By now, most of you all have been back to school for almost three months. Day school students have been back since late August/early September. For our homeschoolers, you may have been in school throughout the summer, have yet to begin, or are un-schoolers and work under the premise that the world is your classroom. Either way, learning is taking place, and our learners' minds are buzzing away with new words, ideas, and concepts.
For day schoolers: you are confident that your children are learning throughout the day. But what about in the evening? Does learning stop after homework? Of course not. People are constantly exposed to situations to learn something new or practice and strength a skill. At home, your child can do some fun activities to reinforce concepts learned throughout the day.
For homeschoolers: to enhance or build your child's reading curriculum, look at some key concepts below. Let your child's reading and language arts development go in-depth so that they are able to gain meaning from a text. Remember, as future leaders, they will need to be able to read critically to build new ideas; this requires understanding of the main idea and the supporting and subtle details of a text.
Reading (phonetics): word families (aka phonograms, rimes, or chunks) is one of the best ways for young people to learn phonetic principles and build their vocabulary. For example
Word families can even be taught as nonsense words or syllables. For example, tain by itself is not a word, but maintain is; both the syllables of maintain have the long A vowel pattern ai. Word families can include short and long vowel sounds patterns and vowel diphthongs.
You can chose a couple of phonograms to focus on and create a chart for students to complete throughout the week. This chart will contain the phonogram and an example. Students are responsible for completing the chart by the end of the week by filling it with words they come across throughout the week (see an example below). For an extension activity, have students create a story using at least 10 of the words on their list. For younger students, can help them write it and they can illustrate it.
For homeschoolers: to enhance or build your child's reading curriculum, look at some key concepts below. Let your child's reading and language arts development go in-depth so that they are able to gain meaning from a text. Remember, as future leaders, they will need to be able to read critically to build new ideas; this requires understanding of the main idea and the supporting and subtle details of a text.
Reading (phonetics): word families (aka phonograms, rimes, or chunks) is one of the best ways for young people to learn phonetic principles and build their vocabulary. For example
- -ack: back, black, stack, track
- - ist: mist, list, wrist, sist
- - ain (long A pattern): train, rain, main, plain, tain
Word families can even be taught as nonsense words or syllables. For example, tain by itself is not a word, but maintain is; both the syllables of maintain have the long A vowel pattern ai. Word families can include short and long vowel sounds patterns and vowel diphthongs.
You can chose a couple of phonograms to focus on and create a chart for students to complete throughout the week. This chart will contain the phonogram and an example. Students are responsible for completing the chart by the end of the week by filling it with words they come across throughout the week (see an example below). For an extension activity, have students create a story using at least 10 of the words on their list. For younger students, can help them write it and they can illustrate it.
A word family chart for short a vowel sounds. Notice the is no -ar; this is because "r influenced" vowel sounds are typically taught later in the phonetics curriculum.
Language Arts (reading comprehension): Since I started teaching at Prince George's Community College (PGCC), I have noticed an interesting phenomena- the students entering college now have strong phonetics skills but weak comprehension. The best way to help children build strong comprehension skills for their future is to practice now. When they read with you, practice think-aloud activities. That is, stop the reader and ask them general questions about what they have just read. For example:
Before reading:
- what do you think this story/book/article will be about?
- what do I know about this topic?
- what can I learn about this topic?
- how do I think this story/book will end?
During Reading:
- what is the sequence of the story? (what happened first, next, last, finally).
- what do you predict will happen next?
- how do you think the story will end?
- what have you done if you were the character?
- how would you have felt if you were the character?
- what are you wondering as you read?
- think about your predictions as you read. are you correct?
- what are you wondering as you read? what questions do you have?
After Reading:
- Why is the title a good title for the book/story/article? If you had to give it a different title, what would be another good one?
- Were your predictions as you read the story correct? Where did you have to fix your prediction as you read?
- If there was a problem, did it get solved? How did the character try to solve the problem?
- Did any characters change in the story? Who changed? How and why did they change?
- Why do you think the author wrote this?
- What is the most important point that the author is trying to make in his/her writing?
- What is you favorite part? Why?
- Can you retell the story in sequence order? (what happened first, second, then, next, etc...)
- Does this book remind you of an experience you have had in real life?
Before reading:
- what do you think this story/book/article will be about?
- what do I know about this topic?
- what can I learn about this topic?
- how do I think this story/book will end?
During Reading:
- what is the sequence of the story? (what happened first, next, last, finally).
- what do you predict will happen next?
- how do you think the story will end?
- what have you done if you were the character?
- how would you have felt if you were the character?
- what are you wondering as you read?
- think about your predictions as you read. are you correct?
- what are you wondering as you read? what questions do you have?
After Reading:
- Why is the title a good title for the book/story/article? If you had to give it a different title, what would be another good one?
- Were your predictions as you read the story correct? Where did you have to fix your prediction as you read?
- If there was a problem, did it get solved? How did the character try to solve the problem?
- Did any characters change in the story? Who changed? How and why did they change?
- Why do you think the author wrote this?
- What is the most important point that the author is trying to make in his/her writing?
- What is you favorite part? Why?
- Can you retell the story in sequence order? (what happened first, second, then, next, etc...)
- Does this book remind you of an experience you have had in real life?
Vocabulary
- Create word maps similar to the one seen above.
- Study etymology and word parts- prefixes, suffixes, and roots. Once a student recognizes word parts and their meanings, they are open to learning and/or knowing hundreds of thousands of words. For example:
- Consist, resist, insist, persist, assist, and subsist all have the same root, which is SIST. SIST means to stand. Add prefixes and suffixes, and you have words such as inconsistent, irresistible, persistence, assistive, and subsistent.
- In addition, STA, STIT, and STI also mean to stand. Stable, constituent, and obstinate all have a root that means to stand; the meaning changes based on the affixes and connotation (added meaning over time).
- For more on etymology and vocabulary, visit Moorish Civiletter, homesite to Master Etymology Teacher Abdullah Bey
These are beginning key pieces to developing language arts and reading skills. Part II will be coming soon, featuring grammar, syntax, and writing. Part III will feature mathematics content and skills.
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