How can I help my child at home?
Reading
- Before your child reads a book, he/she should: do a picture walk, make connections with the pictures (What does this story remind him/her of? What is happening in the pictures?), and make predictions about what the story will be about. This sets a purpose for reading ~ to confirm or revise predictions.
- Try echo reading. The parent reads a page or paragraph aloud, and the child immediately reads it back. This provided good modeling of fluency for children.
- Try choral reading. The parent and child reads text aloud at the same time.
- Try shared reading. The parent and child each take a turn reading a page or paragraph aloud.
- Have your child get into the practice of stating who/what each page or paragraph is about after they read it.
- Kindergarteners through mid 1st grade should point to each word with 1:1 correspondence.
- If your child is stuck on a word, he/she should figure out the word on his/her own. Say the beginning letter sound, look for chunks (familiar word parts) he/she may know, sound it out, skip it, read on, go back, ask what would look right, sound right, make sense?
- KEEP READING.-The best way to become a better reader is to reading.
Questions to ask your child after reading together.
1. Can you tell me the story in your own words (from the beginning)?
2. Who were the characters?
3. What was the problem in the story?
4. How did they solve the problem?
5. What was your favorite part? Why?
6. Who was your favorite character? Why?
7. Did this story remind you of any things that have happened to you?
8. Do you like the illustrations?
9. If you could change something in the story, what would you change?
10. Review the beginning, middle and ending (sequencing).
11. Talk about the parts of the book, the author/illustrator, the cover, the title, title page, dedication page, how to carefully turn pages, etc.
12. Ask your child to find words on the pages she/he knows.
- blend sounds in words
- complete phoneme substitution activities
- count syllables
- rhyme
- spell by sound
- demonstrate understanding of individual sounds in words by using “chips” to represent each sound heard
- play word and sound games
Build Good Word Decoding/Phonics:
- match sounds and letters
- “decode” or simply read
- read and spell phonetically
- recognize phonics patterns and familiar words
- look at the letters in the whole word when reading
- utilize vowel sounds taught in his/her writing
- recognize letter patterns when reading words
- play with magnet letters ~ can put them in abc order
- write phonetically
Writing
- At the very foundation - make sure your child is gripping their pencil correctly
- Also be sure that when they are forming their letters, you are guiding them based on the technique used at school. (Handwriting without Tears for PreSchool and PreK. Fundations starts in Kindergarten
- Let your child write-Write stories, grocery lists, keep journals
Fundations at Home Support Guide
Math
- Get out the old fashion flashcards-Students need to memorize their basic math facts - these are the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts that are the foundation of all computation. They should be able to say these facts in 3 seconds or less
- Count with your children - count as high as you can with them - this is great to do in the car
- Count by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's first