Monday, May 26, 2014

AAR - Fun Review and Fluency Pages

Here's a bunch of ideas you can use for both the fluency pages and the word cards in All About Reading to incorporate more review. Have Fun!


For the word cards


Use games to review the word cards. Pull out favorite family board games like Sorry or Candy Land, and have each player read a word before his or her turn. You might enjoy Bake the Cookies as a way of reviewing.


There's also a bunch of other free games--Over Easy, Word Flippers with F/L/S, A Flock of Ducks for L1, and Feed The Anteater, Be a Lumberjack, and Wake the Sheep for L2.


All About Reading Activity Bundle


For compound words, there's Banana Splits. You can find that and the Free Penguin Fun Facts book for reading or spelling practice in the free Winter Practice Activities.

If your child enjoys games, consider getting the Ziggy Supplement for some folder game options you can use for review. (These were designed to go with level 1, but can be used with cards from any level.) 

aar-l1-zzz-supplement-cover.jpg


You may also want to check out: Rhyming with Candy Hearts, which has words you can use with levels 1-3 of AAR.


 

Use the word cards to make up phrases and sentences for your child to read. Let your child also make up funny or silly ones for you (or a reading buddy) to read as well. Some kids really like that!

Pull out word cards that rhyme (start with a small number and work up) and play the matching game--mix  them up, turn them over and each player flips over 2 cards, says the words, and if they rhyme, the player keeps that pair.

Here’s an idea for kids who like to color: take coloring pages with big spaces and write review words or phrases in blanks. When the child reads the word, they get to color that space until the picture is complete.

Do the activities from the activity book more than once during the current lesson, and also bring back activities from previous lessons.


For the fluency pages:

Sometimes students do get overwhelmed by the amount of words on the fluency pages. Marie has some great ideas for using the pages to make them more fun or interesting (and there are more great ideas in the comments section to, be sure to check that out!) Check out the Top 5 Tips for Using the AAR Practice Pages. A lot of these will work for readers too. A few more ideas:

Use the viewfinder bookmark to read them.

Use the page for your reference only and write the words, phrases, or sentences one at a time on a white board.  When your child can read one line well, try writing two lines at a time.

Make the words/phrases/sentences with tiles for your child to read.

Mix up the exercises a bit more–do something from the next step and then just a bit of the fluency reading from the previous step. This will stretch the next step out a bit more, and give a bit more fluency practice, without having the practice be all together in one chunk.

Use the words, phrases, and sentences to come up with a little book together that your child can read.  Put one phrase or sentence on each page, and let your child draw a picture, or cut and paste pictures from a magazine on each page.  My kids used to really enjoy making up little books like this.

What are some fun review ideas you have used with the cards or fluency pages?

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Faithful Bloggers Festival

If you're a blogger, this looks like a great opportunity to learn how to be more effective. The sessions will also be recorded if you can't make it at the scheduled times--June 3, 4, 5 at 1pm Eastern. The link below has more info.


Faithful Bloggers Festival: One

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Hope Is My Anchor: My Olympic Dream (Two-Man Bob-a-Luge)

Hope Is My Anchor: My Olympic Dream (Two-Man Bob-a-Luge): So there I was at the Olympic reunion party, when I suddenly realized, “Hey, I’m an Olympian!”  Yup, I won a bronze medal in the two-man luge.  Well, actually it was a combination of luge and bob-sled as I remember it.



You see, I just happened to be at the Olympics (because, you know, people just show up there without reason), when this big burly guy comes up to me... (read more)

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Hope Is My Anchor: Illumination Award Winner! Invisible Illness, Visi...

Hope Is My Anchor: Illumination Award Winner! Invisible Illness, Visi...: The results of the 2013 Illumination Awards have been posted, and Invisible Illness, Visible God has won a bronze medal in the Devotional category!

"With the motto, "Shining a Light on Exemplary Christian Books," the Illumination Book Awards are designed to honor the year’s best new titles written and published with a Christian worldview."

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Hope Is My Anchor: Hope Is My Anchor: The Spatula Thief Strikes Again...

Hope Is My Anchor: Hope Is My Anchor: The Spatula Thief Strikes Again...: Hope Is My Anchor: The Spatula Thief Strikes Again! Merry Christmas K... : Two years ago, my daughter wanted a detective-themed party for he...

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Forgetting Plates and Auditory Processing

Conversation with my daughter this morning....

Me: how are you doing this morning?
Anna: Fine...forgetting a plate.
Me: forgetting a plate?

I'm wondering...what bearing does this have on how she's doing? Where is the plate--in her room? I've told the kids not to keep dishes in their rooms. What's so important about this plate?

Anna: For. Getting. Up. Late!

Yes, I'm auditorily challenged this morning!

I often have a similar glitch--the spaces between words disappear and my mind has to tease out the sounds and decide which ones form words. When I was 7, I asked "what?" whenever my mother spoke to me...so often that she had my hearing tested! What I heard was...

somethingakintotryingtoreadasentencewithnospacesbetweenthewords.

My hearing tested fine, and I learned to stop saying "what?" all the time, to pause, and to wait for the sounds to separate into meaningful words in my mind. And it works...most of the time.

There is that line in Jingle Bells that puzzled me for years. It made sense to me that they were "making spare-ribs bright." That meant they were putting lots of barbecue sauce on them--one of my favorite meals! It would be warm and cozy after a breezy sleigh-ride. But why they took soap with them was just beyond me. ("a one-horse soap and sleigh.")

And then there was that country song..."You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille." I could never figure out why he was so worried about his crop in the field, since he had 400 children. My mother would have put those children to work in that field, and they'd get the job done! Years later I laughed when I realized...it was "four hungry children."

Enunciation. It's a good thing!

When I started homeschooling, I learned about Central Auditory Processing Disorder, and my glitches started making sense to me!

If you've ever questioned your child's hearing and not found anything wrong...this may be what's going on.

Some things that help:

Slow down just a bit when you read aloud. Pause just slightly more between sentences and paragraphs.

Have your child sit where he or she can watch your mouth so that the sounds will be crisper. For example, letters like M and N can be very difficult to distinguish, but it's easy to see the difference in how we form these sounds.

Do school work in a quiet room with few distractions--your child will be using a lot of energy trying to focus on what you say. This is especially important for reading and spelling work.

Use multi-sensory methods to reinforce your teaching, rather than relying on one method (this has been found helpful for all kids, actually, but is even more important when a child has a struggle with one particular method). Don't attempt to explain things all orally--use manipulatives to "show" what you are saying in math, or letter tiles for reading or spelling. (Programs like Math-U-See, All About Reading, and All About Spelling integrate manipulatives.)

Shorten explanations and directions. (Remember the teacher on the Peanuts cartoons?! That's what our children hear when we talk too long or too quickly!) wah-wa-wah-wah-wahhhhhh....

Don't avoid reading aloud--my daughter sometimes has similar missteps in her hearing, and when she was young, she often didn't enjoy our read-aloud time. I think continuing with read-alouds strengthened this mode of learning for her though, and she came to enjoy read-alouds a lot (still one of the favorite parts of our day--here's one of her favorite ways to listen!)




Allow for “lag time” while your child processes what you just said--they need time to let all the sounds become (hopefully meaningful!) words.

Don't take it personally if your child becomes frustrated or argumentative during a lesson--that may be a sign you need to back up a bit, review something easier, and try the new concept again in a bit or even on a new day.

And...laugh. After all...forgetting a plate IS pretty funny!




Friday, September 27, 2013

Petrifying Purple Pajama Incident

I think it's been long enough that I can share this story safely. I have a confession. I'm responsible for spreading a stereotype all over town here.

Oh the shame!

It was a cold day in February about 2.5 years ago...

I went to the doctor's office to pick up some paperwork, took my son to guitar, went INTO the bank (not just the drive-thru, noooo...), went into the library, and helped my son get his "adult" library card (where we freely admitted he has no picture ID because we homeschool). As we turned to leave the library, I realized that I still had on my purple nightgown!!!

I had been cold when I woke up, so I threw on some pants and a big warm sweater over top, thinking I'd get dressed later. We got busy with school, I did some work, and then it was time to go to guitar so we left...and my then 14 year-old, dearly beloved son said nary a word to me about my snowflake-bedecked nightgown sticking at least a foot below my sweater!

While I was driving to his guitar lesson, we saw a guy who was sagging almost to the knees! We had such a hoot--really, I don't know how the guy could walk, he looked so ridiculous--but there I was not even realizing I was in my PJ's and making my own fashion statement, LOL!

And WHY didn't said dearly beloved son say anything?  He just didn't think about it.  Boys!  I told him he should be embarrassed to be seen in public with his mother in a night gown and should tell me next time!

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Homeschooling with chronic illness or pain?

Great new review for Invisible Illness, Visible God on Amazon today! Minnie writes:

I can't say enough about this devotional. It is so comforting to read, especially if you yourself are going through any kind of trial: illness, job loss, relationship problem, etc. It is filled with God's word and promises but also filled with very real emotions that we all experience at different times of our lives. It is hard to use as a daily devotional because I want to read it all at once (it's that good!). 

Amazon is sold out right now, but Barnes & Noble online has it in stock and they also do free shipping on orders $25 and up. 

I have it in stock here on Hope Is My Anchor too, if you would like a signed copy. I talk with so many homeschoolers who are caring for loved ones that have chronic illness or pain. I hope you will check it out!

Friday, August 23, 2013

SNEAK PEEK! All About Reading 3

I JUST had a sneak peek at the "Chasing Henry" story--so adorable! Some friends help this charming little lizard hatch out of a friend, and then try to raise him--and he gets into mischief as only he can! But I don't want to give away the ending... 

And what kid doesn't like the thought of finding lost treasure?  The illustrations, as always are enthralling to kids of many ages.

One more sneak peak at some of the fun activities...My kids would have had so much fun with this when they were learning to read!

See all of the online samples here: