The Traveling Sisterhood Reviews Looney Tunes ClickN READ Phonics
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Thinking about getting Looney Tunes ClickN READ Phonics for your kids? Read mom blogger, The Traveling Sisterhood’s review: READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE
Planning Your Second Semester: Is Intensive Instruction Needed?
Now that you’re roughly at the halfway point of the school year, it’s report card time. If you’re a homeschooling parent, you won’t need to actually fill out a formal card (unless, of course, you want to!), but you’ll want to sit down with your child and review his progress. At the same time, you’ll want to grade yourself as an instructor—remember that you have forged a partnership with your child when you made the decision to homeschool, and you’re both in this together!
If you and your child get a C or less on reading skills for the entire first semester, you’ll need to come up with a strategy for meeting your goals and objectives. Should you intensify your lessons? Or should you just stick to your original plan of diagnostic, focused instruction?
You may remember back when you were in school, and children who were struggling with certain learning skills such as reading and speech were often pulled out of the classroom for intense, one-on-one instruction with a specialist. Unfortunately, the National Reading Panel found that these expensive programs didn’t quite work. While children in these specialized “pull-out” programs would usually realize their goals and “graduate” from the course, these results were not sustained once the child returned to the regular classroom.
The NRP suggests that the blame may lie with the teacher in the regular classroom. Since most of these teachers do not possess the same focus and strategies as the specialists, they do not reinforce the skills learned in the pull-out program. The solution, according to the NRP, is to make every teacher a specialist. Studies show that if children are instructed by a strong teacher for their first two years of school, they are more likely to be successful readers.
If you’re instructing a child who is learning how to read, you need to be a strong, consistent educator who is trained in reading acquisition. In other words, you need to earn an A on your report card before your child can do the same!
Reading Timelines: Will Your Child “Eventually” Learn How to Read?
Now that we’re in the thick of winter—as well as the thick of the school year—your child should be making significant progress when it comes to learning how to read. But what if your child, after working diligently since September—hasn’t quite met your expectations?
Should you set timelines, goals and objectives, pressuring your child to succeed? Or will your child “eventually” learn how to read by being submerged in a world full of letters, words and sentences?
The National Reading Panel—the ultimate authority on learning how to read in the United States—warns against this type of thinking. The idea that everyone eventually acquires reading skills at their own pace is a myth that must be rejected. After all, illiteracy wouldn’t be an issue in the world is everyone automatically learned to read just by walking around and absorbing information on the street.
The NRP discusses the “Matthew Effect” in some of their research. This phenomenon is named after a verse in the Bible’s Book of Matthew that says “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” If your child isn’t learning at the same rate as other children his age, he won’t eventually catch up. As time goes on, the gap between the literacy of children who know how to read and those who don’t just keeps getting wider and wider. Your child won’t “eventually” learn to read; your child will instead become discouraged and give up on reading altogether.
While you don’t want to place too much pressure on your child to read by a certain deadline, you do want to continue with diagnostic, focused instruction until your child masters reading and decoding skills. The NRP research shows that if children aren’t reading grade-appropriate materials by the fourth grade, their chances of fluency become very slim. That doesn’t mean you should wait until the fourth grade to complete a final evaluation of your child’s reading skills; if your child is hitting brick wall after brick wall when it comes to reading, a learning disorder may be present and should be checked out long before then.
In the vast majority of cases, however, your child will learn how to read as long as you are diligent and can adapt your curriculum to your child’s reading progress.
Good luck and stay focused!
Hunting for Tech Toys Looney Tunes ClickN READ Phonics Review
Considering Looney Tunes ClickN READ Phonics to help your child learn to read? Read the product review from mom blogger, Hunting for Tech Toys:
New Year’s Resolutions for Homeschooling Parents
The New Year is right around the corner, and you’ve probably had many successes while teaching your child to read. Still, your child’s progress may be slower than you expected, or you may have encountered obstacles that prevent your child from learning new decoding skills. Here are some helpful New Year’s resolutions, recommended using research from the National Reading Panel, that may kick-start your child’s progress:
I will explain all of my new strategies for reading instruction with my child, and I will describe explicitly how these new strategies will be used. In many ways, your child is your partner when it comes to learning how to read. Your goals are the same. That’s why it’s important to take the time to explain new strategies that will help your child overcome learning obstacles. Once your child understands the changes that are taking place, and why they are taking place, he will probably be more cooperative during practice.
I will ensure that my curriculum spends equal time on print awareness, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and writing skills.
Each of these learning strategies are building blocks, and it’s easy for everything to collapse if you spend too much time in developing one skill over another. Review your current curriculum and find out if you’ve been placing too much emphasis in one area.
I will not rush through the lessons because I’m eager for my child to succeed. This can be a common mistake to make. Don’t feel bad if your child has to go back to a previous lesson to reinforce reading skills. Be patient and review ever single lesson thoroughly. Most of all, make sure that your child doesn’t feel bad for taking a backward step either.
Just remember that the existing teaching methods are proven. If you’re experiencing a temporary lapse in noticeable progress, take the time to review the basics and stay positive. Just focus on the new year ahead, and know that your child will steadily improve through each and every month.
Will Phonics Help My Child Read Better?
There have been several different studies that show that the phonics system is one of the best available to help you children read at a higher grade-level. This system works by teaching children the sounds of the specific letters and then showing them how to combine those sounds into words. This lets them read words they have never encountered before. The staff here at ClickN KIDS is dedicated to ensuring your children have the best chance to improve their reading skills.
How is Phonics better than Memorization?
Phonics teaches children to read by letting them learn the sounds of the different letters and then letting them make words by combining the sounds. It is different from memorization because the children can read words that are new instead of having to memorize each word individually before they are able to recognize it in print. It also helps your child with spelling because they can match letters to sounds and reverse the process to learn how to spell .
Is ClickN KIDS Different From Other Reading Programs?
One of the main differences between our software and other reading programs is that our program is run from an online server. This means that you will not have to purchase additional updates and you will be able to log onto the system from any computer that has Internet access. This gives your children the freedom to use the program at home, at grandma’s house or even at school.
Benefits of the ClickN KIDS Reading Programs
There are a few different reading programs available from our website, or you can even choose a spelling program to help improve your child’s spelling skills. We have a program that is right for you and your children, no matter what your current reading level. Since the ClickN KIDS program can be purchased for less than $60 for a lifetime subscription, it is something that any parent can afford for their children .
In The Thick Of The Holidays
The holidays are here! It’s time to gather and celebrate with our families and loved ones. It’s also a great time to celebrate your child’s newly acquired reading skills and show them off to everyone. Whether you child is homeschooled or not, however, it’s time to rest, relax and enjoy the holiday spirit.
Many parents may be reluctant to stop the learning process in its tracks for a holiday break, especially if their children have experienced recent breakthroughs and are on a roll when it comes to decoding skills. Still, you don’t want to chain your child to his desk and tell him to keep his nose buried in his leveled reader, especially when the other children are running around the neighborhood and having fun. Chances are that he’s earned this break, and he wants to celebrate as well.
The best strategy for keeping your child’s reading and writing skills intact over the holidays is by simply sticking to the basics. For instance, family reading time should not only be preserved through the holidays but enhanced. Bring other family members into the fold, ones that aren’t usually around during the rest of the year, and have them participate in story time. A new voice reading holiday stories will certain be interesting to your child.
Other holiday traditions can be implemented into reading time such as Advent calendars, or greeting cards from friends and loved ones. You can even turn on the closed captioning feature on your television and turn down the volume so family members can take turns supplying the voices to your favorite holiday programs.
With a little imagination, you can keep your child’s reading and writing skills sharp over the holidays. By the time the first of January rolls around, you will both be rested, happy and ready to start a new year of learning!
How Expensive is it to Learn How to Read?
The question is not how expensive it is to learn how to read, but how expensive it is to not know how to read. Since the cost of our reading program is less than $60 for a lifetime subscription, there is no reason for you to allow your children not to take advantage of this program. You can even use this program to improve your own reading ability, or add a second or third child for less than $20 for each additional child.
Learn How to Read With Video Games
The program we offer helps your children learn how to read by playing video games. These games are designed to be fun for the children and to keep them interested in the lessons. This means they will spend more time on their lessons and enjoy the benefits of reading better in a shorter period of time .
Giving Back to the Community as a Literacy Tutor
Many homeschooling parents are quite active in their communities during the holidays, but have you thought about how you can use your very specific skill set as a reading instructor to benefit other children in your neighborhood? The holidays are a perfect time to offer your assistance to other parents in your community who are experiencing difficulties in getting their children to read at their appropriate grade level. If you’ve already had quite a bit of success in teaching your children how to read, perhaps you should offer a literacy “short course” to local children who are home on vacation.
According to the Reading Research Quarterly, there are two important strategies to use during a short-term tutoring relationship with a child. First, use texts that introduce high-frequency vocabulary gradually and with repetition through the use of common spelling patterns. We can recommend a variety of leveled readers that follow this method. Second, use activities that implement direct letter-sound instruction. If you’ve been following a phonics program that uses research from the National Reading Panel, you and your child are already reaping the benefits of this type of instruction.
One of the keys to this type of tutoring is verbal instruction techniques. You’ll need to “scaffold” both reading and writing skills by using one to enhance the other. Since you only have a short time to work with these children, it’s important to place equal time on reading and writing and be deliberate when you show the tutored child how one is related to the other. Then you’ll need to focus, through verbal exercises, on how to read and spell unknown words. Remember when your own child learned how to read? He wasn’t memorizing existing words–he was learning decoding skills that allowed him to figure out almost every single word that came his way from that point on.
You only have a short time with these children, so don’t expect to perform miracles. If you stay focused on these basics, you might just have a breakthrough that will allow these children to return to the classroom in January with more effective decoding skills. Their teachers, their parents and your community will thank you for this valuable service!