I learned to read before I started Kindergarten, by using a Teach-Me-Reader and listening to my mother reading to me from infancy. The Teach-Me-Reader was a toy produced in the late 1980’s by Playskool and it was developed in collaboration between Playskool and reading specialists. It was described on the box as being “ the first electronic teacher with a voice that ‘reads out’ each work your child touches on the page.” I loved it and I can remember spending hours reading the stories over and over before I started school.
While the Teach-Me-Reader was a large piece of learning to read, it was not the only piece. I have a Mother who also enjoys reading and has always made it a priority. My earliest childhood memories are of her reading to me in the car and at home. In the car, I can remember asking her what the words said on signs as we drove past them, and I can remember her reading and spelling them out to me. Later as I got older she started quizzing me on some of the signs that we frequently passed on our way to the store or to my Grandma’s house. I can also remember her doing similar things as she read to me, pointing out and then quizzing me on
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I only have vague memories of watching videos that introduced letter sounds. After reading Examining the Historical Context for Teaching Reading, I have realized that since I was in school in the early 1990’s my teacher probably used the “whole language” method. However, I do remember reading to my Kindergarten class. The book I read was Petunia by Roger Duvoisin. The Scholastic grade level for this book is 2.3 and the Lexile level was 510, not too shabby! Books like Petunia were what I liked to read in school, which contained animals or were funny. I also liked books that focused on children, like the Boxcar Children, or Roald Dahl and Beverly Cleary books. I also liked to write about similar things, especially dogs and
My earliest memories of learning to read come from first grade and a book about a dog named Pug. I remember calling the words with concentration and focus, See Pug run. Run Pug, run. I don’t recall things improving much in the second grade “turtle” reading group I was assigned to. I struggled with fluency and confidence, especially in reading group, which consisted of sitting around the kidney bean table while each student read a page in turn. Fortunately, I had a proactive mother who borrowed a copy of the basal reader from the teacher and practiced the weekly story with me at home. Not only that, she read real literature to me, which ignited a passion for reading that was not developed in my primary classrooms.
It is one of the most important strategy teachers can do with a child. Interactively reading aloud to children has them actively involved in the process. A teacher has the children asking questions and making a prediction. Shared reading helps the students build a framework to draw attention to vocabulary. This read aloud strategy should have carefully thought-out questions. For example, a shared reading activity for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom: First, point out the cover of the book. One should point to the words as you read the title, the authors, and the illustrator. According to the Resource in Early Learning, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom has a lively musical rhythm. As you read, emphasize the beat and rhythm of the words. Have the children join in the lines that repeat. It is also important to point to each letter as you read. After reading the book ask questions such as, “What happens when all the letter get to the top of the tree” or “Let’s count the
I have memories of using literacy all the way back to when I was a toddler to now. Reading and writing always came easy to me as little kid from what I can remember. My earliest memories of reading would be from when I was very young, possibly still a toddler or a tad bit older. Every night before bed, my mom and I would sit in my bed, she would read to me. We read Bible stories from the children’s Bible, Goodnight Moon, Cat in the Hat and many other children’s books. That was my favorite part about bedtime when I was little. Although she was reading to me, and all I was doing was listening and wanting to look at the pictures, her reading to me every night was a huge influence for me and was what made me want to learn how to read. I would without
Last week we wrote a blog and one of the questions was “How did you learn to read and write?” I found this question interesting because I never had really thought about the moment when I actually learned how to read and write. My mom was the first person to expose me to reading and writing. A popular tactic she did to make sure I was staying engaged was to read aloud stories and make me follow along with her. My mom would read me many different stories like Tarzan, Bambi, Aladdin, Peter Pan, Lion King, The Jungle Book, and Hercules. whatever I wanted to listen and follow along with, she would read with me. This really helped with my want to read. The books contained a lot of adventure, which made it easy as a kid to follow along with. I became to gain an imagination and then all of a sudden reading was easier.
As a child I was a very eager learner, I always wanted to learn new things to feed my brain. My desire to learn how to read started when I was introduced to the book, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” Since I didn't have the ability to read at that age, I would ask my mom to
Like many children, I learned to read and write around the age of five at both home and school. I learned to read by reading Dick and Jane. The writing was simple, but I loved the stories. That was always my favorite part
As a six-month-old baby books had opened up a whole entire new world of experience for me. My inspiration to learn how to read and write was encouraged by my Mother and Grandmother. This is because they read out loud to me before bed occasionally and gave me the best time of my life by introducing me to a library. By two years of age I developed speech and other communication skills. This helped me understand and develop a favorite book, “PJ Funny Bunny,” and I would stare at the pages pretending I was reading them. I would continually pretend to read with other Dr. Seuss books, Smurf pop-up books (I imagined I was a part of these for hours), sniff & scratches, and sensory books. I had just begun
My dad started reading to me when I was around the age of four or five. I was specifically interested in the book How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?. My dad read that to me probably every night for two months, until I could “read” it back to him. The reason “read” is in quotations is because I really only memorized the book and the order he would say the words, but looking back now, I think I give a lot of credit for that time in helping me stay ahead in my reading classes. Being able to recognize what certain words looked like helped me make new words and build sentences a little quicker than most kids my age.
As I reflect on my childhood, the first memory of literacy I recall is when I was in kindergarten. I was approaching the end of the school year when my mother revealed to me my teacher was considering keeping me in kindergarten for another year. I was extremely upset and felt as if I had failed my first year of school. I felt that I was fresh out of the gate and already defective. My perception as a child was that the adults were already giving up on me. The teacher stated if I could learn the alphabet by the end of the school year I could continue ahead to the 1st grade. The conclusion of Kindergarten was vastly approaching. My mother constructed flash cards to help with my letter recognition. In doing so, she realized I could not see the letters. My mother promptly made an appointment for me to visit an Optometrist to evaluate me. Before I knew it, I was fitted with a big plastic pair of glasses. My world became much clearer after that. My mother was upset that my teacher did not recognize the problem, and that I never spoke up. Fortunately, I passed kindergarten with a lot of hard work from my parents, teacher, and I.
When and where my practices in literacy began was slightly difficult to pinpoint, though I guess I could say it began with my favorite television show as a kid, Between the Lions. It was a children's show that promoted reading, spelling, and writing and aired on the PBS kids network. On the show, there were numerous educational segments that featured real life people, puppets, and cartoon characters that taught about words, spelling, vowels, vocabulary, definitions, and pronunciation. For example, there was a segment that featured a song about the sound, “op”, and by learning how to read “op”, you could read words like, hop, mop, or chop. The lessons on the show were often taught in fun games or in song, so it would be enjoyable for kids. In
Learning to read is a valuable and important skill that children acquire from a very early age. Children gain an understanding of the different sounds in our spoken language from a wide range of different experiences and social interaction with their environment. For example, singing and saying rhymes, sharing books, making and listening to music, pretend play, listening to adults and joining in conversations etc ect. as mentioned by Vygotsky (1978)
I remember every morning my grandparents would read the LA Times newspaper and my grandmother would read the sales pages for the local grocery stores out loud to my grandfather. I would watch her and look at the paper as she read it off to him. I started preschool a year before everyone else my age. I started when I was 3 years old. My Mom would read to me every night. She made reading fun, she ordered personalized books where I was included as a main character. The books were from Disney and Sesame Street. Like Fredrick Douglass I also carried a book wherever I went. I would finish reading books sometimes in a day depending on the size of the
My first memory of ever being exposed to reading was when i was six years old and my mom started introducing books before bed. She came home one day with a bag full of books and a smile on her face, she had just received some of the books and stories dad would read to her when she was a kid. She told me that she would get tucked into bed and her dad would let her pick a different book every night until there were no new ones to choose from. They would then makeup tales and "write" their own stories that was a fond childhood memory she had and she wanted me to have as well. This tradition is something i really admire and look forward to sharing with my children one day. That is the first memory i have of ever being exposed to reading and i am
Reading is something that is taught to everyone in their early childhood, the time I learned to read I was very fond of books. I loved to read novels to myself and to read them out loud to my sister. I like reading action, thriller, historical fiction, and mystery. During my early childhood we would have challenges of reading such as wrapped up and reading, golden dragon. These were reading challenges for students to read 20-25 specific grade novels during the school year and at the end you got a party if you read at least 5-10. I used to love reading and at that time I would read at least 20 books because I wanted to go to the party and win something with the lottery tickets I got. My childhood was fulI of reading, even if I read because I was greedy and I read because of the party, it still improved my reading level. As I grew and grew my reading
When I was younger, most kids learn to read by using read-along book. I loved those things. Our town library was just down the block from my house, and whenever I left the library, I always had three or four the read-along books. As soon a I enter kindergarten, my parents had bought my packets of small books to read. I also loved those books that I tried teaching my younger brothers to read them. Only in the past years, did they inform me that I had not taught them to read, but only to memorize the book, to make their demanding sister happy.