Tag: kindergarten

Even more books for emergent readers!

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I have been flicking through my collection of children’s books for the last number of days to find the best ones for emergent readers. My study is full of children’s books and the over flow is between my attic and my parent’s house. I think that perhaps I have a small problem… What do you think?!

I really do love this Nick Butterworth series of books for beginner readers. When I saw that they are on sale at 28% off on Book Depository I just knew I had to review them for you! I think that you will like them too. The title is pretty catchy, eh 🙂

Nick Butterworth has produced a gem of a book for young readers or even preschoolers. The illustrations are big and clear. The text is written in a large font size on a separate, uncluttered page with a white background. All of this helps readers to predict ( clear pictures) and read the story for themselves.

Here is a brief synopsis of what this “fantastic Mum can do”!

It doesn’t stop there!

The book contains lots of Dolch words, many of which are constantly repeated throughout the short book  such as “and, she ,can”.

You may prefer some other titles from Nick Butterworth’s Series that are more relevant to your child and his/her special people. How about…

Book Depository are selling these titles for just 5.43 Euro each with their usual free worldwide postage. Please click here for a link.

Preschool children would also find this book very accessible and fun. The print is so large that your child could learn to “track” . ” Tracking” is the term that refers to the direction in which we read and write print. In our culture we read from left to right and top to bottom. This is not intuitive for young readers and needs to be taught by explicitly pointing to words as we read.  Our eye movements are too subtle to communicate that we are “tracking”. Children also need to learn about the “one to one correspondence” between the spoken and written word. This is that one spoken word ( phoneme) is represented by one written word (grapheme). Ok, enough science for now…

Do you have any recommendations for beginner readers? What is your child’s favourite ? Please leave a comment below and share with us.

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh 🙂

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More Books for Emergent Readers

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There has been a great response to my post on Bob Books. It seems that lots of you are interested in sourcing stories that your emergent reader can read almost independently. I have had a few tweets asking me to cover more books so here it goes…. Does your child like dogs?!

Emily Gravett is a fantastic author for young children. Here books are big, clear, beautifully illustrated and simply written.

“Dogs” is a very simple story as you can see below. It contains some of those very important “high frequency/Dolch/tricky words” that I keep referring to as being vitally important for developing reading fluency.  In just the illustrations below we see “I, love, and, that, play, won’t”.

The book is also a nice length and would make a great (code for short!) bedtime read.

This book would also be wonderful to read to Preschoolers or as part of an Oral Language Lesson. There is lots of language to explore.

Opposites: big/small, hairy/bald…

Contrasts: stroppy/soppy…

There are lots and lots of  expressive canines in clear, white space on the page, making the text easier to read.  Each dog  tells their own story. There is also a lovely surprise at the end… No, I am NOT giving it away 😉

Dogs is less of a “school reader” format than Bob Books and so may not allow for much “sounding out” but wins on exposure to tricky words, “fun” to read.

Dogs is available from Book Depository for a purse friendly 5.47 Euro. Please click here for a link

Check in later this week for even more book reviews!

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh 🙂

Preparing your Preschooler for School- Discriminating Sound

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Here is another challenge for your child to encourage him/her to pay close attention to environmental sounds. I hope that enjoyed the last game that I posted about.

If you have not yet read the article, you really should as it explains the educational reasons behind games such as these. Please click here to read the article. Discriminating environmental sound correctly and with ease is a prerequisite for phonics.

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Click here to play the Listen and Match Game

Your child needs to  listen and match the cans that make the same sounds. As you can see there are no visual cues at all!! The can on the bottom shelf needs to be dragged up to make a match. This game is a much greater challenge than Bailey Bear. If your child found that game way too easy then this is for you!

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh 🙂

Monkey Match for Uppercase & Lowercase Letters

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How about an online Concentration Game to help your child  match uppercase and lowercase letters? Children love this one!

Click on the coconuts to reveal a hidden uppercase or lowercase letter. When you make a correct match the coconuts disappear!

Drill and practice has never been so much fun! Monkey Match will have your child happily spending time developing both fluency and accuracy at upper and lowercase letter recognition. An added bonus, and the clue in in the title, is the fact that the game will engage your child and encourage the development of concentration and visual acuity (attention to detail necessary to see the difference between fat and cat, wish and dish, p and q, b and d).

Click here if you are just dying to play!

Why not take a visit to your local Euro Shop and search for some cute notepads or cut-out and make your own “non-digital” version? You could then make the game into a competition to see who can match the most!

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh 🙂

p.s Keep your comments coming. I am always delighted to hear how you are getting on

Learning the alphabet with Sesame Street

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Wait until you see this cute, cute game from Sesame Street!

Cookie Monster tells your child the name of the letter that he wants to eat. The game has helpfully highlighted the beginning/initial letter in each word.

Your child just clicks and drags the correct food to feed Cookie Monster. There is a lovely help button too and Cookie Monster is really sweet if you make a mistake!

Don’t you just love it! Click here to play Cookie Monster’s Letter of the Day

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh 🙂

Learning the Alphabet (Part 2)

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Practice your “abc’s” with ABCD Watermelon.

Join in and sing along as the letters appear on the screen. This will help to reinforce the name of the letter and how it is written (a grapheme) in a simple and clear way.

The song stops when something “silly” appears. Your child then needs to use his/her knowledge of the alphabet to click on the missing letter. It’s short and sweet :). This would be a great game to play together! Your child could tell you the missing letter and you could click on the grapheme until your child is able to play unaided.

Click here to play ABCD Watermelon 

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh 🙂

Digraph Checklist

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I thought that you might like a copy of my Digraph Checklist. I use this with my class to quickly identify known and unknown sounds.

You can use it two ways depending on how well your child know their sounds:

  1. Point to a sound for your child to name
  2. Say a sound and have your child point to it

I hope that this makes homework or testing a little quicker, easier and cuter!

 

 

 

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh 🙂

Clipart by DJInkers