For the Week of November 30th

Fluency with Sight Words

There are rules to learning to read the English language and many words that follow those rules. There are words, however, that do not follow the rules. These words are known as sight words. They may follow some of the rules but not all of the rules. Sight words must be memorized. If you have a child who is striving to learn to read, memorizing and drilling the sight words will help. First, ask the child to read all of the words on the list. Make a note of those that your child does not read quickly and easily. Then write them on notecards. Have your child practice reading the words. To make it fun, you could time how long it takes to read the whole stack. Practice reading them faster and faster. Write the words in sentences and make sure that your student can read the words in context. Play a memory game with the words by making two copies of the words. Lay all of the words face down and take turns turning two words over. If they match, that player gets to keep them. At each turn, the player has to read the words they turn over. The player with the most cards at the end of the game, wins.

List 1: son, put, what, to, the, push, won, both, a, List 2: full, shall, pull, plus, add, yes, was, is this, of, his, has, List 3:from, want, chalk, comb, half, talk, walk, month, else, length, palm, pint, List 4: cost, lost, wind, friend, front, strength, List 5: often, listen, fasten, soften, almost, island, control, buffet, exhibit, List 6: are, come, done, gone, one, some, sure, there, were, where, clothes, eye, glove, lose, love, move, prove, shove, taste, waste, whole, owe, whose, List 7: machine, minute, police, promise, something, approve, improve, someone, List 8: pie, tie, bye, two, to, the, do, a buy, who, oh, die, lie, List 9: acre, into, mothing, become, also, honest, woman, remove, women

If your child can read all of these it is quite an accomplishment. I will add more sight words next week.

For the Week of November 23rd

I hope everyone enjoys a restful, thankful time with family and friends over the Thanksgiving holiday.

It is important to engage students in meaningful writing. This means writing for specific purposes such as shopping lists and writing emails or letters. One type of meaningful writing that can have significance for the whole family is to spend some time writing about the things we are thankful for. I have discovered a number of ways that different families do this.

One family cuts out a construction paper tree with branches and tapes it to a wall. Then as Thanksgiving draws near, members of the family write items they are thankful for on colorful construction paper leaves and attach them to the tree. When Thanksgiving arrives, they read all of the reasons their family is thankful.

Someone else suggested giving a smooth stone to each person and have them write with marker what they are thankful for. Each member takes turns reading their "thankfulness stone" to the family.

Each person could write what they are thankful for on a piece of paper and put it in a basket. The basket is then passed around the table and members take one piece of paper out and read it to the family.

Some of the things related to being a teacher that I am thankful for are: 1)being in a position to make a positive impact on the lives of children, 2)working with teachers, staff and administration that are dedicated to and love their jobs, 3)partnering with supportive parents and, 4)having this beautiful facility to work in. I am truly blessed and thankful.

For the Week of November 16th

It is hard to believe, but our winter holiday break is just around the corner. With that in mind, I would like to encourage District 66 parents to consider giving the gift of reading. When you give the gift of a book or magazine, you are saying that you think reading is an enjoyable, worthwhile activity. If you think carefully about your child, their likes and interests, you will be able to pick out the perfect book or magazine. Be sure to tell them why you chose that particular piece of literature as they open it. Also, spend some time helping your student "get into" the reading. Read the first chapter with them or look at the pictures in the magazine and discuss the interesting articles they can read. If everyone in the family receives something new to read, it can be cozy and fun to make something warm to drink and all sit around enjoying your new books together.

For the Week of November 9th

Veteran's Day - Wednesday - No School

This past Thursday evening I attended a Veteran's Day service at Wheaton College given by the ROTC. The service reminded all of us how much we owe our freedoms to those who fight to preserve them for us. I would like to thank all of you who are veterans or who are currently in the military. Thank you for your service to our country. Thank you for protecting us. Thank you for laying your lives on the line so that we can continue to enjoy all the benefits of being citizens of the United States of America.

Another Intervention for RTI - Wilson

This week I would like to describe another intervention that we use at Prairieview for RTI. It is called Wilson. It is a system of teaching reading created by Barbara Wilson. Methodically, the students learn the six syllables types. They learn how to break longer words into syllables in order to decode them quickly and easily. There are specific methods to help students learn sight words; words that do not exactly follow the decoding rules. There is vocabulary instruction. Students are taught to read in phrases, instead of word-by-word. They are taught to make pictures in their mind of what they are reading and then put the pictures together in the correct order to make a movie. This helps their comprehension. Wilson is a research based intervention that works on all five components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension.

Helping your Child with Fluency

One method you can use to help your child with fluency is called "echo reading." Read one sentence very fluently while your child listens. Ask your child to try to read the sentence the same way you read it. Then do the same thing on the next sentence. After you practice that for several days, ask your child to read a sentence silently to himself and figure out how to read the sentence so that it sounds best. Then have him read it outloud to you. Have him work on reading phrase-by-phrase instead of word-by-word.