For many families, reading is a pleasurable activity when kids are young, but then as kids get older, they start to hate reading. Parents are more aware than ever that strong reading skills are fundamental to academic success. Teachers also feel pressure to make sure students are reading on or above grade level, often with their evaluations and salaries hanging in the balance. On top of it all, kids may be quick to claim they…
Recent studies have shown that there are several benefits to being bilingual. Learning a second language could give your child a serious advantage in conceptual thinking. It may even broaden their perspectives and understanding of the world. Improving The Executive Function According to an article put out by Psychology Today, one of the several benefits to being bilingual is it improves brain activity functions. The executive function, for example, which is the control system of…
I love listening to audiobooks, but sometimes my enthusiasm for them is met with comments such as “That’s not really reading, is it?” or “That’s cheating.” Listening to books is certainly different from reading books, but is it cheating? Does listening to audiobooks count as reading? I suppose the answer to that question must come from one’s own definition of reading. If reading is understanding the content of the story or the theme, then audiobooks…
September is upon us and the children have gone back to school, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to enjoy some of the best books of the summer! Check out these great children’s books released in summer 2017. Goldfish Ghost by Lemony Snicket, illus. by Lisa Brown. In a quiet bedroom bowl, Goldfish Ghost came to be—just floating belly up above the water. As much as he liked his home, he longed for friends…
As an avid reader, it has always been an easy task for me to find books that appeal to me, even as a child. From Fantasy to Biographies, as long as it had a beginning, middle, and end, I was hooked. For some children however, finding a book that is engaging and entertaining can be a challenge, especially since books now compete with flashy cartoons and iPhones. In order to help your child find a…
In today’s day and age, parents have all the information the Internet can hold at their fingertips when it comes to what can help their children. Music is heralded as one of the best methods of stimulating development, but how does it work? For starters, music positively affects all areas of child development, helping them develop intellectually, socially, and emotionally. Music can also improve motor, language, and literacy skills in young children, as it teaches…
As I mentioned in blog two, it is best to start with your child on short vowel sounds, which are the standard vowel sounds you hear in the middle of each of the following words: cat bed pig sock cup These short vowel sounds are predictable, and in all CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words the vowel in the middle (known as the medial vowel) makes…
It is important to keep in mind that reading comprehension is as vital a skill for children to learn as reading fluency. If your child can read words but then loses the meaning as they move across a page, reading will remain an arduous task and will not seem fun. Your child needs to be able to retain the information on a page and keep track of the story, and this can be difficult at…
As your child gets into kindergarten and then first grade, sight words will become a big part of their literacy skill set. Sight words are also known as high-frequency words, and are words that must be learned by repeated exposure because they usually cannot be decoded or sounded out. You can start introducing sight words to children early, and you’ve probably noticed that your child can “read” certain words already just by seeing them frequently,…
