You are about to serve a very special lunch or dinner, but first, start with a book.  We found the book Chilly Charlie by Dana Meachen Rau at our local library.  I decided to use this story to teach my little one the sound that “ch” makes and you can too!  There are many other books that you can use, such as:

Please Note: This post contains affiliate links.  Meaning, if you click on a link and make a purchase, I receive a small portion of the sale at no extra cost to you.  

Show your child the book and read the title.  Point out the “ch” in the word(s) and tell him or her that when “c” and “h” are together they make a new sound, “ch”.  Have your child say the sound a few times.  Say it with them, being funny usually helps! Whenever you come to a word in the story that has “ch”, exaggerate the sound a little bit to draw attention to it.  Sometimes, I would even say, “Look, that word had “ch” in it. Did you hear it?”.  Continue reading the story together and listening for the “ch” sound.

Now for the really fun part!  Later in the day or night, serve them a fabulous lunch or dinner featuring the “ch” sound.

Notice the Chicken nuggets (meatless for us), Cherries, and Cheese?

Purposefully fill the plate with “ch” foods.  You can even have chips or chocolate milk!  When you present the meal to your child tell him or her that the meal is very special.  Say the name of each food out loud. First, see if s/he notices that they all start with the “ch” sound.  If s/he doesn’t notice, tell your child that you have prepared them a “ch” (say the sound) lunch or dinner!!  I did this at dinner time but I told my son that it was actually “ch”inner not dinner.  He thought that was pretty funny and the dinner started off on a positive note.

As you eat, talk about the “ch” words that your child is consuming.  You may ask, “How are those cherries?”, accenting the “ch” sound when you speak.  I had to tell my child to stay in his ch-ch-chair.  He hid his food in his ch-ch-cheeks! This made us wonder what other body parts start with “ch” like cheeks. Chin, of course!  My little one pointed to his nose and called it his “chose” to be funny.  Eureka, he gets it!

You could even look for things on the table and figure out if they have “ch” in the word.  How about, “salt”, “napkin”, or “chipmunk”?  Why you have a chipmunk on the table, I do not know.  But I don’t judge.

The secret is— HAVE FUN!! The more fun you have together playing with the “ch” sound, the more memorable the time spent will be.  Your ch-ch-child will remember the “ch” sound as well as the fun bonding time with you. What could be better?

Looking for more fun learning activities? Try:

Valentine’s Day Word Family Hearts (with FREE printable)

My Secret Weapon To Teach Early Math Skills

Charlotte’s Web Activities

The post Learning The Sound “CH” With Lunch appeared first on Empowering Parents to Teach.

Materials:

• Word Family Hearts (print here: Color version or B&W version)
• Word Family Label (I made these by cutting index cards)
• Tray with at least four compartments or small boxes, or small mailboxes (use what you have available)
• Small Paper Bag
• Markers or Crayons

Here’s what our set up looked like:

The materials set up

Before the Activity:

1. Print and cut out the hearts. Laminate them if possible.

2. Decorate the small paper bag to use as the Mail Bag.  You could also have your child do the decorating!

3. Fill the mail bag with the small hearts.

4. Attach the word family labels to your boxes, tray, or mailboxes.

Activity:

1. Inform your child that today s/he is going to deliver hearts, just like people deliver valentines to their friends on Valentine’s Day.

2. Show your child the mail bag and let him or her know that inside the bag are hearts.  Each heart has a word on it.  His or her job is to deliver the heart to its right place.

3. Next, show your child the tray (or mailboxes) with the word family labels.  Tell your child that s/he is going to put the word with its family.  Look at each word family label and have your child read the rime*. Help your child if needed.  Remind your child that any word that ends with -at, goes with the -at family. Do this for each family. Just like family members all have the same last name, word families have the same last sound. You want to explain this in a way that makes sense to your child.

*Rime refers to the part of a word that follows the initial consonant or group of consonants.  For further information about onsets and rimes, click here.

4. Have your child take out the first word.  For the first word, you will want to walk through the activity with your child.  Have your child read the word out loud.  Ask your child what sound they hear at the end, is it -at, -un, -it, or -all?  I would say each one aloud while pointing to the word family label.  Say the word again if necessary.  Your child should be able to hear the end sound (the rime) and match it to the correct family.

5. If your child struggled, do the next one together. Model your thinking out loud.  For example, if you take out the word “sun”, read the word and verbalize your thought process. You may say, “I will look at the word families and say each one out loud to what matches.” “At, sun, hmm, they don’t sound the same at the end so they don’t rhyme. Un, sun, they sound they same at the end! They rhyme! The word ‘sun’ goes here with the -un family.”

6. Let your child do the rest by himself (or herself), providing support when needed.  If your child places one in the incorrect spot, take the word out and help him or her figure out the correct place.

7. Keep playing until all the hearts are delivered!

As always, keep it fun! Your child is learning so much from you!

More reading activities:

 Learning to Read: Word Families

Sight Word Hide and Seek

Sentence Making

This post is linked to Montessori Monday. Click on the link below to see more fun learning activities!

The post Special Delivery: Valentine’s Day Word Family Hearts appeared first on Empowering Parents to Teach.

Recognizing common letter and sound patterns in word families can help children figure out new words when they read. Instead of trying to sound out each letter one by one, they can identify larger groups of letters. 

Are you helping your child learn to read at home? Reading is made up of so many elements. My goal is to give information and ideas in all areas of reading. That would be a very long post if I did it all of it in one! Today I am going to focus on one aspect– word families. Some children pick up the phonological patterns in word families naturally and do not need to be taught this skill. However, some degree of phonics instruction can be helpful for all readers. Phonics instruction has been shown to be especially helpful for struggling readers. Remember, this is just one piece of the reading puzzle!

What are word families?

Basically, word families are a group of words that have the same pattern and sound at the end. For example, the -an family would have can, fan, man, van, etc. in it’s family. As you can see they rhyme. The -an part of the word is called the rime. It is the same for all of the words in the group. The initial consonant that can be changed to create new words is called the onset.

Is your child ready to learn word families?

Can your child:

• Recognize all the letters of the alphabet?
• Identify all of the letter sounds individually?
• Hear rhyming in a story?
• Rhyme a word that’s given? (For example, if you say “hat”, can they give you a word that rhymes?)
• Begin to spell simple words?

These are some general guidelines to figure out if this is a good step for your child in their reading practice. Typically, word families are taught in first grade and even some kindergartens. But since every child develops at their own pace, I advise parents to follow your child’s lead instead what they “should” be doing at certain ages. Like any learning activity, if your child is not into it, don’t force it! You don’t want them to lose their love of learning!

Activity #1: Make the Word and Match the Picture

Bring the tray to where you are working with your child. I like using a tray for the work materials because it helps the child focus on the task. The tray is set up so you see “an” in the middle. In the small cup on the left are the letters- m,v,c,r,p,f. On the right hand side there is a pile of pictures of- man, van, can, ran, pan, fan. The pictures are not in any particular order.

If you do not have letters at home, you can easily make paper letters by typing them into a Word document and cutting out each letter.

The cards look like this:

I made these cards using clip art pictures from Microsoft Word and printed them on card stock.

1. If your child does not yet recognize the word “an”, explain to him or her that when the letters “a” and “n” are together they sound like “an”.
2. Tell him or her that by using “an” we can make all kinds of new words that have the “an” sound at the end.
3. Have your child pick a letter out of the cup. For example, they may pick up the “m”. Ask them what sound the “m” makes.
4. Put the “m” in front of the “an” and say the “m” sound plus the “an” sound to demonstrate how you can add the sounds together to make the word, “man”.
5. Show your child the pictures and ask him or her to match the picture to the word. This is helping your child connect the printed word to its meaning.
6. Take away the onset, in this example it is the “m”, and leave the rime, “an”.
7. Encourage your child to try the next letter in the bowl on his or her own. Have him or her say the new letter sound and add it to the “an” to make a new word.  Again, match the picture to the word.
8. If it is a little bit difficult, you can model how to put the sounds together and match the picture. If they can understand what you are doing as you do it, they are learning from your modeling. If it is very difficult for him or her, then s/he may not be ready for this yet. Continue reading rhyming books until your child becomes more familiar with hearing rhyming patterns.

Activity #2: Match the Word and Picture

For this activity, the child will match the word with the picture. The first activity has the child constructing the words. This second activity encourages the child to recognize the written word.

The tray is set up with all six words visible- man, van, can, ran, fan, pan. The picture cards are placed in a cup on the right hand side.

This activity is simple. You can do it one of two ways:

1. Have the child pick a picture, say the word out loud and match the picture the corresponding word. OR
2. Have the child read the word and then find the matching picture.

If you choose to do both activities, I would do the first activity on one day and the second activity on the next day. You could do them both in one day, but I personally like splitting them into two days so that the child has time to reflect on the first lesson before doing the next one. You do not necessarily have to do them in a certain order. Every child is different, sometimes building the word helps them recognize the word and sometimes recognizing the word helps them build the word.

Activity #3: Easy Reader Book with -an Family

I found a fantastic website for FREE printable easy reader books: Twisty Noodle–  www.twistynoodle.com

They have an easy reader book for the -an family: Twisty Noodle’s -an book

For very beginning readers, this book has short sentences with a repeating pattern. Your child can read the book to you and s/he can even underline the “an” word in each sentence. This can be reread anytime!

Other ways to help with word families:

1. When you are reading to your child point out words that rhyme.
2. Have your child find the rhyming words in stories.
3. Go on a word hunt in a book to see how many “an” words you can find! You can change this for any word family.
4. As always, keep reading lots of books! While these activities isolated the words, hearing them in context reinforces understanding!

The more words your child learns to read by sight, the less “effort” reading becomes! By learning these common word structures they can quickly add more words into their sight recognition!

You can use these activities for any word family! If you want to teach your child more word families: List of the 37 most common word families

All of these activities only take a couple of minutes to do. I like to keep direct teaching at home brief! 

Linked to: Montessori Monday on Living Montessori Now

The post Learning to Read: Word Families appeared first on Empowering Parents to Teach.

My youngest child loves to play a make believe game where he is going after bad guys. He turns almost anything into a pretend weapon. Ask any parent of boys and they will tell you that even if you keep all play weapons out of your house, your son has the ability to pretend any toy is a weapon!

On this day, he and I were playing a game of chasing bad guys with his pretend weapon that he made out of Tinker Toys. He passed by his small child size table where his alphabet puzzle was placed. Upon looking at the puzzle, he started making the “B” sound. I stood back and watched to see what he was doing. I heard him saying the word, “bad”. He took the ‘B’ off of the puzzle and placed it on the table. I immediately realized that he was trying to spell the word “bad” as in “Bad Guys”, the name of his game. He continued to sound out the word attempting to figure out the next letters. This is a developing skill for him, he has not yet mastered this. He’s pretty good at hearing beginning and ending sounds on his own, but middle sounds are still tricky for him. Knowing this about him, I came to his side and modeled for him how we say each sound slowly and clearly so that we can figure out what letter to put next. With me saying the sounds that came next, he was able to match the sound to the letter and correctly spell the word. Obviously this doesn’t work for all words since there are so many special cases in English. In fact, he wanted to spell the word “guy” next so after he figured out the first letter I just told him the rest!

He was motivated to do this task because it helped him in the creation of the game he made up. He had a true purpose for using this skill so he had the motivation to learn it. The desire to learn came from him, not my desire for him to learn it. The difference between the two is huge. If I would have said, “Let’s go spell ‘Bad Guy'”, his level of motivation may not have been the same. He chose to spell the word, therefore he already entered the task with a real interest in understanding how to spell.

The parent role is not passive. In this example, my role started even before the event happened. By having the puzzle available to him whenever he needed it, I was helping to prepare his environment with letters that he can move whenever he wanted. Once he started the task, my role was to help him when it was appropriate. In this case, I modeled for him how to sound out a word to spell it. It is always a matter of judgement when we should step in and help or let them be to figure it out on their own.

Children are curious. If you prepare their environment and help them when they need it, you are guiding their  learning. Observe your children. What interests them? Is there something they have never tried before? This will help you decide what are good tools, toys, pictures, and objects to have in your house to pique their curiosity!

This example was how I helped prepare the home environment with engaging toys that serve multiple purposes. To keep this in context, remember– exploring the outdoor environment is incredibly enriching, complex, and open ended (meaning there is more that one way to play). Free play with in a safe environment is essential to their development also! 

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