Talking with my Children-taken from Angela Notari-Syverson, 2006

parent childWhat Should We Talk About? 

Talking About Things Outside

Talking to children about what they see or hear teaches them new words.
Ask your child questions about things he/she sees outside:
• What color is it?
• What do you see?
• How does it feel?
• What shape is this?
• What does that remind you of?
• How would it look if it was snowing?

To help your child succeed, you can:
• Talk about something your child can touch and feel.
• Ask your child questions about things he/she is really interested in (rocks,mud, butterflies).
• Ask your child simple questions (Is this rock smooth?)
• Help your child to describe things with more than one word (brown, smooth, hard).

To make this activity more challenging, you can:
• Describe something nearby and see if your child can find it. Have your child describe something for you and try to find it.
• Play with your child at putting things into categories (beetles are insects, an acorn is a nut, a rose is a flower).
• Talk about how things would look different in other weather conditions, or times of the day.
• Ask your child to imagine how things would look different if your child were the size of an ant.

 

 

Using the Newspaper for Reading Practice

Dear Families,

Either old fashioned newspapers delivered to your home or online newspapers are great to use with your child. Newspapers offer topics that are current and relevant in addition to offering your child hundreds of activities and ideas that stimulate reading development.  Here are some ideas:

  • Ask you child to cut out four to five headlines from the newspaper.  Give them to your child and ask them to create new stories for each headline. This is a great way to encourage informational writing.
  • Ask you child to make up positive headlines that include the names of family members

For younger children:

  • Ask them to cut out letters from newspapers headlines to create their own words. They can also make new sentences with words that were cut out.
  • Have your child cut out items from furniture ads and then have them group them based on which room they belong in.

Use Newspaper In Education online:  http://nieonline.com/nieonline/lessons.cfm?category=elementary

 

 

 

newspaper

 

 

 

 

Building a Reading Life

 

Donalyn Miller, the book whisperer, has many tips on building children into lifelong readers. One of the most important habits to build is the “read a lot” habit to teach kids that readers carry reading with them, often lots of it, wherever they go. What can we do?

 

  • Stock your bathroom with reading material such as magazines, favorite books, and joke books.
  • Read while waiting—in line at the grocery store, the dentist’s waiting room, the karate lesson. Readers fill the smallest pieces of white space in their day with reading.
  • Read in the back of the car going from one place to another.
  • Taking a trip? Read about the place you’ll visit through travel brochures or online reviews.

 

No matter what you’re doing, try to read along the way!