read more »
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
15 ways to motivate struggling students this summer
The progress your struggling readers have made this year can be far too easily undone in one summer spent in front of the television. A few days ago, we posted some ideas for helping parents successfully teach reading at home, adapted from a 2003 article by Linda Baker. What Baker’s research also noted, aside from the importance of teaching reading at home, is the importance of motivating struggling readers to read at home.
If students are motivated to read, they’re likely to keep reading and progressing on their own. But without the extrinsic motivators your classroom provides—things like recognition, grades, and competition—your readers might do significantly less reading (and make significantly less progress) over the summer break. Luckily, your students will have access to another powerful motivator: their parents.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
5 tips to get your preschoolers speaking
You don’t realize how quickly children pick up on language until you hear your Kindergartners reciting the latest pop lyrics on the playground. While students in early childhood education may be excellent at mimicry, they still need help developing their vocabulary. According to Theresa Roberts’s new book No Limits to Literacy, children must be aware of two components of a word before they can use it correctly: meaning and pronunciation.
Without knowing both the meaning and pronunciation of a word, children (and adults alike) are powerless to use new vocabulary successfully. So we’ve pulled together five tips from Roberts’s book to help your early childhood education students expand — and actually use — their new vocabulary.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Reading success starts at home
Even the most meticulously planned literacy interventions fall short if students only get assistance at school. What your struggling readers do at home will either duplicate or undo the progress they make in your classroom. While many teachers assume parents know how to help their children read, a majority of parents report that they don’t know where to start.
Summer break is just around the corner, so now’s the time to arm your parents with valuable teaching tools. Pulling from Linda Baker’s Reading and Writing Quarterly article, we’ve got five simple ways you can help parents encourage reading in the home. And with that kind of parental support, students are sure to succeed.
