ABCya is a FANTASTIC website. It says it’s for kindergarten through fifth grade, but there are a lot of very appropriate preschool activities and games as well. All activities/games are educational and most of them focus on pre-reading/reading activities.
Thanksgiving poems that are cute, clever and probably easy enough to read that your early reader might be able to tackle them on their own. Poems are also great for early readers because the rhyming helps them predict/figure out what unknown words might be and poems aren’t usually long and cumbersome. It takes a lot of energy and concentration to figure out all of those words when children are first beginning to read, so poems are a great way to practice reading and fluency with something short that won’t tucker them out too fast. A sense of accomplishment is something you always want to strive for with early readers and poems are a great way to achieve that goal.
A little yellow bird that lives near Rocket has opened up a school and is determined to teach Rocket how to read. Rocket learns the alphabet and how to put letters together to make words. School has to close for the winter while bird is away, but Rocket practices over the winter and is very ready to learn when bird returns in the spring.
If you have a child who is at that age where they really, really want to learn how to read or they are just beginning to read, they will absolutely love this book. It is such a cute story…I love the relationship between the bird and Rocket and I also love how, on the first day of school, she reads Rocket a book about a dog who is digging for a bone, but leaves off right before the dog in the story finds it. Rocket returns the next day very eager to find out what happens and that is when Rocket learns the magic of books.
When children are ready to start exploring the shapes of letters and numbers, Wikki Stix are a super fun way for children to practice, especially if Wikki Stix are new to them. Wikki Stix are essentially wax covered yarn that you can bend and stick into whatever shape you’d like which is why they are great for practicing letter and number shapes. Some kids may be able to figure out how to manipulate the Wikki Stix into letter and number shapes without having an example to follow. Others, however, may need the shape to follow either just to look at as a model or they may need to have an example that they can place their Wikki Stix on top of to follow. Then, when they are done practicing their letters and numbers, they can use them to make whatever they want.
For older kids, they can be used to practice sight words. They can also be used to practice writing their name or family members’ names.
Barnes & Noble has a summer reading program for kids to help encourage children to continue their love of reading over the summer months. Barnes & Noble will give your child a free book if they read eight books, fill out this form and bring it back by September 6th. This book club is geared towards children from first grade through sixth grade.
Poetry is a FANTASTIC way for beginning readers to practice fluency. These poems are short, they’re not intimidating and they rhyme which helps beginning readers decode new words. This link is only a small part of a bigger website. I especially love the poetry part of this website because you can listen to the poem, read it on your own, search for words with certain sounds or search for a certain word. Also, each poem focuses on a certain phonemic blend, like: ee, oo, igh, i-e, and several others.
I stumbled upon this at the library and fell in love with it. It is a magazine/story/activity set that comes in the mail twice a month. (It ends up being $4/month.) What I love about it is that it can be used with children of various ages and skills beginning as early as age two up through age five or six (depending on your child’s age and interest level) and covers everything from print awareness, vocabulary, letter knowledge, phonological awareness, comprehension and so much more. It even comes with a booklet for parents so that they can better understand not only how to use this particular product to develop a love of reading with their child, but it also gives parents just some general guidelines and ideas on how to develop a love of reading with their children.
Going on a a road trip this summer? It’s the perfect time to check out some audio books from the library. Audio books are great for a number of reasons. Even though all of your children may not be able to read or maybe they are all reading at different levels, they can all enjoy the same audio book. We listen to audiobooks all the time in the car. (Not only is it great because they are listening to books, but it keeps them from bickering in the car…they can’t hear the story if they are arguing.) 🙂 We just finished listening to the ENTIRE ten book 39 Clues series. (As great as it was, I do not recommend this series unless all of your children are over the age of eight or nine…there were some parts that were a bit violent.) Now we are listening to The Magic Treehouse Series…much less violent. 🙂 The narrator, who also happens to be the author of the books, does a great job and they are all appropriate for the entire family. Here are some other books/series that are great listening for the whole family:
*Berenstain Bears
*Little House on the Prairie Series
*Frog and Toad Series
*A Light in the Attic
*Biscuit Series
*Tikki Tikki Tembo
*Curious George
*The Three Billy Goats Gruff
*Amelia Bedelia Series
*The Boxcar Children Series
I have had a couple of people ask me about reading logs to help their children keep track of summer reading. You can find some great ones to print off and use in your home this summer here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. There are lots of different ones, so hopefully you can find one that will work for your family. You might want to check out your local library, too. Most libraries have summer reading programs that come with a book log to help track summer reading. Happy reading!
from billygorilly.com
We are smack in the middle of baseball season around here, so it didn’t surprise me when I saw that our youngest had totally ransacked the baseball section of the library shelves. This was my absolute favorite of the bunch. The illustrations are adorable and the story is interlaced with baseball facts. Super cute and fun to read!
