Teaching Tip Tuesday ~ Reading Aloud with the Family

Sometimes it's an event. The china tea cups are brought out and the most recent baking is displayed.  We all take our places at the table anticipating tasty delights and an adventure to another place and time.

Other times it's routine, perhaps after lunch while drawing books are added to or just before the lights turn out to close another day.

And sometimes it's spontaneous.  The girls start running a bakery complete with playdough cookies and cakes, and it just seems right to sit alongside them and take their minds to another world while their hands shape and press and play.

The greatest part of it all is that mama gets to join in too.  With book in hand and dramatic voice unabashed, I journey alongside the girls to the pages within.

Reading aloud with your children is such a special part of their childhood and youth. As parents, a part of our role is to find those books that inspire and bring wonderful ideas to our children's minds.   Books that may otherwise be passed by if we don't seek them out and bring them to our children's attention.

Many books are available and easily accessible, but how do we know which ones are worthy enough to fill our children's lives?  I've found that looking to someone who has gone before me and has done this home learning task well, is always a good place for me to start.

Read from the Heart: Whole Books for Wholehearted Families ~ I was recently able to thumb through this book and quickly realized that it needed to be a part of my home.  Sarah Clarkson gives a brief description of recommended books in various categories i.e. picture books, classics, history and biographies, fairy tales and fantasies, poetry, etc..  A resource to guide your children's reading straight through into the high school years.

Charlotte Mason Bookfinder ~  This is an online resource that lists living books that coincide with the Charlotte Mason philosophy of learning.  Whether or not you are following a Charlotte Mason approach to learning, these book lists will provide an easy reference tool to use when reserving books from your local library. Other online book lists that may prove useful include: 1000 Good Books List, and Ambleside Online.

Beautiful Feet ~ This company's website focuses on books that teach history through story.  Although many of the books are focused on American history, many of them are wonderful reads and may prove perfect for your book loving child.  Again, this online resource can be used to refer to when selecting books to reserve from your local library.

Ann Vokamp's Book Shelf ~ Ann Voskamp has compiled an online book shelf of her children's top 25 books for boys and for girls {chapter books}.  You will need to scroll down past the other excellent reads that Ann recommends for family and spiritual life, but it is well worth your effort.



How to Visit the Library:
Choosing a good book from the library is something that is gained from experience.  The more great books that you and your children read, the easier you and your children will be able to recognize a good book when you come across it. Sometimes the author's name, or the illustrations, or a browsing over the first page will give the book away.

{I remember the fine husband reading The Snowy Day to our first preschooler. Halfway through the pages he stopped to say, "There's something about this book that makes it good."  He couldn't put his finger on it, but the simple text and the classic Jack Ezra Keats illustrations somehow make this book special to share with a child.}

When visiting the library, make sure to visit the junior nonfiction section too.  This is where you will find the books categorized into topics of famous people, arts and crafts, animals, poetry, science,  geography, sports, etc.. I try to choose one book from each category to place in our book bag during our visits.

Finally, don't  forget to check out the audio books too.  When mama needs someone to read for her, audiobooks are such a blessing!  For free online audiobooks, perhaps LibriVox may work for your family.

A home without books is like a room without windows ~ Henry Ward Beecher

Related Readings for More Inspiration:
Could it Be a Storybook Year?
Read, Read, Read, Read to Your Children
Best Books for Boys: A Booklist Complied by a Boy

Teaching Tip Tuesday ~ Learning to Read with Good Stories

My oldest daughter has taken her time when it comes to reading.  She would  much rather snuggle up in our big, brown reclining chair and listen to another story being read to her by her mama.   For truly, mama reads much more interesting stories than she could read by herself if left to her own capability.

Her younger sister tells a different story.  Just before her fifth birthday, after silently sitting on the couch through a reading session with her older sibling, she asked if she could read to me from the same book that her sister had just struggled through .  Surprised, I said, "Sure", and she began to proceed through the first 19 pages with never a prior reading lesson in place.

Neither of the sisters fit into the reading educator's cookie cutter.  One read too "early" and the other read too "late". But the real importance is that they both are learning to read, and they both are progressing at their own  pace, and they both are lovers of wonderful stories.  And so the goal remains, to capture the sisters delight in reading by finding books that are simply delightful.

Over the years we've come across a few ...

When first beginning to read, both mama and the girls found the Primer Readers set from Christian Light Publications a perfect fit for us. The girls enjoyed reading interesting stories about other children's adventures, and mama enjoyed the wholesome quality of the stories themselves. Each story includes a character building message as well as sweet pencil drawn illustrations that the girls found intriguing as they sought out the appearance of the characters of whom they read.  Christian Light Publications offers readers up through the grade levels.  A wonderful way to practice reading with your young ones.

Arnold Lobel's books have also been a favourite. We used these books more to help increase reading fluency, rather than to "teach" reading. Both myself and the girls enjoy the humour within these stories and they have found a cozy spot on our bookshelves.  Please note: These may not be a good match for all families due to their unrealistic features {i.e. animals doing human activities}.

Finally, for the horse-loving boy or girl, Billy and Blaze books are bound to find a place into your child's heart and home. Wholesome stories about a boy and his horse that are sure to be read over and over again.

When the girls practice reading to me, I usually make a mental note of words that they are having trouble with. I write these trouble words out and hang them up on the wall. To help the girls practice reading these words, they grab a beanbag and aim at the words on the wall. The word that gets hit by the beanbag, is the word that they then need to read aloud.  Makes for a rather active reading session. {smile}

The children should have the joy of living in far lands, in other persons, in other times - a delightful double existence; and this joy they will find, for the most part, in their story books. ~ Charlotte Mason

Teaching Reading Outside of the Box

At the homschooling convention in Kelowna, I attended an interesting workshop put on by Liz Sweet from Little Giant Steps: Neurodevelopmental Innovations. She presented a little "formula" on teaching kids how to read. She suggested that until a child is able to remember 5 pieces of information in a row i.e. 5 numbers in a row (3-6-2-1-9) or 5 colours (red-blue-yellow-blue-green), he/she is not ready for phonics instruction. The process that she suggested for teaching reading involved the following five steps:

Step 1: Sight Words - Use interesting sight words to start your child reading. Write a sight word on a flashcard (with no picture helps), and tell your child what the word says. Teach two sight words at a time until your child has learned up to 6. Then take two sight words out of the collection and put them into a "review pile" and add two new sight words to the collection. Continue removing and adding 2 sight words each week until your child has been exposed to about 100 sight words. Continue to review the sight words regularly.

Step 2: Experience Books - Take photos of interesting experiences that your child participates in i.e. visiting a farm, going to the park, etc. Then make a book using these personal experience photos. Write sentences to describe the photos using as many of the known sight words from Step 1 as possible. Encourage your child to read through these personal books, helping as necessary.

Step 3: Highlighting Words - Use books that you feel comfortable taking a hightlighter to and highlight words that you know that your child can read. Then read these books together with your child allowing him/her to read the highlighted words while you read all of the other words.

Step 4: Reading very simple readers i.e. Dick and Jane style books.

Step 5: Introduce a phonics program such as Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. (Check to see if your child is able to remember 5 pieces of information by this step.) Step 5 introduces reading using a phonics approach, but this approach is only begun once your child has a very strong concept of reading due to Steps 1-4.

The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading ~ Wise and Buffington

Reading Made Easy ~ Bendt

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons ~ Engelmann

There's a Whole Lot of Sharing Going On!

Awana Bible Memory Book ~ Includes colourful pictures, scripture verses and corresponding poems for each letter in the alphabet.

Free Preschool Bible Resources ~ Although labled "preschool", the activities (songs, games, scripture memory, etc.) could easily be used with kindergarten and grade 1 students.

Read Alouds ~ An informational site on using read aloud times with your children.

BBC Bitesize Science ~ This website works well for reinforcing the grade 2 science topic of Solids, Liquids and Gases. Online quizzes and excellent graphics. (secular viewpoint)

Virtual Hikes ~ Take a virtual hike in a variety of places across Canada. I haven't explored this site too in depth, but it looks too neat to not share!

The ABCs of Safety Colouring Book ~ Excellent resource to use with kindergarten and grade 1 students to reinforce community helpers and safety issues/procedures. You may want to pick and choose colouring pages for the topics that you are working on.

Grade 2 Health ~ I am only able to access the grade 2 webpage, but it includes 28 usable health lessons that could be adapted to younger or older grade levels.

Famous Paintings: Art Appreciation for Kids ~ This online resource is from the Garden of Praise website. Could be an excellent resource to use in the upcoming school year.

Masters of Disaster ~ This is an amazing website from the American Red Cross with a huge amount of resources and printables that are ready to use. The resource goes through three levels and focuses on a wide variety of safety learning.

Dr. Seuss

For many of us, Dr. Seuss is as much a part of our childhood as peanut butter and banana sandwiches. When his birthday comes around every March 2nd, I always like to pull out my collection of Dr. Seuss books and let them lounge around on coffee tables to be readily available for a fun read.

Homeschool Share has some excellent ready made printables that can be used along with your Dr. Seuss favourites. You can check out these resources here: Dr. Seuss Free Stuff

You may also want to check out the Seussville website here: Seussville

Here's a video of an old time favourite - "Green Eggs and Ham":


There are several Dr. Seuss stories on YouTube - at least one for each day of Dr. Seuss's birthday week! Dr. Seuss videos are likely available from your local library as well. Have fun!

Even though each of us have our own curriculum agenda during these chilly winter months, I hope that we can all find some cozy moments to curl up on the couch with our children and read some wonderfully, warm hearted books about winter. Below are some suggestions that you may want to order from your library in preparation for your own cozy story times on the couch.



Snow by Uri Shulevitz
Winter Lullaby by Barbara Seuling
The Mitten & The Hat by Jan Brett
The Log Cabin Quilt by Ellen Howard
Emily by Barbara Cooney
Antler, Bear, Canoe: A Northwoods Alphabet by Betsy Bowen
Marven of the Great North Woods by Kathryn Lasky
Winter’s Gift by Jane Monroe Donovan

Reading Fluency Tips

Following are some ideas and website links that may prove useful in helping to increase your child’s reading fluency:

Oral Reading and Fluency:
A. Instructor models fluency.

B. Student reads same passage four times as instructor offers guidance.

C. Engage in other activities.

1. Student may read aloud along with a taped book.
2. Student and instructor may read some passages in unison.

(Taken from notes from “The Good Reader: Teaching Reading From Birth On” ~ by Jessie Wise)


Activities for repeated oral reading practice to help increase fluency:
Student-adult reading--reading one-on-one with an adult, who provides a model of fluent reading, helps with word recognition, and provides feedback.

Choral reading--reading aloud simultaneously in a group.

Tape-assisted reading--reading aloud simultaneously or as an echo with an audio-taped model.

Partner reading--reading aloud with a more fluent partner (or with a partner of equal ability) who provides a model of fluent reading, helps with word recognition, and provides feedback.

Readers' theatre--the rehearsing and performing before an audience of a dialogue-rich script derived from a book.

(Taken from “Fluency Instruction”)


Some Sight Word Website Links:
For those students who need to sound out almost every word, getting them to learn their sight words is essential. These two sites have the Dolch sight word lists available. Have your child practice reading the words on list 1 until he/she masters it, and then move on to list 2 etc. There are 11 lists in total to master!
Dolch List
Jan Brett’s Dolch List


Some Reading Fluency Website Links:
Put Reading First
Fluency Activities
Educational Links: Fluency

Bob Books

I have been reading The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. This book is on my summer reading list and I am learning a lot. I mention that just so I can mention this:

One of the resource recommendations included in this book for beginning readers is Bob Books.


Bob Books comes in several sets with the first set of books using only phonectically sounding words. Oftentimes beginning reading books will include words that are not phonetically spelled like "could" and "are" which can cause some frustration in the beginning reading stages. Bob Books consists of several sets of books which progressively become more difficult for the young reader. You can view samples by clicking on the image above.

If you are experienced with using Bob Books, please leave a comment to let us know what your thoughts are regarding this series. I am thinking about ordering the first set for my oldest daughter who is still learning her letter sounds but will be ready to start reading simple books soon.

Some Inspiration

I am now recovering after a wonderful weekend at the BC CHEC. The keynote speaker for the conference was Debra Bell. She was real, honest, and inspirational. Because of her excellent seminars, I decided to check out her website when I got home. I hope that you will join me in visiting her website too.

Here is the link to some audio excerpts from her seminars. Audio Excerpts

Here are the links to some of her written articles. Click on the article's title.
Laid-back Learning for Non-readers
Non-readers Part 2 and 3
Setting Up a Learning Environment

Here is the link to her book. Click on the image of the book.

Questions to Ask When Reading

Asking questions before, during, and after reading is a useful tool in guiding your child’s learning when reading a book together. The questions below come from the BC Ministry of Education website and can be found in the section entitled “Student Achievement – PLOs and Achievement Indicators”. I have reformatted these questions to be a little more parent friendly.

Kindergarten – Suggested Questions/Prompts to Scaffold Learning

Before Reading:
· Look at this book’s cover/ pictures/ illustrations. What do you think this story/ poem/ book might be about?
· Is there anything in the pictures that reminds you of other books? From looking at the pictures, who might be the main character? Tell me what you think this character might be like.
· What do you already know about . . . ?
· What do you think will happen?
· When we are reading this book what shall we look/ listen for?

During Reading:
· What does this picture tell us about the story/ topic?
· What do you think will happen next?
· What are you wondering about as I read this page?
· Ask the question, “Does that make sense?”
· Which letter/ word do you think would fit here?

After Reading:
· Help me put these pictures in the same order as they happened in the story.
· Tell me about the pictures on this page. How did they help you read? What did you learn from looking at the pictures?
· Can you find the part where . . . ?
· Let’s look at our early predictions. What did we find out during the story that changed our ideas?
· Make a picture of your favourite part of the book/ poem/ story in your head. Describe your picture to me.


Grade 1 – Suggested Questions/ Prompts to Scaffold Learning

Before Reading
· Look at this book’s cover/ picture. What clues do the pictures give you about the story?
· Have you read or heard any other books before by this author?
· Is there anything in the pictures that reminds you of other stories?
· From looking at the pictures, who might be the main character? Tell me what you think the main character might be like.
· What do you already know about this topic?
· What would you like to learn about this topic?
· What do we know about this author?

During Reading
· Does that make sense? Is that the way we say it?
· Does that sound right?
· Does that look right?
· Check your prediction. How close were you?
· What do you think will happen next?

After Reading
· What did you learn from looking at the pictures?
· Can you find the part where . . .?
· Read me the part where . . . .
· Was there a word on this page that was hard for you? What can (or did) you do to figure it out?
· What can you tell me about . . . ?


Grade 2 – Suggested Questions/ Prompts to Scaffold Learning

Before Reading
· What clues did the pictures give you about the story?
· What do the illustrations tell you about the characters?
· What do you already know?
· What do you think will happen?

During Reading
· Does that make sense?
· Does that sound right? Is that the way we say it?
· Does that look right?
· What do you think will happen next?
· What connections are you making as you read this part?

After Reading
· Read the part where . . .
· Point to the words that were hard for you. How did you figure them out?
· What were some questions you asked yourself while you were reading?
· What questions do you want to ask the author?
· Tell about one big idea or piece of information you learned from reading this book.


Grade 3 – Suggested Questions/ Prompts to Scaffold Learning

Before Reading
· Look at the cover and read the title. What do you think this book/ selection will be about? What makes you think that?
· Look through the book/ selection. Show me a feature (heading, diagram, table of contents, index) that helps us. How does it help us?
· What questions do you have about (topic)? Tell me about it. What do you already know about . . .?

During Reading
· What are you visualizing from your reading?
· Were there any parts so far that did not make sense to you at first? What did you do to help yourself figure them out?
· What do you think will happen next?

After Reading
· Find the part that tells/ shows . . .
· What questions are still in your mind about this book/ selection?
· Look back at the questions you had before reading. Which of them can you answer now? What did you find out?
· What message do you think the author wants to send to the readers? What are some of the details in the book that helped you decide that?

Adding a Sprinkle of "Fun" to Reading

For those kids who find reading a little . . . shall we say . . . monotonous, here are some simple ideas to help make their reading environment a little more . . . fun.

· Reading Glasses ~ Buy a pair of large or silly sunglasses from the Dollar Store and push out the lenses. Your child can wear these glasses when it’s time to read.

· Googly Eye Stick ~ Glue a pompom onto the tip of a popsicle stick or a chopstick. Then glue googly eyes onto the pompom. Have your child use this “reading buddy” to follow along under the words at reading time.

· Become a Character ~ Let your child dress up like a character in the story or have reading time with some stuffed animals that resemble the book’s characters.

· Read the Wall ~ When your child is just beginning to read, rewrite “early-to-read” books on strips of paper (one page of words per strip). Stick the strips of paper at eye level along the wall. Have your child read the wall book while using his/her reading glasses and googly eye stick.

· Reading Voices ~ Encourage your child to use different voices when reading. There’s no rule that says reading has to be done using a medium volume, monotone voice. How about reading one page with a whisper voice, the next page with a rumbling voice, and the next page with a squeaky voice?

· Find an Audience ~ Have your child practice reading a book in preparation to read over the phone to grandma as a bedtime story.

· Keep an Account ~ Have your child set a reading goal and use a sticker chart to record his/her progress. An appropriate reward can be given once the goal has been achieved.

· Tape Record a Book ~ Have your child choose a book to create an audio story. Your child will need to practice reading the book many times until he/she can read it fluently. Then have your child create sound effects for certain words in the book. Even early-to-read books can have sound effects. For example: “Run, Bill, run!” can have pitter patter hands making a “running” sound effect. Have your child practice reading the story with sound effects and then bring the tape recorder out!

· Create a Reading Spot ~ Find a space in your home that can be reserved for reading. Use blankets and pillows to make the spot comfortable. Have a basket of “able to read” books readily available. For the more adventurous, set up a blanket tent and bring out the flashlight.