Literacy Links:
“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents" Emilie Buchwald, 2002
Watch, Read and Learn with Scholastic's Bookflix
Scholastic BookFlix is a new online literacy resource that pairs classic video storybooks from Weston Woods with related nonfiction e-Books from Scholastic to build a love of reading and learning. The engaging way to link fact and fiction, BookFlix reinforces early reading skills and introduces children to a world of knowledge and exploration.
Library Provides Free Books for Children
The Public Library in Tampa is sponsoring the Imagination Library for Children, which provides a free book once a month to a young child. The program, initiated by Hillsborough’s Board of County Commissioners, is designed to mail a new, age-appropriate hard-covered book each month to every child registered from birth to age five – just as they prepare to enter kindergarten. “Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come” is the final book each child will receive. For details and to register a child, go to:
http://www.uwtb.org/imaginationlibrary/
Plan a family adventure to the library
Kids love adventures, so get them involved. Make plans together, to prepare for and then celebrate the first trip to the library. Plan a book party when you get home? Be sure to prepare the kids BEFORE you go. The library is a unique place, and you'll need to take the time to explain how a library works.
http://www.hcplc.org/hcplc/happenings/child/child1.html
Read books a-loud to young children everyday
Emergent literacy researchers agree that reading to young children is so important for helping to promote future successful readers. Parents don”t need to be great readers to read to their children. By just looking at the pictures, a parent can tell the story to the child. It is more the process of parent and child interacting that is important and not necessarily “teaching the child to read.” (Dinkevich et al., 2003). Here are some useful tips for parents:
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=1501
Alphabet Fun
I never get tired of watching this video at Starfall for preschoolers to help them with their letters and sounds. Check out this website and click on abc. You’ll be singing along too!
http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/index/play.htm
"Parents are viewed as children's first literacy teachers. By reading to their children, parents set the stage for a child's literate life" Zeece, 2005.
Ready for Kindergarten
If you’re wondering if your 4 year old has the necessary skills for Kindergarten, there is a screening that parents can do with their child. There are also lots of activities for parents to help build their child’s kindergarten skills.
http://www.getreadytoread.org
Watch, Read and Learn with Scholastic's Bookflix
Scholastic BookFlix is a new online literacy resource that pairs
classic video storybooks from Weston Woods with related nonfiction
eBooks from Scholastic to build a love of reading and learning. The
engaging way to link fact and fiction, BookFlix reinforces early
reading skills and introduces children to a world of knowledge and
exploration. LASER students log-in here.
Library Provides Free Books for Children
The Public Library in Tampa is sponsoring the Imagination Library for Children, which provides a free book per month per registered child. The program, initiated by Hillsborough’s Board of County Commissioners, is designed to mail a new, age-appropriate hard-cover book each month to every child registered from birth to age five – just as they prepare to enter kindergarten. “Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come” is the final book each child will receive.
Imagination Library History
Dolly Parton began Imagination Library in her home state of Tennessee because she believed that income should not be a restriction for children to have books in their home. The popular initiative has since spread to hundreds of communities. The Dollywood Foundation funds administration costs for the program.
Local Partners - Hillsborough County’s Imagination Library program is a joint initiative by the:
· Children’s Board of Hillsborough County
· Healthy Start Coalition of Hillsborough County
· Hillsborough County Department of Children’s Services
· Hillsborough County Head Start/Early Head Start
· Hillsborough County Public Schools
· Hillsborough County, Public Library Cooperative
· United States Postal Services-Tampa
· United Way of Tampa Bay .
For details and to register a child, go to: http://www.uwtb.org/imaginationlibrary/
Phonemic Awareness Instruction
Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken words. Before children learn to read print, they need to become aware of how the sounds in words work. They must understand that words are made up of speech sounds, or phonemes.
Phonemes are the smallest parts of sound in a spoken word that make a difference in the word's meaning. For example, changing the first phoneme in the word hat from /h/ to /p/ changes the word from hat to pat, and so changes the meaning. (A letter between slash marks shows the phoneme, or sound, that the letter represents, and not the name of the letter. For example, the letter h represents the sound /h/.)
Children can show us that they have phonemic awareness in several ways, including: recognizing which words in a set of words begin with the same sound ("Bell, bike, and boy all have /b/ at the beginning."); isolating and saying the first or last sound in a word ("The beginning sound of dog is /d/." "The ending sound of sit is /t/.");combining, or blending the separate sounds in a word to say the word ("/m/, /a/, /p/-- map."); breaking, or segmenting a word into its separate sounds ("up--/u/, /p/."). Children who have phonemic awareness skills are likely to have an easier time learning to read and spell than children who have few or none of these skills.
Children can show us that they have phonological awareness in several ways, including: identifying and making oral rhymes; "The pig has a (wig)." "Pat the (cat)." "The sun is (fun)." identifying and working with syllables in spoken words; "I can clap the parts in my name: An-drew." identifying and working with onsets and rimes in spoken syllables or one-syllable words; "The first part of sip is s-." "The last part of win is -in." identifying and working with individual phonemes in spoken words. "The first sound in sun is /s/."