The Reading Railroad is a free newsletter for parents, caregiver's and teachers.
Fun reading ideas & activities for preshool and primary grade children
Learn to Ride a Bike How to teach your child to ride a bike in less then two hours
without getting hurt!
1. 3 Reading Tips
2. Signing Sight Words for Success - Guest Expert
3. When Your Child is Ready to do Science Experiments
4. January's Winner of the Car Train Drawing
3 READING TIPS
When your child asks, "What is the word???"...
Skip it and read the rest of the sentence for a clue. Then go back and think, "What would make sense in that sentence?"
Next, use the letter sounds and familiar word parts to help decide what would make sense.
Then look at the pictures on the page for another clue.
SIGNING SIGHT WORDS FOR SUCCESS by Kim Taylor-DiLeva
When
children know sight words, they can read more fluently and better retain what
they read. Struggling readers often struggle learning their sight
words. You can help your child/student retain more sight words by
incorporating sign language signs along with each word.
Jan Hafer and Robert Wilson present a study in their booklet called Signing for Reading Success (p.12) where a 14 week study took place on 10
1st grade children who were struggling readers. The
children were purposefully chosen for this study because of their difficulty in
retaining new sight words. During regular instruction, these 10 students
averaged sight word retention of 69%. However, when a sign language sign
was used in conjunction with the sight word, the students averaged 93%
retention.
On page 85 in the book Dancing with Words: Signing for Hearing Children's Literacy by Dr. Marilyn Daniels, she shares a story from Dr. Robert
Wilson about a boy named Oscar who was in 2nd grade and
because of poor behavior was seated away from the other students. He had
no sight word vocabulary.
Dr. Wilson started showing Oscar the sign for
each sight word in the lesson – 10 words each day. After the first lesson
with the addition of sign, Oscar remembered ALL TEN. After the second day
he remembered 19 of the 20 words, and after the third day Oscar was seated back
with the class. He was motivated, excited, and became a teacher for the
rest of the class (by teaching them the signs).
Incorporating sign language into your sight word instruction is very easy
to do. Just look up the ASL signs for the sight words that you want your
students to learn in an American Sign Language Dictionary (you can also use an
online dictionary that shows a video of how to do the sign.) Show your
students the sight word and the sign. Say it and sign it.
Ask the
students to look at the word, and say it and sign it with you. Repeat this
a few times. Every time you are discussing, practicing, or reading this
new sight word, you and your students will sign it when it is read. To
make it easier on yourself and your students, you may want to look into
purchasing “My 1st 50 Sight Words in Sign”, where frequently used sight words
are on a card alongside their sign for easy learning/recalling. You can
find them at http://www.kimssigningsolutions.com/productsshop/sightwordcards.html
WHEN YOUR CHILD IS READY TO DO SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS
We have another site called www.super-science-fair-projects.com and have over 500 free science fair projects and experiments for 5 yr olds - college.
What is great about science experiments is that they teach kids a process and that when you do one action there is a result. Kids are enthalled by seeing the results of their experiment.
(p.12) where a 14 week study took place on 10
1st grade children who were struggling readers. The
children were purposefully chosen for this study because of their difficulty in
retaining new sight words. During regular instruction, these 10 students
averaged sight word retention of 69%. However, when a sign language sign
was used in conjunction with the sight word, the students averaged 93%
retention.
by Dr. Marilyn Daniels, she shares a story from Dr. Robert
Wilson about a boy named Oscar who was in 2nd grade and
because of poor behavior was seated away from the other students. He had
no sight word vocabulary.