A Fourth Grader’s Reading List

March 18, 2010 by LisaV

Spelling Letters

March 15, 2010 by Tammy

There are beloved subjects and then there are those subjects that are dreaded.

When it comes to working on language arts, spelling seems to fall into one or the other category. Having watched several students through the years tackle learning how to spell words and learn vocabulary, it seems they either get it easily or they struggle with each word. I haven’t found it to be totally reading dependent either, as I’ve seen good readers do poorly with spelling and the slower readers do excellently and visa versa.

Through the years we tried a variety of methods to help learn our spelling words. Writing each word out a zillion times, filling in the blanks with spelling words, crossword puzzles, word searches, word scrambles, and illustrating words.

Perhaps one of the most entertaining ways we’ve learned our spelling lists has been putting those words and vocabulary to practical use by writing letters to older siblings, relatives, or friends.

The first task was to use each word on their list in a sentence. This could result in some very interesting letters at times when there was a common theme of the current spelling list. Perhaps the list of words was about agriculture or medicine or mathematics or foreign words commonly found in our English language. The second task was to use the vocabulary words of the lesson with the definition given in the book, which can vary because words can often be used as different parts of speech. A word can look very different in a sentence when it’s used as a noun, a verb or an adjective.

When you put these two tasks together while attempting to write a letter, the final outcome is some very interesting letters which have stretched your child’s creativity. In fact, interesting would most times be an understatement as the letters tend to be quite humorous as well. There’s nothing like one of these silly sounding yet perfectly spelled letters from home to brighten the day of an older sibling who is a college student in the midst of finals! (and I believe that one of those former college students in our family probably has those letters still tucked away in a box in his home!) Or what about having your child write a letter to their grandparents who are skeptical about this crazy homeschooling stuff you’ve decided to try with their grandchildren? They could be quite impressed by the tone of the letter when your child uses challenging spelling and vocabulary words correctly.

Although my current students would probably enjoy using the letter method for learning spelling words, I’m finding that it’s time to be creative again. These girls are known for being over-the-shoulder Scrabble players every time I’m on Facebook playing my Scrabble games with friends. Since they enjoy this game so much, I’ve been working on making multiple squares of each letter on card stock that could be used on our Scrabble board while playing on the kitchen table. It could be quite a challenge for them to play only spelling words in a game and see who could outscore the other as they also use some math skills while tallying the point values of the letters.

There is no doubt that our English language is abundantly rich with words just waiting to be used.

Creatively learning how to use them enriches our language skills which will help in every subject area we teach our children and isn’t that really the heart of the matter?

Married in 1980 and still living in the same house in a woodsy rural setting, Tammy’s homeschooling journey began in the fall of 1987 when her oldest turned six years old. As rather new believers professing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, homeschooling was a way to live out the principles found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Through all the challenges of life Tammy has stayed the course growing to a family with nine children who presently range from preschool age to college graduates married with children. Her role has transitioned from learning everything she could about homeschooling to becoming an encourager to others coming along the way. Please visit Tammy at Garden Glimpses.

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Tags: creative homeschooling, creative teaching, spelling, writing

Keeping Up with the Accelerated Reader

March 5, 2010 by HeatherW

5 Comments

If you’ve ever had an accelerated reader in your home, then you know it is a challenge to keep up with what they read and to keep them in books. They read everything and anything they can get their hands on and as a parent you are constantly on the search for a good read for your child.

In my experience, there are three things that present the most difficult hurdle when you have a student who reads voraciously.

First is finding books that are emotionally appropriate for their reading level. Just because a student can read what kids in high school are reading when he is 6, doesn’t mean he should. Worse than reading books that are no longer challenging, is reading books that are inappropriate for kids of a younger age.

The second is pre-reading fast enough to find out if a book is off the mark for your child or not. At our house, my husband is the pre-reader. Unencumbered with the daily tasks of homeschooling and being a fast reader makes him a prime candidate for this job. If I see a book or series of books that I think might be appropriate, I bring it home and set him to work. In one evening he’ll be able to tell whether or not our son should try the book. He’s read a lot of good books over the years and it gives my son the incentive to read it. Once his dad has read it, then he knows that he can share what’s going on in that good book with him. We’ve seen some wonderful conversations over the years that have begun because of a book they’ve shared together.

If you don’t have a good system in place for pre-reading, then there are other ways to be more certain about a book choice. One is to ask around. Ask family, friends, and online homeschooling forum buddies about a book. Chances are someone has some experience with it and can tell you about the book.

Another way is to get your hands on some books about books. My favorites include The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease , Honey for a Child’s Heart and Honey for a Teen’s Heart by Gladys Hunt. These authors have specialized in sharing good books with their audience. The Read Aloud Handbook is all about reading good books to your children even as they get older, which is another topic all to itself, but in it there is a bibliography of good books.

As my oldest son enters the adolescent world and has been at this reading thing quite a long time, my focus has turned to books for older kids. Gladys Hunt has come to my rescue with a book written about good books for teens and how to use them to communicate with your teen. Reading is a good way to connect with your children and it will continue to be true as they enter their teens. I’m hopeful that since we have a well established culture in our home of discussing books, it will continue to be an outlet for our kids as they get older. Another good source is The Kid’s Book Club Book by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp. This book not only has a good reading list, but it shares how to organize and carry out a book club for various age groups of kids.

The last thing that I find to be a challenge with an accelerated reader is that as they grow, they get more discerning. This is actually true of any reader that has been exposed to good books whether or not they are ahead of the reading game. I have observed over the years as my son has read a lot of good books, he has little tolerance for books which are not. As Gladys Hunt says in Honey for a Teen’s Heart, “Excellence has a way of eliminating inferior products.” In practical terms, this means that finding a good book gets a little harder especially since they read so quickly! That’s all the more reason to find a good source of information on books.

Finally, I’d like to point out that typically we think of early readers as being “accelerated” readers. They head out of the starting gate at a full run and keep a steady pace. Keeping them in good supply of appropriately challenging books is a key to nurturing the early start. In addition, you can have accelerated readers that begin reading more on a typical schedule for emerging readers. Once they catch on, they begin to read everything in sight. Just because they didn’t start super early doesn’t mean they haven’t caught up to the fast pace of reading books and don’t have the capability to read more difficult books.

At our house, nurturing our good readers means having a print rich environment and making sure that trips to the library are a priority. We have so many books home from the library at our house sometimes we wonder if there are enough still on the shelves for others! I’m sure this is a familiar scene in the homes of most homeschoolers. Keeping track of which books come home and encouraging the good stuff is the task at hand. I encourage you to find the resources you need to help your kids make good decisions about books. If you should happen to make a poor judgment, all is not lost. Sometimes those less than discerning moments give us opportunities to have good discussions with our kids.

Enjoy the journey with your accelerated reader. Chances are they will take you to places you’ve not been before through their adventures with books and it gives you as the parent a special role as adventure guide.

Heather Woodie is a homeschooling mom of four kids ages 10, 8, 6, 3 and wife to a handsome chemical engineer for 13 years. Before raising a family, she taught middle school science and has a masters degree in curriculum and instruction secondary education. Now teaching at home means the chance to provide the extraordinary for her children. Between family and homeschooling time, she is working as volunteer staff for MOPS International as an Area Coordinator for NY State. She’s been homeschooling four years and you can read about those adventures on her blog, Blog She Wrote.

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Tags: accelerated readers, Book Lists, emerging readers, Gladys Hunt, Honey for a Child's Heart, Honey for a Teen's Heart, Jim Trelease, prereading, reading, The Read Aloud Handbook

How to Painlessly Add More Books to Your Reading Schedule

February 28, 2010 by Jimmie

13 Comments

“So many books… so little time” is a common refrain among bibliophile homeschoolers. Laundry has to be folded, meals have to be cooked, and errands must be run. As much as we love reading aloud to our children, homemaking often keeps us from doing it as often as we would like. And we are not the only ones who are busy! Our children attend music lessons, help with household chores, and need time outdoors for free play.

Despite our busy lives, I’ve discovered a secret for injecting more books into our schedule – audio books.

grinning audio59

Whether downloaded for free, borrowed from the library, or purchased at a retail store or website, audio books are a super way to “read” more books with your children. We store our audio CDs on the shelves along with our books for constant access. Our family rule is that you must ask permission to watch a movie, but listening to audio books is okay anytime. I love that my daughter reaches for an audio book when she’s bored instead of watching television or playing video games.

homeschool audio31 My daughter’s favorite time to listen to audio books is while she cleans up her room. The story engages her mind and helps her forget the drudgery of her task. I love that she’s hearing good fiction or classic biographies while I’m busy with my own work elsewhere in the house.

Of course, we listen to audio books together as well. That’s the best situation because we can discuss what we’ve heard and share the memories of the book together, even weeks later.

Here are some great times to sneak in more books with audio books:

During meal preparation and clean up
While drawing or crafting
As you assemble a model
When sick in bed
During a trip in the car
As you wait for an event or a doctor’s appointment (use headphones)
While folding laundry

An average juvenile fiction novel at Audible.com is around 3 hours of listening time. So if you listened to an audio book only half an hour each day, you could easily add fifty titles to your yearly reading list.

Will you choose audio books for fun or for academics? That’s up to you. You can certainly choose historical fiction to match your history curriculum. Or you may want to choose some literary classics that aren’t scheduled in your language arts curriculum. Look at some of those great books lists that you never seem to get around to reading, and choose some titles to listen to on your computer or MP3 player.

Do you use audio books? What time works best for listening? And do you have some suggested titles that were big hits with your family? Please share them in the comments.

Jimmie is a former public school teacher turned homeschooling stay-at-home-mom. A sense of humor, faith, and creativity keep her “pressing on” in her unique situation — living and traveling abroad with an only child in a bilingual environment. Visit her blog at Jimmie’s Collage.

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Tags: Audible.com, audio books, Books on CD, Family Reading Time, Fiction for Kids, Focus on Reading, Focus on Reading Issue, MP3 Players, reading, reading fun

Reading Aloud to Boys

February 28, 2010 by Debra

1 Comment

When my first son was born, some family friends sent us a gift celebrating his arrival. These two women, both classroom teachers, blessed us with My Very First Mother Goose by Iona Opie and Rosemary Wells and the Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. They were both read over and over with my first son, my second and now with my third. Of all my resources, this gift shaped my parenting more than any other.

We began reading aloud to our children long before we ever dreamed we’d homeschool them. It simply became – and is – how we parent.

Photo Credit: Heidi, Mt Hope Academy

There are a ton of great reasons to read aloud to your children. We read aloud in our home, not just because we’re “doing school,” but because we want to spend quality time with our boys, to introduce them to worlds and people they may never have an opportunity to experience, and to shape their minds and worldviews.

Simply stated, we have a genuine agenda.

First, I read aloud to my boys for the quality time it creates. When we experience books together we walk together into a setting, interact with a character, or sort through a conflict in an objective way that creates family understanding. We find out things about one another (“What would you do if you were in this position?”), we share the same fears (“Is Aslan really dead?”), and we hope, laugh and “see” the world differently. As my boys get older our natural interests intersect a little less. Reading with them helps present new touch points through which we can share life.

Modeling the reading process is next on my agenda. My middle son is a reluctant reader and very likely dyslexic. He needs to hear how the language sounds so he can store words away in his head. He needs to hear the rhythm of sentences and what you should do when you encounter periods, commas and parentheses. He needs to hear me stop and ask rhetorical questions about the plot. And he needs to hear me stumble on words and go back and sound them out just like I’m teaching him to do.

Thirdly, as a unit-study teacher I always try to find read-alouds that tie in with what we’re currently thinking about. For example, we’ll be doing a unit on the ocean soon so I’m looking forward to pulling out Call it Courage by Armstrong Perry. We’re also planning an animal unit this year and I’m thinking about trying to read Rascal by Sterling North without crying. For my boys these books will both flesh-out our study topic and fulfill their love of adventure, action and information.

The fourth item on my agenda is to familiarize my boys to matters they may never experience: The Dustbowl, Hurricane Mitch, the fall of the Berlin wall. I don’t try to shelter them from unsettling characters or situations. These things merely become talking points for us as we move through the book. I present them with books that will broaden their views of how this shaken world works and we talk about what they might do to bring some good into it.

Relational modeling ranks high on my agenda as well. Because they don’t have sisters, I am interested in exposing my boys to female protagonists thereby giving them a little insight into the mind of a woman. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi ranked high for my oldest son this year and a few years ago, both of my older boys enjoyed the Sarah, Plain and Tall Series. Similarly, because one of my sons is a little socially aloof, books introduce him to questionable social choices (such as in The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald) and let him vicariously maneuver through them. Ultimately, because I’m human and I don’t know how to show them every facet of what love looks like, I find stories that can unpack this word a little more. For instance, The Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson was a great example of love through self-sacrifice that touched us all.

While I don’t go searching for books strictly for their moral lessons, every book will have them. Sometimes I stop reading and say, “That’s interesting. Why do you think he suffered/overcame?” But many times I simply read through the chapter without stopping just to let it simmer in my boys’ heads for a bit. This allows the boys to connect the dots themselves. If they come up with an idea or develop a conviction on their own then it is far more likely to stick with them than if I always tell them the decisions they should make. The characters will either lead them to the right conclusion or they will see the consequences of poor choices played out in the story. We’ve never been at a loss for moral discussion starters… discussions often started by my boys.

Finally, I read aloud to my boys because it is “easy work” for them. If we don’t do anything else during the day, we read aloud and not just for the academic benefits of language acquisition skills, comprehension, science facts or social studies timelines. The skills of thinking, feeling, listening and coming to a new understanding are what will take them through life and reading aloud will do all of these things for their hearts and minds.

Photo Credit: Melissa, A Familiar Path

My sons are 10, almost 8 and 3 and a half. Because my audience is solely male I have to admit I have skipped some great books that cater to female readers. But, in contrast we have read some great stories that I…being female…never would have picked up on my own.

Here is a short list of some of our favorites.

Our Very Favorite Read Alouds
The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
From the Mixed of Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
Bandit’s Moon by Sid Fleishman
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
Pedro’s Journal by Pam Conrad
Poetry by Shel Silverstein

Our Favorite Read Alouds in a Series
Heroes Biographies by YWAM Publishing
The Wall Series by Robert Elmer
Detective Zack by Jerry D. Thomas
The Time Warp Trio by Jon Scieszka
The Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne
The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks

Favorite Read Alouds for a Discerning Boy
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann D. Wyss
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Twenty One Balloons by William Pene du Bois

Debra Anderson has three sons ages 10 and younger. Her passions are education, mentoring, her husband, writing, church ministry and missional living — not in that order. She has her seminary Masters degree in Christian Education and is married to her true-companion pastor-husband in their home of Denver, CO. In spite of moves between four different states, she has always home educated their boys — even on the hard days. She maintains a blog at www.emergent-homeschool.blogspot.com.

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Tags: A Wrinkle in Time, Berlin Wall, Boys Reading, children's books, Focus on Reading Issue, Great Brain, homeschooling, Hurricane Mitch, Indian in the Cupboard, John D. Fitzgerald, Magic Tree House, Mother Goose, Read Aloud Books, Reading Out Loud, Reading With Boys, Rosemary Wells, Shel Silverstein, Swiss Family Robinson, The Dustbowl

Help for Struggling, Reluctant Readers

February 28, 2010 by Guest

Getting Your Reluctant Reader to Love Reading

February 28, 2010 by Leslie

Encouraging the Love of Literature

February 28, 2010 by Yvonne

10 Comments

When I hear the term “Literature Analysis,” I develop cold sweats. My mind is yanked back into the 11th grade and flashes back on eight page literary analysis essays, along with difficult and cryptic names for what should have been very simple. My compositions were forced and unnatural and my enthusiasm for reading all but dried up. Blech…no wonder I didn’t pick up a quality piece of literature for years afterward!

It wasn’t until I began homeschooling my children about eleven years ago, that I began to learn to enjoy literature again. Following Charlotte Mason’s wisdom to use living literature in our studies helped us to delight in the literature for the sake of the story. Reading each selection aloud, the children and I learned how to discover something fun from whatever we read. After that, we dove into a couple of years of Sonlight where we learned all about both World and American History and had fascinating rabbit trails of exploration.

Photo Credit: Heidi, Mt Hope Academy

With all of that reading, we never formally analyzed anything, yet our love and appreciation of literature grew by leaps and bounds.

During those years, we discovered that each book has a buried treasure, a hidden message to uncover. Most books are written by an individual and contain a distinct perspective. In each piece of literature the writer has a message to share or a lesson to teach. In a well written book it becomes the reader’s pleasure to experience that lesson through the pages of a story, discerning the message and evaluating it for possible application. Sadly, many teachers insist on turning this experience into a dreadful exercise!

In our home, we keep literature studies simple…and apparently it’s a successful endeavor. My children love literature and even more than that, we enjoy discussing it together.

Now before I tell you what we have done in our homeschooling, let me encourage you with a precious nugget of wisdom that I picked up from Ruth Beechick. If a child is curled up with a book, quietly reading to their heart’s content, they are comprehending. If they look up at you to share something that is exciting, they are comprehending. If they giggle, or if a tear rolls down their cheek, they are comprehending. It is unnecessary to have them answer twenty questions on a book’s content or to produce a book report for every book they read. We homeschool moms tend to worry too much! Early on, I chose to keep book reports and pre-fabricated comprehension questions at a bare minimum.

So how do I cover reading and literature in my home? Push the Easy Button here!

We have a daily quiet hour. This is a time in which the children go off to read a book of their choice. This is not assigned reading…but a quiet period, where they can enjoy whatever they have chosen to read for entertainment, edification…or whatever. Right now, my children are reading a variety of literature that run the gamut from “Encyclopedia Brown,” by Donald Sobol to “The Giver,” by Lois Lowry and for my oldest, “The Way of the Wild Heart,” by John Eldredge. The importance of having the quiet hour is simply to foster a love of reading and self directed learning.

We read aloud every day. There is something special that happens when a parent puts on a character’s voice. Children strain to hear every word, they sit forward in their seats and are often eager to discuss the material. There are so many great books that edify children with life lessons about a myriad of topics. From picture books to novels, there are wonderful examples of literature at every level of learning.

Unfortunately, some families give up on reading aloud because they have wiggly children. Please let me encourage you to work through the wiggles. The trick is in training younger children to listen and be still.

I’ve done three things that have helped my children grow to love reading aloud.

1. When training young children for read alouds choose books that support their interests. If your child is all about surviving in the wilderness, then choose a book like “My Side of the Mountain,” by Jean Craighead George or an adapted version of Swiss Family Robinson. Don’t bore them with a book that will only make their minds wander. Remember, this is training…try to make it pleasant.

2. Allow young children to build with Legos or Lincoln Logs, draw pictures, or color while you read aloud to them.

3. Alternatively, read aloud to them at bedtime. They’ll enjoy the snuggles and have something to dream about when the light goes out. As a plus, when they’re in bed, they can’t wiggle too far.

If the wiggles persist, consider reading another season of picture books to allow a child a bit more time to develop listening skills. Don’t give up, but be willing to find what works.

Photo Credit: Heidi, Mt Hope Academy

We learn vocabulary as we come across it. If we run into a word that we don’t understand, we try to figure out the definition by it’s context. If not, we look it up and say the sentence again, using the definition instead of the word being defined. I then read the sentence once more, this time using the word in question. I might write it down on an index card, but it’s not often necessary. I’ve discovered that the word is usually assimilated and will pop up in my children’s spoken and written vocabulary about six months later. (I don’t know why this is true, but this has been our experience.)

We discuss literature on the fly. As we read a book we discuss it informally. We talk about whatever pops into our minds as we read. From imagery to characters, to the problems they face, or the obstacles they overcome, we talk about it all. I remember one conversation back when my oldest child was in the fifth grade. We came to a scene in the Lord of the Rings series where Mr. Frodo tells Smeagol that he should not call himself names. We talked about the wisdom of relying on God’s truth about ourselves, that we are sinners…and yet precious to God. It was an opportunity to remember Jesus and how His estimation of us is that we are worth His life. Amazing. We made a memory and each of us remembers that conversation as a gift.

I use our read aloud time as a means to encourage my children to think. If a child can think, they can discuss…and eventually they will be able to defend their ideas and write about them in detail. (Usually in high school.) I use Bloom’s Taxonomy as a very rough guide, a basis in which I lead my children in our discussions of literature. Bloom’s assists me in evaluating where my children are regarding their thinking on any particular topic, literature or otherwise. It gives me a quick visual on where they each may be and assists me in stretching them to the next step in their thinking abilities.

I strive to give my children lots of experiences, talking about everything, asking many questions about opinions and thoughts. I really like to dig in, always looking for the heart. “How does that make you feel?” ”What would you do differently?” ”How does this information alter your opinion?” I guide my children through these discussions, keeping my feelers out for where they’re at on the Bloom’s chart with the goal of stretching them just a bit further.

By the time my oldest two children reached high school, they had developed adequate thinking skills to enable them to write. They needed a bit of encouragement in getting organized, but I discovered that if the thoughts were in their noggins, then the words eventually came spilling out onto paper.

Use movie versions of classics! I don’t want to make this a blanket statement, because sometimes the movie versions of literature are awful. But there are quality motion pictures which might spark an interest in reading a great work of literature. “Emma,” comes to mind, along with “Hamlet,” or the BBC versions of Jane Austin classics. I’m also reminded of “Heidi,” my favorite being the Shirley Temple classic. Use your discernment, of course, but I’ve found this an equally valid way to develop my children’s thinking skills as well as create interest in a title that otherwise might be overlooked.

Furthermore, if you have a teen who just cannot make himself pick up a Jane Austin novel, then consider having him watch the movie, and discuss it along with him.

Cliff Notes or Spark Notes – Lastly, and used sparingly, I allow my children to use Cliff or Spark Notes. I do this only in the case of assigned reading as a substitute for a book that I feel won’t work for us. This fall, in our chosen curriculum, one of the books assigned was Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I pre-read it and I decided that one of my students would find it too heavy to dwell on. So, at the encouragement of my personal mentor, I will have them read the Cliff Notes and we will discuss the social points important to understanding the historical significance of the book. This will help them appreciate this work of literature without having to experience something that is too heavy for them to bear at this time in their life.

So, as you see, we keep literature analysis very simple. We may discuss literature elements like foreshadowing or denouement from time to time, but mainly our discussions center around the heart in the form of building thinking skills, learning life lessons, and enjoying the love of finely crafted words…literature.

Yvonne Ferlita, married for nearly nineteen years, is a homeschooling mom to four children from kindergarten to high school. Her family has been blessed with eleven years of grace filled homeschooling. She does her best to follow Christ in educating her children, and she believes that when it all boils down, that means, “No Nonsense!” Visit her blog, The No Nonsense Homeschool.

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Tags: Cliff Notes, Curriculum, Family Life, fostering the love of reading, homeschool life, Homeschool Methods, Literature, reading, reading aloud, Spark Notes

Top 10 sites to download free children’s books

February 28, 2010 by AmyS

6 Comments

International Children’s Digital Library
The search options for this website are incredible. You can search by age, language, subject, length, awards won, type of character, emotions, and much more. Most of the books are full color.

Children’s Books Online
I love this delightful site because you can search by reading level. Most of the books are full color and some include audios.

The Baldwin Online Children’s Literature Project
Popular children’s literature, organized into 19 genres, including biographies, history, and science.

Librivox
An impressive list of over 1800 audio books recorded and submitted by volunteers

Page by Page Books
Classic books arranged by title

World Wide School
Search by by subject, author, or title

Internet Archive: Children’s Library
Browse by title, author, staff recommendations, most downloaded, or cloud tags. Most books are available to download in pdf format or to view online in flipbook.

Planet eBook
Classic books arranged by title

Author’s Classic Novels
Popular children’s stories

Classics for Young People
Classic books arranged by author

Amy is a devoted wife to her husband of 11 years, a Classical homeschooling mom to a seven-year-old Superhero and the co-founder of Heart of the Matter and A Woman Inspired Ministries. She has a passion for genealogy and is aspiring to be a Proverbs 31 lady. Be sure to visit her blog at Milk and Cookies.

Tags: children's books, download free books, free e-books, Literature

Vocabulary in Your Read Aloud Books

February 28, 2010 by Jimmie

2 Comments

One of the many positives of reading aloud is that you can expose your children to books that they would have difficulty understanding if read independently. Until about eighth grade, children can listen and understand at a higher reading level than they can read. Often these advanced books have new vocabulary that your children (or even you) don’t understand.

So, how should you handle those new words when reading aloud?

read aloud vocabulary

You may be tempted to stop mid-stream in your reading and explain each and every new word. It may be counter-intuitive, but stopping to discuss each new word will dramatically decrease the comprehension of the story. When a story is chopped up into bits and continually analyzed, the flow of the story is destroyed, and it’s hard to regain it when you resume reading.

This quote by Esme Raji Codell in How to Get Your Child to Love Reading explains yet another downside to studying each and every new vocabulary word, “Don’t overevaluate. The more you formally test and check, the more you kill the affective gain.”

Put plainly, over analysis kills the joy.

More than likely, a new word in each paragraph will not greatly impede your child’s overall comprehension. The context clues help the child have a general grasp of the meaning.

Here are some Dos for dealing with vocabulary words in read alouds

Do make a note of new words or hard passages to return to.
Do postpone most vocabulary discussion to the end of the passage or chapter.
Do stop the story to explain a new word if it is pivotal to the action and/or is repeated multiple times in the chapter.
Do answer your child’s questions about a new word.

Once you’ve completed reading your passage, you can stop and discuss a few select vocabulary words.

Read the word in context again, and encourage your children to make an educated guess as to the meaning.
Use a dictionary to verify the correct meanings if you’re not absolutely sure. (Here you can sneak in some dictionary skills.)
Do reread the entire sentence or even paragraph with the new word after you’ve defined it.

Overall, you want the study of new vocabulary words to be an interesting complement to reading outloud. Don’t make it a drudgery of defining long lists of words. Instead, make it fun! Choose just a few of the most interesting words to study. And then try to incorporate the new vocabulary words into your lives somehow. How about using a book of index cards to make your own Word of the Day Calendar? See how many times you can appropriately use the word that day. My daughter and I added the words tatterdemalion and hoyden to our vocabularies using this method. I can tell you that we will both never forget these vocabulary words or the books we learned them from (The Sword in the Tree & The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed, in case you’re wondering).

What are your favorite vocabulary words learned from reading aloud? Do you have any unique ways to handle new words in your books?

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Tags: Dictionary Skills, Esme Raji Codell, Evaluating Your Child's Reading, Focus on Reading, Focus on Reading Issue, How to Get Your Child to Love Reading, reading, Reading Comprehension Level, The Sword in the Tree & The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed, vocabulary, Vocabulary Words

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