It’s been just over one week since the launch of Alpha-Mania’s campaign to fund the production of early literacy learning tools for parents and educators, and we are excited about the support we’ve received from the community!
Thanks to our 26 supporters who have so far contributed $2,275 towards our campaign.
Jen Makwana, author of the Alpha-Mania book series, with Book 1: Captain Ray and the Rhyming Pirates
Thanks everyone for your interest and continued support in making the big goal, reaching one million children with phonological awareness, that much closer!
Reading news articles at a young age is a great way for your child to engage with the world around them. We use several different news sources that are JUST for kids:
Have your child find an article that resonates with him/her. While reading, encourage critical thinking by asking these three questions:
Question 1: What’s the big idea?
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In order to answer this question, can your child summarize the article into just one sentence?
For example, “The article I just read is about…”
Synthesizing and identifying the main idea are both important skills for young readers to master. Often, young readers will say, “This article is about…” and refer to the last thing they’ve just read, or an interesting fact they remember reading, instead of the overall topic. This task will let you see whether or not your child understands what the article is about, and can express this idea in his/her own words (sometimes referring to the title as a clue helps to focus in on the topic!).
Question 2: What’s one thing you might want to know more about?
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Give your child the option of choosing one aspect of the article to focus on and find out more about. This could become a little “research project”, which could be presented to you, explaining what has been discovered.
TIP: This particular task could be connected to a mini-lesson on how and where to look for sources of information!
Question 3: What is your opinion of this? And why do you think this is important?
These two particular questions can be answered in many different ways based on your child’s age and level of understanding of the text, but overall, asking a child his or her opinion of an article is a great first step in promoting critical thinking!
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For more information on how to support reading comprehension, or for one-to-one support with reading, contact Ruth Rumack’s Learning Space at 416.925.1225 or visit www.ruthrumack.com.
Are you in need of some ‘sound’ retail therapy? Try our ‘sound shopping’ activity and inspire confidence in emergent readers as well as developing decoders. We love phonological awareness skills at RRLS because they empower readers. Our hands-on and multi-sensory learning of 5 phonological awareness skills (rhyming, blending, segmenting, alliteration, and sound manipulation) is something we strive to incorporate into each early learner’s reading lesson.
First, display picture cards, toys, or objects containing a focus sound(s) around a room.
A child can then go ‘shopping’ for sounds with a shopping cart or basket. Each cart/basket is designated an initial sound. After the student collects the items beginning with the focus sound of the basket, it’s time to ‘cash out’.
You can then ‘scan’ each item and write a receipt, modeling correct letter formation and spelling.
A ‘shopping receipt’ for Q words
Finally, children can build alliterative sentences with those item words. For an extension, have them come up with their own words that begin with the same sound. Scribe, or have students write and illustrate the alliterative sentence.
Shopping activities are kinesthetic and lend themselves to cross-curricular integration of math strands. A little retail therapy can go a long way!
RRLS loves encouraging phonological awareness skills, and has started a crowdfunding campaign to produce and distribute our Alpha-Mania reading program to one million children for free through interactive multimedia platforms. If you need further inspiration on how to incorporate phonological awareness activities into your child’s learning, make sure to visit our blog regularly for creative and engaging suggestions. Or, visit www.ruthrumack.com for information about the campaign and other programs we offer to support language learning.
“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” – Toni Morrison
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Like anything, literacy skills develop as we use them. The more we write, the better we become at communicating clearly and expressing our ideas. Writing does not need to be limited to paragraphs and novel studies; however, any time we use words to communicate on paper, we are developing our literacy skills. Unfortunately, for many students writing can feel like a chore. Completing assignments for teachers can be stressful for children who are not confident in their abilities, and this can limit their enjoyment of a task that should be engaging. Consider one of the following ideas to encourage a genuine love of writing in your child.
1. Make a scrapbook! Empty scrapbooks make fantastic gifts, especially at the beginning of the summer holidays! You can buy beautiful ready-made scrapbooks, or make one with your child out of a binder or notebook. Decorate the cover and give it a title (“The Incredible Adventures of _____”). Then spend the summer filling it up with pictures, notes, letters, and mementos.
2. Perform a play! Drama is a great way to bring literacy to life for active kids. Invite your child to choose his or her favourite book and work together to adapt it into a play. Younger kids will enjoy acting out the stories (great for building understanding of sequencing and plot development), while older siblings can work on writing a script, rehearsing lines, and performing with confidence. Everyone can collaborate to find costumes and props!
3. Write a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story! This is an excellent way to practise developing interesting plots, and it’s lots of fun! Before you start, it’s a good idea to visit the library and take out a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book or two so your child can see some examples of the format. Once the story is planned, written, and edited, make it into a book and add pictures!
4. Pretend you’re a spy! Give children notebooks labeled “Top Secret”, and encourage them to record everything interesting they see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Looking for a little inspiration? Read Louise Fitzhugh’s classic novel Harriet the Spy together to see how it’s done! The story follows Harriet, an inquisitive eleven year old and aspiring writer whose spy notebook falls into the wrong hands.
5. Make a story prompt treasure box! Ask your kids to cut inspiring pictures out of old newspapers or magazines and put them into a decorated bag or box. Whenever they need inspiration for their writing, they can simply pull out a picture to help them get started.
Remind your children that all good writers are good editors, but avoid spending too much time correcting work they have written for the joy of it. The goal of writing is to express the ideas we have inside us. As long as your children feel they have done that, their writing has been a success.
The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) is a compulsory standardized test administered to grade 10 students each year. Ontario high school students must pass the test in order to graduate from high school. Its content is based on the literacy (reading and writing) expectations across all subjects in the Ontario curriculum up to the end of grade 9. Below is a guide outlining what is on the test along with some useful tips about how you can help your student prepare for the test.
What is on the test?
Students complete two booklets and are given 75 minutes for each one. Within each booklet the student must answer grammar, writing structure, or reading comprehension questions in the format of multiple choice questions or short answer questions. The short and long writing tasks focus on developing a main idea with sufficient supporting details, and including organized information that makes sense, using conventions (spelling, grammar, punctuation) for clear communication.
1-The EQAO website provides sample test booklets from previous years with coinciding marking rubrics, student samples that range from poor to exceptional, and annotations that provide insight on how the writing tasks are marked: EQAO Website.
2– EQAO also provides a ‘Getting Ready Booklet’ that you can review with your student. The booklet also provides helpful tips and strategies to use when tackling the reading, writing, and multiple choice questions.
3-To help prepare your student for the reading comprehension section, read newspaper articles together and ask them questions like: What is the main idea? Can you find evidence in the article to support that? What’s your opinion on this issue? Can you find evidence and use your own ideas to support your opinion?
4-Assist your student in preparing for the writing sections by reading and discussing newspaper articles, and review the structure of a 5 paragraph essay. Check out this essay mapping tool on ‘ReadWriteThink,’ which reinforces proper essay structure.
If you are concerned about your student’s ability to pass the literacy test, searching out tutoring or support services to help your student build skills and confidence can be a good option!
For information about individualized learning and academic support, contact Ruth Rumack’s Learning Space at (416) 925-1225 or visit www.ruthrumack.com.
February 18th is Family Day, and there are many fun activities planned all over Toronto!
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To get the whole family in on the excitement, check out the interactive and engaging events happening at some of the city’s top arts and cultural centres.Carnival at the ROM
The Royal Ontario Museum has activities aimed at families that explore the Carnival traditions from around the world, including folklore storyteller Sandra Whiting, mask making, a Carnival parade, and on-going scavenger hunts! Family day activities are included in the price of admission.
Special Family Day activities include getting up close and personal with reptiles at the Live Animals Presentation, learning the science behind music technology, and learning how to make your own paper- then taking the instructions to make more at home! (Could you make enough to write a whole story??)
The Art Gallery of Ontario temporarily becomes the Kids Gallery of Ontario, and the centre, normally closed on Mondays, is open with kid-themed displays. Hands-on activities allow families to “blow up” art. Dare you find out what that means?
If you’re looking for a bit more action, the Harbourfront area is entertaining families on Monday with skating, dog sports demos (next door at PawsWay), bouncy castles, street-dancing performances, Olympians, arts and crafts, music, magicians…but none of that sounds like fun, does it? (All activities free!)
On the other hand, enjoying time together at home can be just as great! If you’re looking for quality time activities for home, consider the following ideas:
Building a board game
Make up your own theme, draw your template, design the cards, and then play as a family! (Added bonus of reading and writing practice, but don’t tell the kids!)
Sharing time in the kitchen
Tie on the aprons and crack a cookbook- baking or cooking something delicious for a family meal is great quality time and will make everyone feel like a special contributor to the day. (Again, try reading those recipes together, or making notes as you go!)
However you choose to spend your Family Day, we hope you enjoy the bonus quality time- you deserve it!
What is the Orton-Gillingham Approach to reading, writing, and spelling?
What is the science behind the approach?
This week, we will unravel how this approach is implemented with our students, based on its defining principles.
The Orton-Gillingham Approach encourages flexibility. Teachers begin with what the student knows, and build logically upon it, working at the appropriate pace and level for the individual learner.
The structure of the English language is explicitly taught. For example, students may learn the six different syllable types, and how they affect the way we read and spell different words.
Instruction is direct and explicit, focusing on the association between sounds and symbols. Lessons include drill and practice in areas such as: sound-symbol relationships for reading and writing (e.g., sh is a digraph that makes the sound /sh/), blending of sounds to read words, writing words and text from dictations, oral reading of controlled texts, and isolating and sequencing sounds for spelling. The general goal is to achieve a high level of automaticity.
Instruction is multi-sensorybecause it engages and integrates all of the student’s channels of reception and expression. In addition to the senses of sight and sound, students feel and touch to help them compensate for visual and/or auditory challenges. For example, students may trace letters or words in salt in order to incorporate a tactile element.
An emphasis on step-by-step skill development is essential to ensure long-lasting success. As a result, lessons are structured, systematic, and sequential, ensuring that a logical order is followed. The student cannot move ahead to learn a new rule until he/she has mastered the previous one.
The Orton-Gillingham Approach is cumulative; lessons are always infused with previously taught elements. This ensures that students are continually being exposed to previously learned rules and the words associated with them.
The ultimate goal behind the Orton-Gillingham Approach is to give individuals the knowledge and tools to become confident and successful readers, writers, and spellers!
For more information about reading, individualized learning, and academic support, contact Ruth Rumack’s Learning Space (416) 925-1225 or visit http://www.ruthrumack.com
Earlier, we discussed Think Literacy, a resource for teachers to integrate the development of literacy skills into any subject area from kindergarten through grade 12. These resources are designed to strengthen reading, writing and oral communication skills daily. Click here to read our previous blog: http://wp.me/pT6KW-6K.
This week, we will examine the Think Literacy approaches to enhance oral communication skills among our students. The best way to build confidence in oral communication is to provide opportunities for students to vocalize their thoughts or to think out loud. Below are a few strategies that allow students to practice verbal communication skills.
Think-Pair-Share: A teacher may ask a class of students to engage in a think-pair-share. This involves posing a question or a discussion topic to the class, instructing students to break off in pairs to discuss, and returning to the large group to share ideas. To keep dialogue on task, ensure that students know that each pair will be called upon to share with the whole class.
Jigsaw: A jigsaw activity requires students to read information on a given topic, and become an ‘expert’ on this concept. The teacher divides the class into 5 ‘expert groups’, each with a different topic to learn. Next the class is divided into new groups, comprised of one member from each different ‘expert group’. In this setting, students are to present the information they gathered on their topic to the rest of the group, allowing each student to listen to and learn from 4 different peer presentations.
Four Corners: This activity asks students to make a choice and justify their reasoning, sharing their opinion with peers. To facilitate this activity, the teacher presents the class with a question, to which they have 4 possible responses, each posted in a different corner of the classroom. An example would be: I think that all students should wear uniforms. The four accompanying responses may be (1) Strongly Agree, (2) Agree, (3) Disagree, and (4) Strongly Disagree. The teacher poses a question, asks students to decide and move to a corner, and then discuss their thinking with their peers and then with the whole group.
For more examples of oral communication exercises, visit Think Literacy. Strong oral communication skills are vital, and must be a part of every child’s classroom experience.
For more information on oral communication, contact Ruth Rumack’s Learning Space 416.925.1225 or visit www.ruthrumack.com.
Think Literacy is an initiative of the Ontario Ministry of Education. Think Literacy is a resource for teachers to help integrate the development of literacy skills into any subject area from kindergarten through grade 12. The Think Literacy resources are designed to enhance reading, writing and oral communication skills daily. Literacy must have a predominant position in all classes including English, science, art and math. Literacy should not and must not be isolated to the English classroom.
One significant literacy strategy is the word wall. A word wall provides visual cues for students when learning or reviewing vocabulary for a unit of study. A word wall may be a chart posted on the wall or a section of the blackboard dedicated to new vocabulary. Whatever shape it takes, a word wall allows students to have a permanent reference for vocabulary, allowing them to review words daily, and ultimately improve their comprehension and spelling of subject-specific key words.
There are a number of ways to approach constructing a word wall. The basic approach is for the teacher to preselect key terms and post the list when introducing the new unit. An alternative is to have students scan the text book at the beginning of a unit to identify words for the word wall. Some word walls will include the full definition and a picture to support visual learners. This can be particularly beneficial in a math or science class. Some other options include having students fully construct the class word wall and keep their own version in a designated section of their notebook.
Research indicates that “students’ comprehension will increase by 33 percentile points when vocabulary instruction focuses on specific words important to the content they are reading” (Marzano, 2004). The word wall is a significant literacy strategy, with great benefits. It is one of many strategies proposed by Think Literacy.
Stay tuned for next week’s blog post about more Think Literacy strategies.
Work Cited
Marzano, Robert J. Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement: Research on What Works in Schools. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2004.
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