Travel as Education

Travel can be one of the most educational experiences imaginable.  Even short trips that require hearing a new language, or seeing a new culture, or living in a new way (like camping) can make big changes in a child’s life.

In 1970, my husband and I took our two children, Matthew (13) and Melissa (11) on a voyage that lasted 18 months.  We sailed a 31-foot sloop from New Orleans to West Africa and down the coast as far as Ghana.  We did “school” as we went, and the children learned sailing, piloting, marine biology, and we stayed amidst other cultures for periods of time—the Azores (Portuguese), the Canaries (Spanish), Senegal (French) etc.

We needed the kids to take watches and help with activities like cooking and boat maintenance, so they learned lots of everyday skills about how to take care of themselves in the world.  As part of “school” we asked them to keep a log (diary) of their experiences.  I would make suggestions from time to time about their writing and help with spelling, grammar, etc.  We eventually published a book called “Voyage of Aquarius” (including the most interesting logs of all four of us) about the experience of crossing the ocean in a small boat.  But we never got around to publishing the story of our adventures going down the coast of Africa and 300 miles into the interior up the Gambia River.

Matthew wrote some fascinating entries that I have just compiled into a book for middle school students called ”Our Big Blue Schoolhouse”.  It includes some wonderful photos taken by Matt, a professional photojournalist. If you are interested in this book, you can email me at herron at talkingfingers dot com.

What To Do About Your Child’s Media Time?

In my last post I wrote about the fact that this generation is spending 7.5 hours/day or 53 hours/week on TV, video games, music, and Internet socializing. The number of hours has increased dramatically since 2004 (then it was 4 hours/day) largely because of mobile devices that can play movies or games or provide the Internet anywhere.

Is this something that parents should be concerned about?  I think so. And it is the responsibility of parents because most of this happens after school. But what can be done? Here are three ideas.  Maybe you have more, and can share them with our readers…

1. Model for your children.

Have conversations at dinner or before bed where you really pay attention to what they think about some issue.  Tell them what you’ve been thinking, and that you’re going to write it down so you won’t forget it. If they see you writing, if they see you putting thought into some letter to an editor or a politician, or a poem or song, or your diary, and you talk about why it’s important to you, they will follow your lead.  Let them see you pursuing new knowledge yourself. It’s good for the aging brain as well as the developing brain!

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Is Your Child Engrossed in Media 53 hours/week?

A new study put out by Kaiser Family Services tells us that children are using media like TV, music, and internet social media more than 7.5 hours a day—that comes to an average of 53 hours a week of mostly passive experience! Yes, they text, but what kind of thought goes into texting or tweeting?  Are their brains really processing and analyzing and digesting new information?  Unfortunately, no.

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Recommended Reading

While Jeannine takes a break from blogging this holiday week, here are some good blog posts to check out:

• SchoolFamily.com has some great articles, like these:

• “Is my child reading at grade-level?”

• “Holiday traditions that improve reading and writing skills”

• The ASCD Community Blog assesses the “Language of Thinking” in this article, examining the words that teachers use in the classroom when teaching children.

• The Educator’s Royal Treatment blog asks, is teaching handwriting is a waste of time?

Wishing all of our readers a happy holiday season!

A Simple Gift That Lasts for a Lifetime: Teach Your Kids to Read

At this time of gift-giving, when money is tight, why not give your child a gift that won’t cost you anything but time and love, and will last a lifetime.  Here is a recipe for getting started:

There are 18 FREE decodable booklets in pdf form on our website.

Print out the first booklet “IS IT A CAT?”  Look at the first book together, and read it to your child.  But don’t try to have your child memorize the appearance of words or “read” the book until you have played together making words.

The secret of learning to read is understanding how to make words first! If your child can arrange letter tiles to create the words in the first booklet, he or she is well on the way to understanding how letters are used to represent the sounds in words—and that is the key to reading! (more…)

Are you teaching phonics backwards?

“One of the most fundamental flaws found in almost all phonics programs, including traditional ones, is that they teach the code backwards.  That is, they go from letter to sound instead of from sound to letter.”

Louisa Moats, 1998

What do you think about this quote from Louisa Moats?

How do you teach phonics? Method A or B?  Why?

A. Print-to-Speech. Letters-to-sounds. Decoding.

Teach the alphabet song.

Associate 26 visual letters with their names.

Then teach letter sounds.

Decode a familiar word together, like CAT by identifying each letter, saying the sound that is associated with that letter, and blending the sounds together.  If the blended sounds resemble the word, the word is decoded as CAT.

Use flash cards to practice letter names, and words.

B. Speech-to-Print.  Sounds-to-letters. Encoding.

Start with a familiar spoken word, like CAT

Segment together the three sounds in the word.

From a few letter tiles, find the letters that stand for those sounds. Arrange the tiles to represent (encode) the sequence of sounds in CAT. Mix up the letters until the child arranges them correctly. Read the word. Discuss other words in the same family, like FAT or HAT.  By working with other Consonant-Vowel-Consonant words, eventually the child learns the letters that represent the 40 sounds of English.  Encode words first, then decode (read) what has been written.

How do YOU teach early reading?   Let’s have a discussion!

Writing with a pencil is difficult…

Writing with a pencil is difficult……

You have to remember what the letters look like….

You have to draw the letters….

You  have to erase…

You have to copy over…

Writing with a computer can make it easier…

You don’t have to draw the letters….just tap the right key.

You don’t have to erase…just delete and type over.

You don’t have to copy over…

You can read what you’ve written…

The text always goes from left to right…

Why not start with writing?

Writing is a system humans have invented to make speech visible.

Our English alphabet is a way of drawing sounds.

Words must be written before they can be read.

Why not start with writing?

Struggling readers do not improve by “silent reading” in class

I was recently sent an article by Jan Hasbrouck in which she discusses reading fluency and the pervasive use of Sustained Silent Reading and Round Robin Reading. These are strategies that teachers are using to develop fluency in struggling readers.

She says,

“Developing fluency among struggling readers takes more intensive, carefully guided practice than either of these strategies can deliver.”

Jan makes a very persuasive case that these instructional strategies take up significant amounts of classroom time with dubious benefit. She quotes Marilyn Adams as saying, “if we want to induce children to read lots, we must also teach them to read well.”

Classroom time will be better spent building decoding skills and providing one-on-one guided oral reading.

A good computer program for guided oral reading is “Soliloquy”, designed by Marilyn Adams, (then renamed “Reading Assistant”). Find the program online at scilearn.com. The software actually listens to a child reading aloud and provides appropriate help.

Rhyming games to play with your children

Susan Maguire is a retired kindergarten teacher and blogs at “Together Time 4 Families“. This post titled “4 Sound Awareness Activities for Your Preschooler” has some good ideas for developing a young child’s awareness of the sounds in words.  Rhyming and listening for beginning sounds are fun, especially if you make them into a game.

Here’s an additional idea:  Make up your own endings to nursery rhymes as a game to play in the car or wandering around the grocery store.

Your child can fill in the blank! For example:

Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle

The cow jumped over the moon.

The little dog laughed to see such sport.

And the dish ran away with the ___(spoon).

Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle

The cow jumped over the house.

The little dog laughed to see such sport

And the cat ran away with the ___(mouse).

Hey diddle diddle the cat and the fiddle

The cow jumped over the man.

The little dog laughed to see such sport

And the pot ran away with the ____(pan).

Hey diddle diddle the cat and the fiddle

The cow jumped over the stork

The little dog laughed to see such sport

And the knife ran away with the ____(fork). Etc.