Literacy Act Information For Parents

Phonological Awareness
Read books with rhyme. Talk with your child about what makes words rhyme.  Ask your child to tell you the words on the page that rhyme with each other, focusing on the sounds they hear, not the words they see. Say a word and have your child count/clap/tap the number of syllables in the word.

Online Resources for Students:
Jack Hartmann: Blending Onset and Rime
PBS Kids: Rhyming Games
Go Noodle: Syllables

Online Resources for Parents:
Slide and say
Phoneme Manipulator

Phonics
 Begin with identifying the letters in your child’s name. Once your child is able to identify and name the letters, provide him or her with activities to build speed and accuracy in letter recognition.

Online Resources for Students:
CVC Emergent Phonic Readers
Teach Your Monster To Read
Sight Word Hopper
Sesame Street

Online Resources for Parents:
Print Awareness
Ways to Teach Print
Alphabet Knowledge
Picture Sort
CVC Emergent Phonic Readers

Vocabulary
Help students learn new words and meaning by reading different types of books.

Online Resources for Students:
Prefix and Suffix Song
Sort, Sort, Sort

Online Resources for Parents:
Antonym Memory
Ways to Boost Your Child's Vocabulary
Multiple Meaning Bugs
Reading Rockets
Cube Word Sort

Reading Comprehension-Literature

Before Reading: Look at the cover and talk about what the book might be about.

During Reading: Ask your child who, what, when, where, why, and how questions. Encourage your child to use information from the book to support his or her thinking. Check out the Talking While You Read video for more tips!

After Reading: Talk about what happened. Encourage your child to retell the story using prompts such as a retelling glove.* You can even use sidewalk chalk to create a long, curvy line. Walk along the line as you retell the story together.

Online Resources for Students
PBS Kids
Parts of a Story

Online Resources for Parents
Favorite Book Characters
Talking While You Read
The Retelling Glove

Reading Comprehension-Informal Text

Before Reading: Talk about what you and your child already know about the topic. Ask your child what he or she wants to learn more about.

During Reading: Ask your child who, what, when, where, why, and how questions. Where (do clownfish live)? How (are alligators and crocodiles alike/different)? Why (is a whale classified as a mammal)? Pay attention to what the photographs and/or illustrations are teaching, too.

After Reading: Talk with your child about what you have learned. Ask your child: What was this book mostly about?

Online Resources for Students
PBS Kids
Brain Pop Jr.
What's The Main Idea

Online Resources for Parents
Guide to Nonfiction
Reading Rockets
 
Oral Language

Encourage conversations in your home and in social settings. Every social interaction gives your child a new opportunity to practice using oral language.

Spark interactions whenever you can and support your child’s language development. Ask questions, rephrase the child’s answers, and give prompts that encourage the oral conversations to continue.

Maintain eye contact when your child is speaking to you and encourage your child to do the same when you are speaking, in order to support his/her listening skills.

Online Resources for Parents
Strategies for Speech and Language Development
Expanding Your Child's Vocabulary
Listening and Learning

Writing

Before Writing: Provide materials for writing: plenty of paper and things to write with. Talk with your child as much as possible about his or her ideas and opinions.

During Writing: Encourage your child to write, even if he or she is scribbling. Work together to label the pictures and write simple sentences.

After Writing: Turn your child’s writing into a book. Tape the drawing onto construction paper. You can even use recycled cereal boxes to create a cover. Bind the book with yarn or ribbon.

Online Resources for Parents
Craft a Kid's Journal
Develop Your Child's Writing Skill
Tips for Helping Young Kids to Write

Phonological Awareness

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: Give me a thumbs up when you hear a word with a short vowel sound: pet, Pete, cup, cap, cape ...

Robot Talk: The parent will produce individual sounds in a mystery word, pausing between each sound in a robotic manner. It is your child’s job to blend the sounds together to produce the whole word. Ex. Guess my mystery word: /c/ /l/ /i/ /p/ The child would reply, “clip.”

Guess My Sound: Say a word with 3 sounds. Ask: What sound do you hear at the (beginning, middle, or end) of the word _____? (ex: dog, kite, peach)

Online Resources for Parents 
Phonological Awareness Activities
Say and Slide Word (Video)
Say and Slide Words

Phonics
Using letter tiles, magnet letters, or letters written on index cards, have students sort capital letters and lowercase letters.

Using a magazine, advertisement or even junk mail, mark capital letters that begin new sentences with a highlighter or crayon. Circle ending punctuation marks.

Using any book or text, have your child “frame” a sentence using two fingers. Place one finger at the beginning of the sentence and one at the end of the sentence.

Read Decodable Texts: Decodable text is a type of text used in beginning reading instruction. Decodable texts are carefully sequenced to progressively incorporate words that are consistent with the letter–sound relationships. Click here for links, compiled by The Reading League, for a list of decodable text sources for students in grades K-2, 3-8, teens, and all ages.

Let’s Cut Up! Write two syllable words on index cards. Ask your child to cut the word where the two syllables divide. The word rabbit would be cut into two parts: rab bit.

Sight Words and Nerf™ Blasters: Write irregularly spelled words on index cards, a dry erase board, or even your sidewalk … Call out a word for your child to find. Your child can read and blast the word.

Online Resources for Students
Capital Letter Game
Parts of a Sentence
Sight Word Hopper
Teach Your Monster To Read
Clap It Out

Online Resources for Parents
Print Awareness
Promoting Print Awareness
Build A Sentence
15 Phonic Rules for Writing and Spelling
Digraph Delights
Silent E Changes

Fluency
Online Resources for Students
Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood
Teach Your Monster To Read

Online Resources for Parents
Reading with Expression
What Reading Fluency Looks Like in First Grade

Vocabulary

Help your child understand the meaning of unknown words and phrases by asking him/her clarifying questions:

• What strategies have you used to help you figure out what this word means?

• Have you read the sentences around the word to help you determine what the word means?

• There are two words you know in this word. Can you use them to help you understand what the word means?

 

Word Bubble

Create a word bubble by drawing a large circle in the middle of a piece of paper. Write a word inside the bubble that has several synonyms (words that have similar meanings such as “run/jog” or “look/gaze”). Have your child think of as many possible words that are similar in meaning to the word written on the inside of the bubble. Write those words around the outside of the bubble. Add new words to your bubble as you read future stories and acquire more words! (e.g., big = large, gigantic, enormous, massive, huge).

Online Resources for Students
ABC Order
Sort, Sort
Prefix or Suffix

Online Resources for Parents
Ways to Boost Your Child's Vocabulary
Words in Context
Building Your Child's Vocabulary

Reading Comprehension Literature

Before Reading: Ask questions such as: What will this book be about? How do you know? What is the title of this story? What clues does the title give us about the story?

During Reading: Ask questions such as: What do you think will happen next? Where is this story taking place? What is the main problem?

After Reading: DIY Question Ball

1. Buy a cheap beach ball.

2. Blow it up and set it on a bowl.

3. Use puff paint or permanent marker to write a question word in each section.

a. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

4. Let it dry and get ready to play!

Online Resources for Students
Story Outline
Jack Hartmann: Six Questions
 
Online Resources for Parents
Reading Rockets: Story Maps
Scholastic: Bookmark Questions
Make-and-Check a Prediction

Reading Comprehension-Informational Text

Before reading: Take a “walk” through the book before reading. Looking closely at the front cover, table of contents, and photographs. This will help your little reader get a sense about the topic.

 

During reading: Encourage your child to ask questions. Use the Expository Fact Strips to keep track of what your reader is learning.

 

After reading: Draw a picture to show what the book was mainly about. Label the picture.

Online Resources for Students
PBS Kids
Nat Geo Kids
What's The Main Idea?

Online Resources for Parents
Reading Rockets
Expository Fact Strips

Oral Language

Encourage conversations in your home and in social settings. Every social interaction gives your child a new opportunity to practice using oral language.

Spark interactions whenever you can and support your child’s language development. Ask questions, rephrase the child’s answers, and give prompts that encourage the oral conversations to continue.

Maintain eye contact when your child is speaking to you and encourage your child to do the same when you are speaking, in order to support his/her listening skills.

Online Resources for Parents
Strategies to Encourage Your Child's Speech and Language Development
The Family Dinner Project
Expanded Your Child's Vocabulary
Scholastic Listening and Learning

Writing

Step 1: Families can read a text and share their feelings about the text by forming an opinion statement using the sentence starter: I liked (state the title of the book) because … OR I didn’t like (state the title of the book) because…

Step 2: Draw a picture that represents what you liked or disliked. Write a sentence using the previous sentence starter.

Step 3: On the back of your paper, leave a message for the audience as a way to close the writing. Ex. I think you should give this book a try. This book is a winner!

Online Resources for Students
Writing A Personal Narrative
Craft a Kid's Journal
 
Online Resources for Parents
Playing with Poetry
Diverse Poetry Picture Books
Helping Young Kids Write

Phonics

Listen to your child read aloud.

• Write down any words your child reads incorrectly.

• Look for patterns. What types of words does your child need to practice: words with regularly spelled long and short vowels, words with affixes, or high frequency words?

Online Resources for Students
Long and Short Vowels
Slimezilla and Compound Words
Dividing Words into Syllables

Online Resources for Parents
Long and Short Vowels
Affix Hunt
High Frequency Words
Blending Letters, Recognizing and Reading Words
Change a Letter, Change a Word

Fluency

Model Fluent Reading: Read aloud often and with expression. Reading aloud helps your child understand what fluent reading sounds like.

* I Read/You Read: You and your child take turns reading a book, making sure he/she is following along or whisper reading along when it’s not his/her turn.

* Echo Read – You read and then the child reads the exact same sentence, using the parent’s model of fluent reading to guide how to change his/her voice to match the text for phrasing, expression, accuracy, etc.

* Choral reading together, as one. Both parent and child reads the page aloud. This helps model appropriate pace and intonation, and encourages your child to match his/ her voice to what your voice is doing

Online Resources for Parents
Choral Reading
Why Kids Read Slowly
Understanding For Reading
What Reading Fluency Looks Like in Second Grade
Listen To Me Read

Vocabulary

Help your child to understand word relationships and nuances by asking him/her questions:

• Where do you think the word _______ comes from?

• Why did the author use the word _______?

• In what other context could this word be used?

• Without changing the meaning, what word could you add to make the sentence stronger?

• What word would best describe this character?

• What is the literal meaning of this sentence?

• What real-life connection can you make?

• Make a list from ____ to ____ so that you can decide which word is best to use. Examples: hot to cold, slow to fast, walk to run.

Online Resources for Students
Prefix Poppers
The Word Collector

Online Resources for Parents
Nine Ways To Build Your Child's Reading
Semantic Gradients
Grocery Shop Talk

Reading Comprehension- Literature

Read a story aloud to your child, read a story with your child, or listen as your child reads a story aloud to you.

Ask your child to retell the story. Ask questions such as the following:

How did the story begin?

Who were the characters in this story?

Where did the story take place?

What happened next?

How did the story end?

What was the main problem in the story?

How was the problem solved?

Did the character change from the beginning of the story to the end of the story?

After Reading: Ask your child specific questions about the story.

• Who were the characters in this story? What kind of traits did the character have (happy, sad, kind, friendly, disrespectful, mischievous, jealous)?

• Did the character change from the beginning of the story to the end of the story?

• Where did this story take place (setting)? Did the setting change throughout the story?

• What was the problem in the story? How did this problem get solved? Is there a lesson to learn from this story?

Online Resources for Students
Main Idea Game
Video Books
Compare and Contrast
Using Pictures and Words to help Understand Text

Online Resources for Parents
50 Best Books for Second Graders
Story Element Activities
Character Characteristics
Multicultural Fairy Tales
Story Element Activities
Story Pieces

Reading Comprehension- Informational Text

Before Reading: Previewing a text and asking questions are two terrific ways to navigate nonfiction texts. Enjoy spending more time with some fascinating informational books!

During Reading: Help your child use a map or graphic organizer to keep track of the main ideas of each paragraph.

After Reading: Have your child combine his or her list of main ideas to name what the entire text was mostly about. Help your child create a timeline to sequence the historical events mentioned in the text. Help your child show how scientific ideas or concepts are the same and how they are different.

Ask your child to identify the reasons why the author wrote a text, such as: What was the author trying to answer? explain? describe?

Online Resources for Students
PBS Kids
Tropical Travels
Nat Geo Kids
Author's Purpose
Storms
Nat Geo Kids

Oral Language

Remind your child that good conversations include the following:

 

• Listening and taking turns

• Speaking clearly

• Speaking in complete sentences

• Interacting person to person and not interrupting

 

Read a book to your child or have your child read a book to you. Talk with your child about the book.

• Tell me about the book.

• Tell me about your favorite part of the book and why.

• Tell me about your favorite character and why

Online Resources for Parents
Conversation Cards
School Day Conversation Cards
Summarize a Story
Developing Language
Strategies for Supporting Speech and Language

Writing
Graphic Organizers
Narrative Graphic Organizers
Read, Write, Think

Phonics

Word Part Detectives

Encourage your child to be a word detective by examining words in a text that have a prefix and/or a suffix added. Ask your child to write the word down and draw 

square around the prefix, while chatting about what it means. Circle the suffix and discuss its meaning. How does the meaning of the word change when you remove the prefix or suffix?

Guess My Word

Before your child begins reading a text, choose several words that have more than one syllable. Write each syllable on index cards. Have your child read each syllable card and combine the syllables to make a multi-syllable word.

Online Resources for Students
Word Wizard
Submarine Spelling
Short Circuits for Affix Game

Online Resources for Parents
Vocabulary through Conversation
Blending Letters, Recognizing, and Reading Words

Fluency

Ask your child to read aloud. Make notes about your child’s ability to read words correctly. If your child reads multiple words incorrectly, focus on specific word reading strategies. Also, think about how your child’s reading sounds. Does it sound conversational?

Provide tips and reminders.

• I can stop at periods.

• I can pause at commas.

• I can change my voice when I read conversation and dialogue.

• I can use expression as I read.

• I can read in longer phrases.

Online Resources for Students
Out of Sight Words
Don't Read Like a Robot

Online Resources for Parents
Figuring Out New Words in Third Grade
Coaching Fluency
What Reading Fluency Looks Like in Third Grade
Reading Out Loud Bookmark
 
Vocabulary

Encourage your child to read at least 20 minutes in addition to school assignments. Read to and with your child. Make note of how your child responds when an unknown word is encountered. Remind your child to use strategies such as using context clues and dictionaries. Remind your child to use what is known about prefixes, suffixes, roots, and base words to figure out the meaning of unknown words.

Read picture books with your child and help your child to identify the various types of figurative language categories such as metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, and symbolism.

Online Resources for Students
Prefix or Suffix
Synonyms and Antonyms
Context Clues

Online Resources for Parents
Vocabulary through Conversations
Words in Context
Morpheme Match

Reading Comprehension - Literature

Before Reading: Before reading, ask your child: What do you think this book will be about? Why do you think that? What characters do you think might be in this story?

During Reading: Who is the main character? What do you think will happen next? How do you think the character will handle this situation?

After Reading: In your own words, tell me the most important things you read today in order of how they happened.

Encourage your child to be word aware while reading. Have your child create an interactive vocabulary notebook while reading. He or she can add unknown words and words that help him or her understand the text. Ask your child to use reference tools to find the meaning of unknown words.

Provide and encourage your child to read books by the same author. These may be books in a series like the Cam Jansen series by David Adler. Help your child determine how the books characters, themes, settings, and plots are similar and how they are different.

* How are the versions the same?

* How did the theme/setting/plot of the different stories stay the same? What is different?

Online Resources for Students
Question Cube
Folktale, Myth, and Fables
How to Retell a Story

Online Resources for Parents
Comprehension of Fiction
Read Aloud for Third Grade
Story Element Web
Building Vocabulary for Kids
Compare a Story

Reading Comprehension- Informational Text

Ask your child what they would like to explore. Utilize the public library. Ask the librarian to help find books on the topic(s) of interest to your child.

Create-a-Quiz

Ask your child to read an informational text aloud. Have your child create a list of quiz questions to ask classmates if they read the same book.

Main Idea Bubble 

Ask what one word was repeated throughout the text to determine the topic. Make a main idea and detail bubble web. Use words or pictures to fill in the bubbles.

While engaging with nonfiction text, encourage your child to notice how text features such as the table of contents, headings, maps, and photographs aid in understanding the text. Ask your child to notice features that help in locating information quickly, such as key words, sidebars and hyperlinks. Ask your child to read two texts on a topic of interest. While reading, ask your child to notice how the texts are alike and how they are different. You may ask your child to complete a thinking map to show similarities and differences.

Online Resources for Students
Main Idea: Hamburger Game
E books

Online Resources for Parents
Summarizing Bookmark
Informational Text

Oral Language

Remind your child that good conversations include the following:

 

• Listening and taking turns

• Speaking clearly

• Speaking in complete sentences

• Interacting person to person and not interrupting

 

Read a book to your child or have your child read a book to you. Talk with your child about the book.

• Tell me about the book.

• Tell me about your favorite part of the book and why.

• Tell me about your favorite character and why

Online Resources for Parents
Conversation Cards
Summarize a Story

Writing

Here are some suggestions that engage your child in the writing process:

• Have your child write instructions for taking care of the family pet. These will be useful as you plan your vacations!

• Write a letter or thank you note to a relative. Talk through what your child wants to say before writing begins.

• Make a shopping list before going to the grocery store.

• Write an online review of a book or an item you recently purchased (www.amazon.com) or a recipe you tried (www.allrecipes.com).

• Talk about the presidential election and write a description of the kind of president you want.

• Find a picture in the newspaper and write an article to accompany it.

Online Resources for Parents
Helping Your Child Write
Story Starters