So into the book he doesn't even take off his coat before reading again! xoxo
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Monday, June 10, 2013
Little Man's I Can Read Party!
After nearly two years, Little Man and I finally finished this book (and he finished with flying colors I might add!) so we began planning his "I Can Read" party.
He chose his favorite two stories from his reading book and read them aloud to his assembled family members.
He showed them the picture after each of the two stories (which was always a highly anticipated moment for him, after each story throughout the book!)
In honor of learning how to read, hubby and I gave him his very first "real" Bible. This picture is grainy but shows how excited he was to receive it! It was not that long ago when the Bible was the primary textbook in schools, and it was used to teach children how to read so that they would be able to read God's precious Word for themselves!
It was very special that both sets of Little Man's grandparents were here to celebrate this milestone with him! Here he is with my parents:
and with hubby's parents:
The whole gang!
Since that time, he has been reading his Bible almost non-stop. He is nearly half way through Genesis now!! May all my children always have this thirst for God's Word.
Congratulations Little Man!
He chose his favorite two stories from his reading book and read them aloud to his assembled family members.
He showed them the picture after each of the two stories (which was always a highly anticipated moment for him, after each story throughout the book!)
In honor of learning how to read, hubby and I gave him his very first "real" Bible. This picture is grainy but shows how excited he was to receive it! It was not that long ago when the Bible was the primary textbook in schools, and it was used to teach children how to read so that they would be able to read God's precious Word for themselves!
It was very special that both sets of Little Man's grandparents were here to celebrate this milestone with him! Here he is with my parents:
and with hubby's parents:
The whole gang!
Since that time, he has been reading his Bible almost non-stop. He is nearly half way through Genesis now!! May all my children always have this thirst for God's Word.
Congratulations Little Man!
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Reading Hard Books
On one of the yahoo groups I am on, we were having a discussion this past week about reading hard books. And then Marcia Somerville, author of Tapestry of Grace, posted an article on her blog called "Reading Hard Books." Hearing similar thoughts from two sources in the same week made me sit up and take notice. Perhaps God wants me to learn something here!
Quoting from Marcia's blog (and she quotes from How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler):
I agree, and it gave me pause as I consider my own book choices and the books I ask (force) my children to read.
Sometimes my children complain that a good plot is buried in archaic language. It is so hard for them to read, they want to give up and read a more modern version, an abridged version, or a different book altogether. I guess it depends on the book and our purpose for reading it, but I feel largely validated in saying no to their desire to quit, and in making them finish a hard book (and just so we're clear, this would be for my older children who are already excellent readers, and the hard books are interspersed with easier reading).
Hard books not only challenge and instruct our thinking, they also increase our vocabulary! On the yahoo group I mentioned earlier, Rebecca shared these thoughts:
Quoting from Marcia's blog (and she quotes from How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler):
[Adler] makes a passionate case that the books that enlarge our grasp of truth and make us wiser must feel, at first, beyond us. They ‘must make demands on you. They must seem to you to be beyond your capacity.’ If a book is easy and fits nicely into all your language conventions and thought forms, then you probably will not grow much from reading it. It may be entertaining, but not enlarging to your understanding. It’s the hard books that count. Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves; digging is hard, but you might find diamonds.
Evangelical Christians, who believe God reveals himself primarily through a book, the Bible, should long to be the most able readers they can be. This means that we should want to become clear, penetrating, accurate, fair-minded thinkers, because all good reading involves asking questions and thinking. This is one reason why the Bible teaches us, ‘Do not be children in your thinking; be babes in evil, but in thinking be mature’ (1 Cor. 14:20 RSV). It’s why Paul said to Timothy, ‘Think over what I say, for the Lord will grant you understanding in everything’ (2 Tim. 2:7). God’s gift of understanding is through thinking, not instead of thinking.
I agree, and it gave me pause as I consider my own book choices and the books I ask (force) my children to read.
Sometimes my children complain that a good plot is buried in archaic language. It is so hard for them to read, they want to give up and read a more modern version, an abridged version, or a different book altogether. I guess it depends on the book and our purpose for reading it, but I feel largely validated in saying no to their desire to quit, and in making them finish a hard book (and just so we're clear, this would be for my older children who are already excellent readers, and the hard books are interspersed with easier reading).
Hard books not only challenge and instruct our thinking, they also increase our vocabulary! On the yahoo group I mentioned earlier, Rebecca shared these thoughts:
"Another time I read Anne of Green Gables to my children since I had so enjoyed
that series when I was a child. Once again I was surprised how complex the
language was. It was harder than my pleasure reading books. It was then that I
decided that our children must, must read the old classics regularly to increase
their reading age. If they stick to what is published now, they will never increase their reading age past a certain point.
Just last night I was reading a free ebook about Beowulf. Being copywrite free, it must have been written pre ~1920. The language was hard and I had to concentrate when I was reading. Here's the thing - according to the website I downloaded it from, it was an elementary school level book. Now I am wondering what language level were their high-school books!"
Just last night I was reading a free ebook about Beowulf. Being copywrite free, it must have been written pre ~1920. The language was hard and I had to concentrate when I was reading. Here's the thing - according to the website I downloaded it from, it was an elementary school level book. Now I am wondering what language level were their high-school books!"
I have recently been experiencing this for myself, as I am currently reading A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. There are famous quotes from this book that I have heard referenced ("it was the best of times, it was the worst of times..") but I have never before read the book for myself, and since we just finished learning about the French Revolution I figured this would be the perfect opportunity (I was never sure which two cities the title referred to, but now I know they are London and Paris in the 1780's!). The language is incredibly rich and descriptive, but the sentences are woven together in such a way that I really have to concentrate as I read (also, I am usually reading when I am tired!). Here is an excerpt from a section I read yesterday:
"Up the broad flight of shallow steps, Monsieur the Marquis, flambeau preceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturbing the darkness to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof of the great pile of stable building away among the trees."
Isn't that an incredible way to say, "Monsieur the Marquis, with his lantern carrier in front of him, walked up the stairs so loudly that an owl on the stable in the woods hooted loudly." ??
What do you think? Do you agree with the value of reading hard books? Have you read anything recently that has made you concentrate? Look up unfamiliar words? Spoken to you with its richness of language?
I'm pondering what this all means for myself, and for our home school, but in the mean time I am going to go read more Dickens!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Learning to Read with Primary Arts of Language
I am thankful for our Little Man for many reasons, but one of them is that because of him, we still had one child young enough to use Primary Arts of Language, published by IEW just last spring! I have not yet met an IEW product that was not excellently written, and this is no exception. It is a fun, gentle, well laid out way to introduce reading, writing, spelling, and literature to young children (not necessarily all at the same time), and I have loved using it with Little Man!
First, a warning. This is a long post with lots of pictures. If you want the full explanation, continue reading. Click on pictures to enlarge them and see more detail. If you simply want the bottom line, scroll to the bottom!
The whole program consists of three Teacher Books (one for reading, one for writing, and one for the games that you make as you go), student workpages in the form of e-books to download and print, and a "phonetic farm" folder with stickers that the student puts on one at a time as they are learned.
Here is Little Man with his phonetic farm folder last spring! We started this program very slowly toward the end of his kindergarten year, and are still working through it a year later because that's just the pace that fits our lifestyle at the moment. :0)
Each day there is a "work page" as part of the lesson. This is the part the child is to do independently. At the beginning the work pages are super easy, such as filling in color names like this:
And then they get progressively harder. Here is one from Lesson 20:
PAL also utilizes the use of games to reinforce the concepts taught each day, which can be made very simply out of manila file folders. The game "boards" and game pieces are pre-printed and provided. I have heard that some moms make all the games ahead of time, but I have been making them as we come to them. I put the game pieces in a letter sized envelope, and tape this envelope to the back of the file folder. Everything is kept together this way, all ready to play the game the next time! This was a game we played that reinforced a specific spelling rule.
Here is a game that teaches prepositions. We use an emptied out box (muffins in our case!) to put the pieces under, or on, or in.
"..the ant is under the box..."
Sometimes we play the game with a chair instead of the box, and Little Man gets on the chair, or crawls under the chair, or runs around the chair, or jumps over the chair.. He loves it when we play the game this way!
As part of each lesson, new words are written on index cards and taught to the student. Before very many lessons have passed, you have enough cards to begin stringing together simple sentences. Our Little Man felt such success when he could begin to read "real" sentences!
So, here's the bottom line:
If you have used another program in the past with great success, and you are comfortable with it, stick with it. Why fix it if it ain't broken? For anyone used to a simpler program (such as myself, who used How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons for my other children), PAL does have a lot of moving parts. However, the author, Jill Pike, has done an admirable job of making it as open-and-go as possible (or, as she would say, "fall out of bed easy"!) and it can't be beat in its comprehensive approach to all the arts of language. Also, this uses the sight-sound method of reading instruction, which means that it blends together the benefits of learning phonics with the benefits of learning sight words, so that the student is able to read real sentences very quickly. In my mind, this is a superior method to teaching phonics only (or, heaven forbid, sight words only!).
If you have only one child you are schooling and wish to do a complete lesson, with all its parts, in one day, go for it! But it is very flexible, and can be adapted to your needs and the amount of time you have each day. We now do the reading and writing lesson on one day (about 30 minutes), and the story/literature lesson another day (another 30 minutes). I love that the games, once learned, can be played with an older sibling, and the daily reading sheets can become future reading practice. On extra busy days, that's all the "reading" we do. Review is built in, and all the pieces of reading, writing, spelling, literature, and thinking skills are woven together beautifully.
If you are looking for that type of program, you will be very happy with Primary Arts of Language!
First, a warning. This is a long post with lots of pictures. If you want the full explanation, continue reading. Click on pictures to enlarge them and see more detail. If you simply want the bottom line, scroll to the bottom!
The whole program consists of three Teacher Books (one for reading, one for writing, and one for the games that you make as you go), student workpages in the form of e-books to download and print, and a "phonetic farm" folder with stickers that the student puts on one at a time as they are learned.
Here is Little Man with his phonetic farm folder last spring! We started this program very slowly toward the end of his kindergarten year, and are still working through it a year later because that's just the pace that fits our lifestyle at the moment. :0)
Each day there is a "work page" as part of the lesson. This is the part the child is to do independently. At the beginning the work pages are super easy, such as filling in color names like this:
And then they get progressively harder. Here is one from Lesson 20:
PAL also utilizes the use of games to reinforce the concepts taught each day, which can be made very simply out of manila file folders. The game "boards" and game pieces are pre-printed and provided. I have heard that some moms make all the games ahead of time, but I have been making them as we come to them. I put the game pieces in a letter sized envelope, and tape this envelope to the back of the file folder. Everything is kept together this way, all ready to play the game the next time! This was a game we played that reinforced a specific spelling rule.
Here is a game that teaches prepositions. We use an emptied out box (muffins in our case!) to put the pieces under, or on, or in.
"..the ant is under the box..."
Sometimes we play the game with a chair instead of the box, and Little Man gets on the chair, or crawls under the chair, or runs around the chair, or jumps over the chair.. He loves it when we play the game this way!
As part of each lesson, new words are written on index cards and taught to the student. Before very many lessons have passed, you have enough cards to begin stringing together simple sentences. Our Little Man felt such success when he could begin to read "real" sentences!
So, here's the bottom line:
If you have used another program in the past with great success, and you are comfortable with it, stick with it. Why fix it if it ain't broken? For anyone used to a simpler program (such as myself, who used How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons for my other children), PAL does have a lot of moving parts. However, the author, Jill Pike, has done an admirable job of making it as open-and-go as possible (or, as she would say, "fall out of bed easy"!) and it can't be beat in its comprehensive approach to all the arts of language. Also, this uses the sight-sound method of reading instruction, which means that it blends together the benefits of learning phonics with the benefits of learning sight words, so that the student is able to read real sentences very quickly. In my mind, this is a superior method to teaching phonics only (or, heaven forbid, sight words only!).
If you have only one child you are schooling and wish to do a complete lesson, with all its parts, in one day, go for it! But it is very flexible, and can be adapted to your needs and the amount of time you have each day. We now do the reading and writing lesson on one day (about 30 minutes), and the story/literature lesson another day (another 30 minutes). I love that the games, once learned, can be played with an older sibling, and the daily reading sheets can become future reading practice. On extra busy days, that's all the "reading" we do. Review is built in, and all the pieces of reading, writing, spelling, literature, and thinking skills are woven together beautifully.
If you are looking for that type of program, you will be very happy with Primary Arts of Language!
Monday, October 17, 2011
Our Week In Review
We had a good week of school last week. Our older students learned about the the Hundred Year's War and the complex relationship between England and France toward the end of the Middle Ages, while our younger ones focused on individual people, such as Joan of Arc. I read a Joan d'Arc picture book to the two younger boys, and then Little Man drew a picture of an event in her life, while son C wrote in this mini book what he remembered from our reading. I love this lapbooking/notebooking method for assessing how much he has remembered and internalized from our reading! He is the perfect age for this... still loves cutting and pasting, and not too much writing to tire his hand.
We have used my Kindle quite a bit this year for school. A couple weeks ago it really saved the day for daughter G. I had forgotten to buy one of the books she needed for her online literature class, and I realized this at the start of the week she needed it. Our libraries didn't have it, no time to inter library loan it, and no time to purchase it and have it sent to us unless I paid for expensive overnight shipping. I checked to see if it was available in the Kindle version, and it was! I purchased and downloaded it, and in less than 5 minutes our daughter was busily reading. Love modern technology when it works well!
What was different about this week:
We were blessed with a "Chaos Tower" which is like Marbleworks on steroids. Super fun to build, and super fun to watch the balls go through the gauntlet!
What worked well this week:
Our schoolroom!!
Having access to all our educational materials is such a JOY! We re-instituted activity time with son C and Little Man this week. Each morning right after Bible time they get to do a learning activity. It is a nice change of pace from bookwork, and nice for them to spend time together. One of their activities was Boggle Jr:
We are wrapping up our studies of the Middle Ages during this current week and will soon turn our attention to the Renaissance and Reformation. Such a fascinating time period to study!
We have used my Kindle quite a bit this year for school. A couple weeks ago it really saved the day for daughter G. I had forgotten to buy one of the books she needed for her online literature class, and I realized this at the start of the week she needed it. Our libraries didn't have it, no time to inter library loan it, and no time to purchase it and have it sent to us unless I paid for expensive overnight shipping. I checked to see if it was available in the Kindle version, and it was! I purchased and downloaded it, and in less than 5 minutes our daughter was busily reading. Love modern technology when it works well!
What was different about this week:
We were blessed with a "Chaos Tower" which is like Marbleworks on steroids. Super fun to build, and super fun to watch the balls go through the gauntlet!
What worked well this week:
Our schoolroom!!
Having access to all our educational materials is such a JOY! We re-instituted activity time with son C and Little Man this week. Each morning right after Bible time they get to do a learning activity. It is a nice change of pace from bookwork, and nice for them to spend time together. One of their activities was Boggle Jr:
We are wrapping up our studies of the Middle Ages during this current week and will soon turn our attention to the Renaissance and Reformation. Such a fascinating time period to study!
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
First Week of Summer Break
So thankful for....
good books, and brotherly love
cool insects
hard, satisfying work
beautiful colors!
joyful fun
good books, and brotherly love
cool insects
hard, satisfying work
beautiful colors!
joyful fun
Friday, January 14, 2011
Books I read in 2010
I have a new book reading goal, and that is 40 or more books during 2011. I read 39 in 2010, 4 more than the previous year. Most of them were GREAT! So many good books..... something I'm thankful for about living in this day and age. There's lots of garbage out there too, but so many good ones if you are discerning. And they are so accessible!
I printed out my 2010 booklist so that I can remember which titles I read, and have started a new listing down in my right sidebar. Once more, here is my list of books read last year. I bolded my favorites.
I printed out my 2010 booklist so that I can remember which titles I read, and have started a new listing down in my right sidebar. Once more, here is my list of books read last year. I bolded my favorites.
- Venom and Song by Batson and Hopper (for fun)
- Curse of the Spider King by Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper (for fun)
- Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff (for school)
- A Place in the Sun by Jill Rubalcaba (for school)
- The Well of Sacrifice by Chris Eboch (for school)
- The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw (for school)
- Gilgamesh the Hero by Geraldine McCaughrean (for school)
- The Runaway by Patricia St. John (for fun)
- Garden of the Purple Dragon by Carole Wilkinson (for fun)
- Ninth Witness by Brock and Bodie Thoene (for fun)
- Eighth Shepherd by Brock and Bodie Thoene (for fun)
- Seventh Day by Brock and Bodie Thoene (for fun)
- Sixth Covenant by Brock and Bodie Thoene (for fun)
- Fifth Seal by Brock and Bodie Thoene (for fun)
- Fourth Dawn by Brock and Bodie Thoene (for fun)
- Third Watch by Brock and Bodie Thoene (for fun)
- Brother Andrew, God's Secret Agent by Geoff and Janet Benge (read aloud)
- Poppy and Ereth by Avi (for fun)
- Poppy's Return by Avi (for fun)
- Poppy and Rye by Avi (for fun)
- Second Touch by Brock and Bodie Thoene (for fun)
- Ragweed by Avi (for fun)
- Have Space Suit, Will Travel by Robert Heinlein (for school)
- First Light by Brock and Bodie Thoene (for fun)
- The Sigma Protocol by Robert Ludlum (for fun)
- Water Buffalo Days by Huynh Quang Nhuong (for school)
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (for fun)
- Man From the Sky by Avi (for fun)
- Poppy by Avi (for fun)
- The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi (for fun)
- A Skeleton in God's Closet by Paul L. Maier (for fun)
- My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George (for school)
- So Far From the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins (for school)
- Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (for school)
- Corrie ten Boom, Keeper of the Angel's Den by Geoff and Janet Benge (read aloud)
- Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan (for school)
- Onion John by Joseph Krumgold (for school)
- The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom (for personal growth)
- Going Rogue, An American Life by Sarah Palin (for fun)
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Third Grade - what son C is doing this fall
First of all, a big shout out and thank you to my parents for this wonderful book they sent C recently. The Boy Who Changed the World, by Andy Andrews, is a story of how four boys' lives intertwine to make a difference in the world, and it's even more wonderful because it's true! The first time I read this book it gave me goosebumps, and I loved reading it out loud to all the children with son C front and center on my lap. Thanks mom and dad!
A couple of weeks ago C finished reading through The Beginner's Bible. This has been his daily reading practice with me for about a year, ever since he finished 100 EZ lessons and had his reading party. He read two stories to me nearly every day, and felt a huge sense of accomplishment when he got to the end! (it was worth TEN leaves on our reading tree!)
I have been including him a bit more in our Tapestry of Grace history studies this year, partly because he's ready for more and partly because so far, Year 1 of Tapestry has lent itself well to doing things all together as a family. Which I love! This was a chart that all the children but Little Man made as we read through the latter part of Exodus. It showed where all the furniture for the Tabernacle was placed and what it was used for.
We both love what he's doing for writing this year. Though I am sold on IEW as a writing program, I am waiting until next year to start C on it. This year he is using this All About Me composition book from Love to Learn. Each of his older siblings has also done this in third grade.
Each page asks a series of questions about the student's life ~ so by the end of the year you have a lovely keepsake of this period in your child's life. On Monday C writes his answers to the questions, a rough draft, in a separate notebook. I am working with him on double spacing in his rough draft notebook, to help prepare him for that requirement when he starts IEW next year.
I correct his rough draft, and on Tuesday he copies the corrected version in his All About Me notebook. On Wednesday he draws a picture to go with his writing, and on Thursday he colors his picture. Each week he has a finished page like this:
It is working out very well, and is a nice segue to writing every day with IEW next year.
He is steadily working on math, and recently went through another lesson that taught how to tell time. He has worked on the minutes before. This time he worked on learning the hours, and how to put the whole thing together in order to read an analog clock. I love how Math U See teaches time, because it's completely visual and logical. The circle of blue blocks are the minutes, that can be skip counted by fives or counted individually. The blocks outside the blue circle are the hours, the one block for one o'clock, the two block for two o'clock, and so on. It was a bit of a struggle at first, but when the light came on it was a wonderful moment! (and I love that I get to see and experience these lightbulb moments myself because we homeschool!)
I have not started C on any formal grammar yet this year, but that is coming in January. All in all, he is having a great third grade year!
A couple of weeks ago C finished reading through The Beginner's Bible. This has been his daily reading practice with me for about a year, ever since he finished 100 EZ lessons and had his reading party. He read two stories to me nearly every day, and felt a huge sense of accomplishment when he got to the end! (it was worth TEN leaves on our reading tree!)
I have been including him a bit more in our Tapestry of Grace history studies this year, partly because he's ready for more and partly because so far, Year 1 of Tapestry has lent itself well to doing things all together as a family. Which I love! This was a chart that all the children but Little Man made as we read through the latter part of Exodus. It showed where all the furniture for the Tabernacle was placed and what it was used for.
We both love what he's doing for writing this year. Though I am sold on IEW as a writing program, I am waiting until next year to start C on it. This year he is using this All About Me composition book from Love to Learn. Each of his older siblings has also done this in third grade.
Each page asks a series of questions about the student's life ~ so by the end of the year you have a lovely keepsake of this period in your child's life. On Monday C writes his answers to the questions, a rough draft, in a separate notebook. I am working with him on double spacing in his rough draft notebook, to help prepare him for that requirement when he starts IEW next year.
I correct his rough draft, and on Tuesday he copies the corrected version in his All About Me notebook. On Wednesday he draws a picture to go with his writing, and on Thursday he colors his picture. Each week he has a finished page like this:
It is working out very well, and is a nice segue to writing every day with IEW next year.
He is steadily working on math, and recently went through another lesson that taught how to tell time. He has worked on the minutes before. This time he worked on learning the hours, and how to put the whole thing together in order to read an analog clock. I love how Math U See teaches time, because it's completely visual and logical. The circle of blue blocks are the minutes, that can be skip counted by fives or counted individually. The blocks outside the blue circle are the hours, the one block for one o'clock, the two block for two o'clock, and so on. It was a bit of a struggle at first, but when the light came on it was a wonderful moment! (and I love that I get to see and experience these lightbulb moments myself because we homeschool!)
I have not started C on any formal grammar yet this year, but that is coming in January. All in all, he is having a great third grade year!
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