Everything Old Is New Again: The Power of Board Games

Bored children this summer? The answer is simple - try a board game! That's right - adults may remember the tired but true games of Operation, Candy Land, or Chutes and Ladders, but these are all new to children. And the best part? These games not only encourage family time, lessons about taking turns, and gracefully winning or losing, but they also help with important school readiness skills. 

Think about Candy Land - children match the colors on cards to squares on the board. Sometimes children see that pulling a specific color will help them along. This encourages critical thinking. 

Chutes and Ladders, Trouble, or Sorry can support this, too. Matching one-to-one correspondence between spaces on a board and a game piece is important. Of course, you can help children stay calm when they have to "chute" backwards. Knowing how to accept a setback and even possibly see that despite a possible loss, odds can be overcome. 

Operation can be a silly game but wow - the fine motor skills it encourages are helpful! Think about pinching the tweezers and removing, ever so carefully, small game pieces. This helps with the pincer grasp and with eye-hand coordination. 

Good ol' Checkers helps children learn rules, take turns, and keep a game board organized. Teachers appreciate when children come to school with these skills.

And remember card games, too. Go Fish helps with expressive language and proper sentence structure. This would be a wonderful game if you are working with English Language Learners.

Anytime a child can roll the dice is helpful as the dots can first be counted and then recognized by pattern without the need to count each dot. This is subitizing in an authentic way. So, games with dice are always beneficial. I have even seen preschoolers who are Monopoly masters! 

With the 4th of July upon us, engage family members in playing these games with children. What a fantastic way to spent a rainy afternoon with grandparents...making memories.

School Readiness - Close Reading

One of the hot topics in literacy is close reading. As part of helping children to think deeply about a text, we often encourage them to annotate what they read. This helps them learn to interact and react to material. It may seem surprising to use, but many young children need to be taught that this is expected. As reading specialists know, when children process information they are better able to comprehend.  

You can ask preschoolers to begin thinking about annotation in an age-appropriate way. 

First ask children to draw smiling faces, frowning faces, and even a "neutral" face on post-it notes. Even the process of drawing a circle is a school readiness skill as it helps children develop fine motor skills for writing letters. 

As you read to a child, stop at appropriate places. Ask the child to react to the page or part. Then have the child place a post-it that shows his or her feeling about the section. 

Later, go back and look at these reactions with the child. Ask if the child wants to change any of the responses. This is an important school readiness skill as it teaches children to go back and think about both what has been read and to consider their thinking about it. It also helps develop the idea that is is acceptable for children to change their mind. 

Standards Alignment:
NAEYC - 2.E.04.
Head Start - VII.A.

Comprehension: Asking Questions Or Explaining Your Thinking?

As we move into the summer months and many of our young children are in a more informal setting, this is likely a good time to discuss ways we read orally to children. One key objective we all share is to help children understand (comprehend) the material we read orally. Unfortunately, too many equate asking questions with helping children to understand books. This is simply not a good way to teach comprehension. All asking questions does is to check (test) that children understood the material.

This means we need to use age-appropriate methods to assist children in understanding what is read. One of the best ways to do this is to explain your own thinking. You need to model HOW to comprehend.  Below are examples of ways you can do this:

Corduroy by Don Freeman

Before Reading Think Aloud-
Look at the cover of the book. Say, "I see a picture of bear. He is bending down to pick up a button. I think this book will be about the bear trying to find his lost button." This shows children how they can use pictures to make predictions, which is an important comprehension skill.

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

During Reading Think Aloud-
"I am looking at the picture of the look on this creature's face. I heard the words, 'I would not, could not, in a car' so this tells me that this creature will not be trying any of the green eggs and ham." 

And a bonus: When you point to your eyes (I am looking at) and then to the picture, your English Language Learners (ELLs) have a context for the vocabulary you are using.

Nights of the Pufflings by Bruce McMillan

After Reading Think Aloud-
Say, "This book told me about how children help save young puffins. I think the idea of this book is that children can make a difference in the world." This is an age-appropriate way to show children how to think about theme or essential questions. 

These examples of thinking can actually TEACH comprehension rather than using questions, which may signal to some children that they cannot comprehend if they do not know the answers to your questions. You are modeling HOW to comprehend!

Standards Alignment:
NAEYC - 2.E.04.
Head Start - VII.A.

Can Dolch Words Be Sounded Out?

We often tell children that sight words (the Dolch list is commonly used) cannot be sounded out. While we want children to "read" these words without hesitation, some children are auditory learners and should be shown that many of the Dolch words DO follow phonics patterns. In the video below we look at the Pre-K (pre-primer) list where many of the words do follow common word patterns that occur early in the phonics continuum. For children who are good at "sounding out" words, we can and should show them the patterns in sight words. 

Standards Alignment:
NAEYC - 2.E.06 & 2.E.09.
Head Start - VII.B.3 & VII.C.2,3,&4.