Stagnation

Early Learning Early Learning General Discussions
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I could use a thread about overcoming stagnation, so I hope others can use it too. I’m having difficulty getting from sight words and basic phonics to reading fluency. But stagnation is theme that can occur in teaching anything from math to EK or music. So if anyone else is feeling stuck, please share. I think it will help to support one another. Let’s each identify a specific problem or problems and a new solution to fix it. My hope is that we can help one another to become more dynamic teachers.

Problem 1: I’ve been showing the same sight words forever and I’m slow to add new ones. Sometimes my daughter learns sight words by herself before they even make it onto our wordflash list. So I’m not really instrumental in teaching her new things.

Solution 1: I’m going to completely revamp my sight word list tonight so that it is mostly new. Specifically I’m going to figure out which sight words from Fry’s first 100 list she doesn’t know yet and add them. I will also try to drop to drop at least a quarter to a half of our old sight words.

Problem 2: Sarah doesn’t practice reading enough.

New Plan 2: 3x’s per week, I will offer to read any bedtime story to her if she reads to me first. The other nights I’m busy reading Harry Potter to my older son (and Sarah but she doesn’t always listen).

Of course, this thread is not just for those of us who are stagnating. If someone has advice rather than a problem please feel free to share your wisdom.

Thanks, Lori

Lori

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Edited to Add- I just realized your child is almost 4, so some of these suggestions might not apply to you because he/she is past this phase. But, I will leave them so perhaps they might help someone else! With a child who is almost 4, what about letting them pick out their own books at the library/bookstore to encourage them to read more? Or a reward chart? (I am not against positive reinforcement but some parents consider it bribery. I believe the benefit to the child is worth it though, others disagree and want to encourage only the intrinsic value without rewards. I believe it will all come in time.)

Also, does your child watch DVD’s? Your Child Can Read is good. Or you can also leave the subtitles on if you are watching regular broadcasting, it certainly can’t hurt.

http://www.webothread.com/server/TreasureBay/website/main/scripts/default.asp

I just found some of these at my local discount bookstore after hearing about them a long time ago. They are so cool! Worth looking into. Some of the “child reading” parts at the K level only have 2 big bold words, so whatever level she is at you should be able to find something that will work. I would be careful only reading her a story if she reads you one first and would only use that as a last resort. I have read some kids are hesitant to read more because they think their parents won’t read to them anymore. Or it will just make her feel pressured before she is ready, I don’t know how old she is? Make it fun. Entice her to read. There’s always the homemade book option to fall back on.

If you are having trouble graduating from flashcards to sentences to books, we were able to get over that hump with BIG Sentence Strips from the local teacher store, it was a new novelty for DD. I first picked all of the words that I knew she knew, and used them to make simple couplets or sentences and hand drew a small picture. Or you could get those giant sentence strip papers that teachers use and create a story together about what you did that day. I would like to do this to start journaling exercises with DD.

Then to move her to books, check out the Sight Words Easy Readers from Preschool Prep. The words are in big bold font and on the opposite side of the page as the simple illustration. We love them.

If it’s phonics she needs more work in, we have had success with the newest edition of hooked on phonics with the DVDs/Readers/Workbooks. Skip pre-K it’s all letter sounds, and K is all CVC words. DD knew all her CVC words for the most part but needed practice with reading stamina so we went through K anyway because she liked it and it gave her confidence. Some kids don’t like workbook type stuff though or are bored with the DVDs, depends on the kid. DadDude’s Flesch cards teach many of the same things and they’re essentially free, so that’s another option.

I know this didn’t directly answer your question, but I am hoping that this might help you or possibly another parent reading this thread. Even though DD knew some or all the words in the books I tried to start her on, she had trouble with stringing them all together and building stamina. Time, patience, and constantly reinventing our approaches with novelty seemed to do the trick.

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This is an awesome thread idea!

I have one idea about stagnating, its like writers block and must be defeated!

One trick is to not shift focus but to change things up a bit.

If what you’re doing is being met with resistance, boredom, etc. Put EVERYTHING related to it away over night while the child isn’t around. Put the flashcards, workbooks, letter tiles, etc away. Everything except your NORMAL reading materials which are probably kept on a shelf or something. Delete the little reader and little math icons from your desktop. (but don’t uninstall the programs, duh!)

Keep it all hidden, out of sight and mind for 10-15 days. Don’t bring it up, or mention it to the child. If the child asks for it, put them off a little and play some other interesting game or engaging activity for them.

Then gradually begin to introduce the materials again.

For a young toddler, you could take them on a scavenger hunt where they will find the instructions labels on the walls/doors etc

For example:

Do You Want a New Toy?
Go in the bedroom
Give Daddy a Hug
Ask for a clue. Say please.
(Daddy would give them a new clue)
Look in the drawer
Surprise!
(a small but new toy would be found with the last clue.)

This Next Idea might be “Too Much” by many peoples reckoning, but its an idea…

For an older child. You could play a great game of pretend, that lasts for several (5-10) days. Tell them that a Bully has stolen all of your things and that there is a mystery challenge to get all their things back! Tell them that if they get XX number of points, they will earn something back. (Just to clarify, you would have put all the materials that they’d resisted away, this is what they’re trying to earn back).

They might need to work on reading 3-5 sights words to earn points, read a book with mom and then every time you come to one of their sight words, THEY must read it. That would earn them y/xx points, you could keep a schedule/calendar and each night put a ‘note’ for the Bully in the mailbox to tell them you did this or that.

Each day, have your child perform some small ‘challenge’ and send notes to the Bully and keep track of your points on the calendar etc. At the end, make sure you get some nice streamers and gift wrap and a few extra new things to put in the basket when you return the missing items to the child and have a “We Did It Party” that night.

This could be a neat way to re-introduce the reading. Begin reading together short stories and making up rhymes. Play games with the word cards and change them out on a schedule, no matter what else.

Play verbal phonics games.

Sing about the Alphabet. (Singing ABCDEFG…is pretty useless without any sort of context.) I taught my 4yo student his alphabet and sounds simultaneously by singing a song similar to the one on the letter factory.

The A says /a/ the A says /a/ Everybody, all together the A says…/a/! We would sign the alphebet and look at the giant flashcard for that letter as we sang. He learned them very well, and then the Letter Factory cemented the deal.

Play Simon says using verbs that the baby/child knows how to read.

You would say “Simon says…” then pick a verb card, clap, smile, wave, jump, speak, etc…

If the student is doing couplets or sentences, all the better. “Simon Says…” clap your hands, wave your hands, wave one hand, bounce around/etc.

I’m sure you could find a use for all 220 Dolch sight words in different games.

Do crafts together where you label things. (ie Make a rainbow poster and have your child tack the proper label onto each strip. Draw a picture of your house and pin the correct labels on different parts)

Develop a new activity like Music time or something, that lasts for 10 minutes, during which time you play with letter sounds

You might pick a subject and do lots of activities based on that subject that incorporate the ‘stagnating’ subject, without focusing on it.

For example, you might be learning about Anatomy and play lots of games and draw and label pictures about anatomy. You could work math into this by saying, “Look, my man has freckles. I’m going to give him…7 freckles on each cheek, so let me see 7+7 is…14!” Or, for reading, as you label each part of the body you could say the word and sound it out as you write. "Leg—/l/ /e/ /g/. Here is his neck…Neck /n/ /e/ /k/, then remark to yourself about how ck work together to make the same sound. Do it casually and keep going…

You could play (phonetic) alphabet charades.

Draw the ABC’s on 3x5 index cards in bold marker, put them all in a bag/basket and draw a l letter from them. Perform an action that begins with that letter. e.g. If you draw K, you might Kick, or Kiss. If you draw a W you could Wiggle or Wave, if you draw Y you could Yawn, if you draw and X you could stand up with your arms and legs apart so that you look like an X. etc…Your child will have to guess what it is, and then they take a turn.

As you progress, you could add in letter combos like; st (stomp), ch (chop or chase), dr (drag, or drumming) etc.

These are just some ideas to use to re-introduce and reinforce reading with your toddler. They may or may not work, I hope someone finds them usefule

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Teaching my Toddlers: I really like the workbook idea. I’ve done lots of stuff but not really any workbooks. Actually I kept my post too short and sweet. She is reading on I think a kindergarten level. I have 27 sight words readers that my son used in kindergarten and first grade reader. She can read all of them. However she started reading sentences a year ago, and began working out phonics at 3.5 yr old, but the going is very slow. It seems that many progress much faster. Plus I must admit that I do much less than most here and what I do is pretty stale at this point. We could be stuck on kindergarten level forever. She doesn’t like looking at small print. But the workbook idea is great because it gives us a new way to progress until she is has more stamina and is more fluent. I will look for the Preschool Prep Readers. And those We Read books look great too. I just looked at the content and maybe she is more of a 1st grade reader. It is hard to find a good series of readers that progresses in a way that you can teach from it. We get lots of books from the library that have large print but that don’t actually progress in a way that makes it easy to improve fluency. I keep hearing about DadDudes Flesch Cards. I will check them out.

Mom2Bee: She is really more working on reading stamina and going from reading sentences to fluently reading paragraphs and books. She reads kindergarten material. She is also working on addition, subtraction, and telling time.

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Sometimes we play shops. I do not say what I want to buy but I write it on a small paper.

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Fun things to do with your 4yr old to keep from being stagnant.
Progressive Phonice ( www.progressivephonics.com) ( its free, just register) and they have printable books and I just noticed they also have an online option. Where you download it and can read it off the computer. The words are nice and big too.

Like someone mentioned, the Preschool Prep books are great. Nice big letters. I know my 4yr old has been complaining about the small print too.

If your crafty make your own books , just be sure to use a big marker. I take some construction paper and make small books, write the sentence on one page then pictures on the next and then staple them. My daughter loves them and has a My Little Kitty bag that she carries them in when we go places. You can also make stories with larger letters by putting the paper in those paper protector sheets and then placing them in a portfolio binder or those folders that have the little brads in the middle.

Also : http://www.uniqueteachingresources.com/Fry-1000-Instant-Words.html
is another awesome website. There are 1,000 words children can learn to read. Plus Dolche sight words etc. Its a great resource. I haven’t printed out the flashcards quiet yet. But I did print out the list sheets. We work on the words and then after so long I open up our folder and I have my daughter read the words she can read. This helps me know what she knows and so we don’t continue rehashing the same words over and over. She loves to do the word lists because I let her highlight the words she knows with the highlighter.

We still do go over words that she’s learned so she doesn’t forget them. I may bring out the words she does know once a week, maybe twice. But I like to focus on the words she doesn’t know more.
I’m not sure how your daughter is. Some days my daughter loves the computer and some days she loves her flashcards.
You can also make the stories on Powerpoint. You can blow up the letters to 100 by clicking on the number and then typing in 100 on the letter size.

The tricky part is that our little ones are making their preferences. So we have to be a bit more crafty in getting them to read and keeping us from dwelling on the same thing day after day.
IIf anything focus on a list of 10 words a week. If she gets them sooner then move on. I’ve noticed that my daughter will learn most of her words in a week or less.

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Sounds like she is beyond DadDude’s fleschcards, check them out anyway to see if she needs to work on any in the later part of the series but she is surely past the beginning CVC ones.

I am finding with my own DD that her reading decoding skills are a little bit beyond her stamina, but I think they will even out eventually anyway.

Another member here speaks VERY highly of I See Sam leveled readers, they sound like they might be a good fit in this circumstance. Not sure on the text size. I plan to check them out in the future.