This first step is to lay a strong foundation on which to build your children's education.
Enjoy the bi-weekly articles below.
These sections are organized by age level, but the information is not confined that so consider looking at other ages ranges as well. Also, make sure to check out the Archives.
Enjoy the bi-weekly articles below.
These sections are organized by age level, but the information is not confined that so consider looking at other ages ranges as well. Also, make sure to check out the Archives.
Young Children's Challenges
Your children face many challenges in their lives. Do you know your children well enough to know what their challenges are? The challenges they face in their young lives might be fear of the dark, fear of not doing things right or not meeting your expectations. They might fear certain animals or spiders. There might be certain foods they are fearful about. How do you help your children to overcome their challenges or their fears?
To help your children develop skills and confidence to overcome fears, Dr. Tamar Chansky on www.webmd.com suggests that you not talk your children out of being afraid. Find out what makes them afraid and practice coping mechanisms--drawing, keeping a stuffed animal nearby, writing, or role-playing. Reward their efforts to become more brave with each little step they take. Talk about their fears and don't belittle the fear as a way of forcing your child to not be afraid.
If they challenge you with their eating habits telling you they are not hungry, respect that. They will eat when they are hungry, but remember not to let them have snacks, especially of unhealthy food, close to meal time. Minimize distractions--no phones or TV-- so that your children will focus on eating what you have prepared. Be patient with new foods. Encourage your picky eater by talking about the food's color, shape, aroma, texture--not whether it tastes good. Serve the new food with their favorite food, and with dips or sauce. Be creative, introducing recipes that have the new food in them. Don't offer dessert as a reward. You are not a short-order cook, fixing what foods each child WILL eat. Have your children help select the fruits or vegetables when you shop. As always, you set the example.
YOUNG CHILDREN NEED YOUR FOUNDATION
With all the attention to preparing your young children for their formal entrance to education as Pre-K and Kindergarten, I cannot emphasize enough your role in your children’s lives.
You are still their first teacher and there are many things you can do in your time with your young children:
Talk to your children all the time about everything you do and see and what happens in their lives. You are their first source of knowing how to live and what emotions are proper for things that happen in their lives. No school or pre-school program can do in their limited time with your children what you can do.
If you don’t know how or feel confident as a parent, there are many people who want to help. There are programs, social agencies, books, websites, even YouTube...and this website.
You are the most important influence on your children as you model what you want them to be—healthy, happy, polite, thinking, creating, wonder-filled human beings.
I am praying for you!
EXPLORING WORDS
Exploring words is a valuable project this summer. Did you know there were eight winners in the national spelling bee this year? You can prepare your children for this by helping them know words and how they can spell them. Use this information to begin.
If words are the building blocks of our language, how do we know what they sound like, what they say? Children need to know sight words—the words you must say and use so that your children will learn and remember them. Words that we cannot sound out easily become sight words in our reading because we just need to know them. If parents have read to their children, their children will have heard many of the words we now ask them to recognize.
Other words or new words may be sounded out. Here is how we can detect what they are and what they say. There are 10 vowel sounds that are easy to detect and account for about 70% of our language. They are called long vowels and short vowels. Long vowels are easy because they say their names--a as in late, e as in beet, i as in ice, o as in boat, and u as in rule. Were you a good detective? Did you notice that in the words given as examples of the sound of the long vowel, there were two vowels? This is a good clue to watch for: two vowels in each word—either together, or the first vowel in the word with an e at the end of the word. Sometimes, we call the “e” at the end of the word, a “silent e.” It sacrifices its power to sound in order to strengthen the other vowel in the word, thus enabling the other vowel to say its name. Another clue for a good detective to find a long vowel is it frequently comes at the end of a word, like in Hi, we, ho-ho. Sometimes, a good detective will find a long vowel before a y, as in “say.” In these cases, we consider “y” as a vowel rather than a consonant. Y is the only letter that has this duel designation.
Short vowels require your children to remember key words: a as in bat, e as in bet, i as in bit, o as in not, u as in but. Teachers may teach different key words for the short vowels, but the sound of the vowel is the same. You can detect short vowels by noticing that there is one vowel between two consonants, or the vowel comes at the beginning of the word, like act, egg, is, of, us.
Syllables are parts of words. Many words can be divided into parts as long as each part contains at least one vowel.
Let’s try what we have learned above in words that have syllables: as-sail, ba-con, clo-ver, frac-ture, de-cath-lon.
Although you will find many other kinds of pronunciation marks in your dictionaries, including an upside down e (a schwa) for the long vowel sound (because we do not emphasize or fully draw out the sound of the long vowel). At any rate, 70% is a good percentage of ways to sound out new words and in their syllables. Besides, you can always have a dictionary on hand, even for your small children.
Your children face many challenges in their lives. Do you know your children well enough to know what their challenges are? The challenges they face in their young lives might be fear of the dark, fear of not doing things right or not meeting your expectations. They might fear certain animals or spiders. There might be certain foods they are fearful about. How do you help your children to overcome their challenges or their fears?
To help your children develop skills and confidence to overcome fears, Dr. Tamar Chansky on www.webmd.com suggests that you not talk your children out of being afraid. Find out what makes them afraid and practice coping mechanisms--drawing, keeping a stuffed animal nearby, writing, or role-playing. Reward their efforts to become more brave with each little step they take. Talk about their fears and don't belittle the fear as a way of forcing your child to not be afraid.
If they challenge you with their eating habits telling you they are not hungry, respect that. They will eat when they are hungry, but remember not to let them have snacks, especially of unhealthy food, close to meal time. Minimize distractions--no phones or TV-- so that your children will focus on eating what you have prepared. Be patient with new foods. Encourage your picky eater by talking about the food's color, shape, aroma, texture--not whether it tastes good. Serve the new food with their favorite food, and with dips or sauce. Be creative, introducing recipes that have the new food in them. Don't offer dessert as a reward. You are not a short-order cook, fixing what foods each child WILL eat. Have your children help select the fruits or vegetables when you shop. As always, you set the example.
YOUNG CHILDREN NEED YOUR FOUNDATION
With all the attention to preparing your young children for their formal entrance to education as Pre-K and Kindergarten, I cannot emphasize enough your role in your children’s lives.
You are still their first teacher and there are many things you can do in your time with your young children:
- Limit your screen time and none at all for your very young children.
- Pay attention to your children. This is necessary to get to know and guide them.
- Observe your children. Watch how they play and what they like to do. Watch how they interact with others—other children, other adults.
- Allow them to explore ad encourage their curiosity. Talk with them about how things grow, how things happen and why.
- Talk to and with your children, no matter how young. Develop their thinking and questioning by asking them questions, by your own thinking out loud.
- Grow their manners and social awareness about other’s feelings. Insist that your children say “please” and “thank you.” They cannot interrupt you or other adults when you are speaking. They cannot grab toys or other objects from other children or you.
- Show them love and give them time, but you also must show them that you need time for yourself also.
- Feed them healthy food. You and they cannot live on fast food. Cook foods and let them help you. Even the smallest child can rinse cherries or grapes for all to eat.
- Use words out loud so you develop their vocabulary and awareness of new words and words that may mean the same of have similar meaning, like big, huge, gigantic, enormous, large, massive, colossal, great,
- Talk about colors and where you find them. Use their names and show them the words for them.
- Talk about their senses—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching as you use each of them. Use words to describe them and then, use different words so that children learn proper use of their senses.
- Talk about numbers and help them to know they can add to make more and take away to have fewer or less.
- Talk about letters and their sounds so your young children begin to realize that letters make sounds that they can use to make words.
- Read to your children everywhere and whenever you make the time. I did not say “take” the time. You need to “make the time” to read to your children-picture books for your young children, chapter books for your older children, and non-fiction for all your children. Let your toddlers handle books and turn the pages. Talk to them about the pictures and encourage them to ask questions or to comment on what they see.
Talk to your children all the time about everything you do and see and what happens in their lives. You are their first source of knowing how to live and what emotions are proper for things that happen in their lives. No school or pre-school program can do in their limited time with your children what you can do.
If you don’t know how or feel confident as a parent, there are many people who want to help. There are programs, social agencies, books, websites, even YouTube...and this website.
You are the most important influence on your children as you model what you want them to be—healthy, happy, polite, thinking, creating, wonder-filled human beings.
I am praying for you!
EXPLORING WORDS
Exploring words is a valuable project this summer. Did you know there were eight winners in the national spelling bee this year? You can prepare your children for this by helping them know words and how they can spell them. Use this information to begin.
If words are the building blocks of our language, how do we know what they sound like, what they say? Children need to know sight words—the words you must say and use so that your children will learn and remember them. Words that we cannot sound out easily become sight words in our reading because we just need to know them. If parents have read to their children, their children will have heard many of the words we now ask them to recognize.
Other words or new words may be sounded out. Here is how we can detect what they are and what they say. There are 10 vowel sounds that are easy to detect and account for about 70% of our language. They are called long vowels and short vowels. Long vowels are easy because they say their names--a as in late, e as in beet, i as in ice, o as in boat, and u as in rule. Were you a good detective? Did you notice that in the words given as examples of the sound of the long vowel, there were two vowels? This is a good clue to watch for: two vowels in each word—either together, or the first vowel in the word with an e at the end of the word. Sometimes, we call the “e” at the end of the word, a “silent e.” It sacrifices its power to sound in order to strengthen the other vowel in the word, thus enabling the other vowel to say its name. Another clue for a good detective to find a long vowel is it frequently comes at the end of a word, like in Hi, we, ho-ho. Sometimes, a good detective will find a long vowel before a y, as in “say.” In these cases, we consider “y” as a vowel rather than a consonant. Y is the only letter that has this duel designation.
Short vowels require your children to remember key words: a as in bat, e as in bet, i as in bit, o as in not, u as in but. Teachers may teach different key words for the short vowels, but the sound of the vowel is the same. You can detect short vowels by noticing that there is one vowel between two consonants, or the vowel comes at the beginning of the word, like act, egg, is, of, us.
Syllables are parts of words. Many words can be divided into parts as long as each part contains at least one vowel.
Let’s try what we have learned above in words that have syllables: as-sail, ba-con, clo-ver, frac-ture, de-cath-lon.
Although you will find many other kinds of pronunciation marks in your dictionaries, including an upside down e (a schwa) for the long vowel sound (because we do not emphasize or fully draw out the sound of the long vowel). At any rate, 70% is a good percentage of ways to sound out new words and in their syllables. Besides, you can always have a dictionary on hand, even for your small children.