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Literacy Ideas
for Everyone
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To
encourage parents and children to read together at home, we started
a lending library. Each Monday, every child takes home a book in
a
special folder with their name on it. They read it with someone at
home and bring it back to school by Thursday and then get to take
another book home on the next Monday. We have a bulletin board
entitled "Snoopy Needs a Bone" - on this are placed bones for every
book that the children read at home with their parents. This gives
them a concrete
way of seeing just how much they are reading.
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To
promote story telling: We have a coffee can that we call our
story
can. In it each day are three items. At the beginning
of the year, I put in items that can be found in the book that
we are reading that
day. I take them out one at a time and the children
name the items. Then we watch for these items in the story.
At the end of the book,
I ask the children to tell me the story about those
three items. Later in the year, I pull out the items (children
have not seen the book
we are reading that day), and I ask the children
to name them and then tell me a story about these items. The
children tell their own
stories, which over the course of time become more
and more imaginative. We record the children's stories and use
them as part of their portfolio.
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To
have a successful story time, you need to give the children
a word
to listen for and an action that they have to perform when they hear
it, or ask one or two questions that they need to listen for the answer,
or give them props that go along with the story that they can hold
and perform a specific task with during the story. Examples: In
the story "Jump, Frog Jump," have the children jump when you read, "jump,
frog jump." In the story "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too," ask
the children to find out what trouble Tigger got into with Rabbit
or what
did Rabbit want to do to stop Tigger from bouncing, or in the same
story, have Popsicle stick puppets of the characters in the story
and have the children hold up their character when they hear its
name.
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Create
a class book about the children's families. Send home with each
child
a page out of a photo album. Explain to the parents that
each child will contribute a page or two of information about
his or her family
and household members (such as favorite toys, places that
the family has lived, etc.). The children can insert photographs,
drawings, cut-outs
from magazines, etc. Anything that expresses who the child
is is great! Once the book is compiled, read it to the children
at circle time.
Keep your class book in your book area so they can look at
it anytime they want. Be sure that at the end of the year, you
send each child's
page home with them!
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Xerox
a favorite story onto overhead sheets. Then turn off lights
and tell the
story using the overheads and let children participate in
the story by standing inside the pages of the book.
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I
made a giant cave in our reading center. We have multicolored bats,
cave life all over the walls and stalactites on the ceiling. We do
story time in the cave. I even let the children go in the cave to
play with animals. You would be surprised at how quiet they play.
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This
unit is called Traveling Bears. I went to a secondhand store and bought
a teddy bear and some clothing that would fit. I put these items in
a backpack along with a notebook. The notebook that I made is in the
shape of a bear on a piece of construction paper. It has lines drawn
through the body of the bear for writing. At the beginning of this
activity, I send a letter home to parents explaining how it works.
A schedule is posted on our parent board with the date each child
gets a turn. The child takes the bear home overnight and plays with
it. The parent(s) write down in the book what the child and bear did
while visiting. I let the children vote on a name for the bear in
class before we start the activity. My bears have done many things
while visiting. For instance, riding on bikes, visiting friends and
family, going out to eat and mostly sleeping with the child! The children
really enjoy this activity. It teaches them about taking turns, taking
responsibility for the bear and they get up in front of their peers
and tell their story.
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Books
are a very important part of our Language Area. We have made a Reading
Bookworm on our wall. I start this Bookworm in September with my new
class and he grows all year. He is made of circles that are touching
when stapled on the wall. On each circle is the title and author of
each book we read. I use the public library to supply my Library Area
so he grows very big and wanders all over the room and even on the
ceiling because we have run out of room. At first the kids do not
understand what we are doing but as they see him grow they can't wait
to put up a new circle. It also helps the parents see what we do in
our class and they think it's great.
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Fill
one pie tin per child halfway with salt. Sprinkle glitter
on top
and offer children an array of tongue depressors or play dough tools.
Allow them to draw designs in the salt and "shake" the pan to make
the pictures disappear. Wonderful task for pre-writing of letters
and numbers. Great for large and small motor coordination.
Predictors
Myths
10 Tips to Reading Success
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