Shhh..... Don't Tell!!: Lets' Read

Lil and Jessica arrive every morning at 5:15am. Occassionally they may go to sleep after breakfast, but most of the time they stay up and are ready to do work. Well most of the time I am not ready to see little ones working with the sensory bin,etc. I turn the t.v. on and maybe it may pacify them for another hour which has helped a lot in my overall energy level for the day, see my last child  for the day leaves at 10:00 p.m.  So I have been poppin in Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD and guess what ? The girls know their sounds, letter names and happily share their information. I guess a little educational programming dosen't hurt after all. Their mother was amazed when she realized they could recognize their letters and sounds. Their mother was sharing how they point out letters and say the sounds and sing a cute little song, she thanked me for teaching them these things.  I was happy for Lil and Jessica then I shared with her my little secret.

This DVD was actually DJ's favorite movie when he was about two years old. I got the same results from him too. I highly recommend it if you allow your children to watch t.v. In my opinion children who are read to everyday probably will get the most enjoyment out of this movie!

                                                                          
                                                                         

Toddlers Language Shelves: Lets' Read

This week I added new works to the language shelves for the toddlers. Yesterday I received really pleasing responses from them while doing their works. I overhead Jessica saying to one of her friends "I am doing what Lil be doing" while working with the sandpaper letters. Lil is Jessicas' big sister. Jessica was so proud of her work and her ability to do "big works".


The sandpaper letters along with leapfrog fridge phonics. I love this learning tool from Leapfrog. The children did exactly what I thought they would do. They would push the button to hear the sound while they traced the sandpaper letters with their fingers. This helped them to do this work independently while hearing the sound pronounced correctly.

                    Their sand tray.
                                

                                 
                            I spy basket.
                                

                                     
                              The materials inside.

                                                                                        
                        Scoop and lace letters.

                                                               
                            Their book basket with puppets.

 I have planned activities to go along with the book basket. I am taking it one day at a time with preparing language materials for them. I don't want to over do it, so I will be very observant before I make my next move .                                                                                                            

Our Language Shelves: Lets' Read

I am still learning a lot about the montessori method. Today I want to share with you how I set up our language area. It works well for us and exchanging the materials out on a two week cycle keep the children excited to choose works from this area.  First I want to apologize for the darkness of the photos. I just rearranged this area so I have to put another working light in the area. It is still enough light for the children to carry out their work, but for pictures a lot more light is needed.

 On these two shelves on beginning reading activities. The top shelf has our Explode The Code workbooks. Yes I do implement this curriculum because all of the children that I will guide will enter public school. I find the vocabulary in this program prepares them for this type of enviroment that they definetly will become a part of. Then we have the metal insets. In the gifts bags are classified cards, and next to that is our storytelling box. On the bottom shelf is sandpaper letters, sand tray, and beginning reading works.

                          
The Pink series. I also placed the moveable alphabet on this shelf. Each series has it own sound object basket and book basket that have a variety of books that they will be able to read at that level.
                                            

                                     The Blue level series.

  The Green level series. On this shelving unit I have also placed the grammar farm, usually at this level of reading the child is ready to use the grammar farm for grammar activities. I have used other works in the past that children have been able to use this work before the Green series.

                Objects that are in the pink sound basket.

                           Books that in the pink book basket.

The language area is very stimulating for the children. They continuously surprise me everyday with their joy and love for reading!!

                                    

What works for your children or classroom that get them excited about reading?   


                                                                                            

Lets' Read: I See Colors

If you have a child or a group of children that are ready to read but are at a stage where blending the word together is at a halt this activity may be for you. I do guided reading with a small group of children. I have worked with these children for sometime now and so I knew they were ready to learn some sight words while learning how to read. I found a successful set of readers that I have been searching for. They are published by Creative Teaching Press and come with wonderful worksheets. Yes you heard me say worksheets and the children love them. We do our guided readings on Mondays,Wednesdays and Fridays. The books are avaliable for the children to use whenever they choose to independently practice. We also complete the worksheet activity after each lesson. I do believe that if I was individually teaching this to my child at home that they would probably gain mastery of the words within two weeks, this is if the child is ready and willing to participate in reading and doing the various activities. We have now completed two guided reading sessions and the children are wanting more. Here is how it looks so far.

Before I do the first reading we take a picture walk through the story.

                                                                

  Next the children spin the wheel and ask questions about the story. For example What do you think this story will be about by looking at the cover, Is it fiction or non-fiction?

Then I do the first reading while the children turn the pages and follow along. While I am doing this I am observing who is tracking correctly and are we all on the same page. Now it is the childrens' turn I still lead by saying "ready, point, read" when we begin a new page. The first reading we read half the book, the second reading we read the whole book and now I have the children tracking and reading on the same page.  Something fantastic happened when we last read all of them asked if they could read a page, so we took turns reading a page aloud.

Here are the two worksheets we have done so far.

With the worksheets being used it is a nice way to end a reading session. I do have some hands on activities planned to make this book memorable for the children. The sight words that the children are learning is around, all, I, see, yes, no, and color words. There is also phonics incorporated in this book with teaching the sound of ee as in bee.                                                           

                                                                        
Here is N reading independently asking me if I would like her to read to me. N was so tickled that she was able to read the words that she almost couldn't follow through.

I put these three part cards on the language shelf for children to work with as well.

                 Right now I have eight colors for the children to work with in the pouch.

                                                                                
If you have any reading lessons or language activities you have done with your children or classroom please link up and share. Please be sure in your post that you put a link back to this in your blog post. Thank you for reading and participating.