Under the Reading Umbrella!

What is reading? Is it just saying the words on a page? This short video will help families understand the different components of reading.

Standards Alignment:
NAEYC - 2.E.03, 2.E.04, 2.E.06, 2.E.09, 2.E.10.
Head Start - VII. B & C.

Read-Alouds: Comprehension and Cognates

Read-alouds are more than just fun for our young learners. By clearly and explicitly asking children to engage in meaningful comprehension activities like making predictions, describing characters, and explaining plot, we are teaching this important component of reading (see http://www.maggiesbighome.com/search?q=reading+umbrella). We can have children turn and talk about their "guesses" (predictions) based on the cover of the book and/or a picture walk. Turn the class into actors to show understanding of character traits and behavior. Give children a paper, folded into four parts, to highlight the key parts of a book's plot. These are developmentally-appropriate ways to teach comprehension skills as we read. 

Read-alouds can even provide us an important opportunity to showcase the knowledge we have in our classrooms. We can use the vocabulary in a book to help ALL children understand the power of cognates (words from different languages that are related to each other). This helps speakers of languages that descend from Latin. 

About 40% of English vocabulary can be related to Spanish words. This helps our Spanish speakers but also demonstrates to English speakers that they may be able to make connections with words in other languages. 

As you read books orally to your class, ask Spanish speakers to raise their hands when they hear familiar Spanish words. They may raise their hands when you read family or center as the Spanish words are closely related (familia, centro). 

Talking with your young children about "words that are relatives" is a perfect opportunity to invite Spanish-speaking family members of students into your classroom. They can read books in Spanish and English speakers can then raise THEIR hands when they hear a familiar cognate like familia! Showing learning from all sides is important! 

Standards Alignment:

NAEYC - 2.E.03, 2.E.04, 2.E.06, 2.E.09, 2.E.10.

Head Start - VII. B & C.

High-Frequency Words For All Learners

High-frequency words, Dolch words, Fry list, sight words…many terms for the words our young children need to learn to recognize. We have previously explained the five components of reading here.  Under the reading umbrella, one of these components is vocabulary. When children are emerging readers and writers, vocabulary means recognizing sight words. Later, vocabulary focuses on words that students may be able to decode (sound out) but cannot understand. Then teachers focus on using context clues, Greek and Latin roots, etc.

As teachers of young children, we focus on teaching sight vocabulary. We want our children to recognize words like this:

it

Many of these words DO follow phonics patterns. The word it is an example.  Let’s take a look at the pre-primer list of Dolch words. Many of these words can be taught using phonics principles. This is helpful for children who are auditory learners.  Below we have listed words from this list that follow the early short vowel rules and the common long vowel pattern, vCe.  We have listed 18 out of the 40 pre-primer words. Many of the remainder words like play do follow higher-level phonics rules but because they are further along the phonics continuum, we have not included them here.

and

big

can

go

help

I

in

is

it

jump

make

me

my

not

red

run

up

we

Look for more posts on teaching both visual and auditory learners as you focus on high-frequency words.

Standards Alignment:

NAEYC – 2.E.06 & 2.E.09.

Head Start - VII. B & D.