Academics

An Easy Way to Improve Your Reading Skills.

Hello My Dear Parents:

Today, I would like to share with you a simple way to boost your child’s reading in a fun, inexpensive way. It is a tool that almost all families have access to either on their cell phones or the computer.

Did you guess what it could be?

YouTube!!

Usually, parents complain about their child wasting time with YouTube. However, besides the fact that that it can be a huge distractor for both adults and children, I also have to admit how valuable it can be to help your child learn.

I am not talking about the countless videos and educational lectures that we see.

I am talking about music. Yes, music is a great way to boost your child’s reading speed and ability. What kind of music? Songs that interest your child and you, and shows the lyric. Pick the setting as name of the song with lyrics. This way the words of the songs will pop up with the music.

You could make learning with music a family experience. Here is what I would do. Pick a song, which both of you would like to learn. Make sure it is a song where both of you do not know most of the lyrics.

Start singing with the lyrics showing on the screen. By association, seeing the words in text form and hearing what they sound like, you start to improve your reading skills. Singing with music also helps improve reading speed. Once you have mastered reading at least 50 percent of the words, start singing the same song in karaoke style. This will reinforce the speed and the text-sound connection of the word.

I have used this technique several times in the classroom. All students enjoy it, as everyone likes to sing. I go one step further and then make a mini worksheet using some of the words in the songs.

Give it a chance. At first, it may be hard to get into it. Don’t use this method as a learning time. Instead, make this fun activity a bonding or family time.

Have fun singing!!

📙 Mindful Reading

The other day I was talking to my friend who was planning to take the GMAT to get into the master’s program. While talking to him and looking at his book, I could not help but notice that quite a few comprehension questions though called by different academic terms, were concepts that we start to introduce as early as elementary school.

Nowadays, the educational system focuses quite a bit on the modeling and teaching of comprehension strategies in the elementary setting.

It is not just about how fluently you read, but also how well you understand what is being read. The focus from kindergarten to second grade is learning how to read. From 3rd grade on wards, it is reading to understand the text. For this reason, comprehension strategies are introduced at a very early stage in the elementary setting.

The best way to acquaint and get the child to feel comfortable with this process at an early age is to introduce it at home when the parents sit with their child and read with or to them.

Here are a few simple steps you can integrate to make reading more meaningful. The idea is to have a natural flow of conversation about the book being read.

Predicting:

Look at the title and the picture on the cover page. Ask the child to make a prediction. Have a conversation such as, “From the title and the pictures what do you think the story could be about?”

During the reading ask the child what they think will happen next and why.

Making Connections:

Here you and the child would continuously try to find similarities between the story and their own experience. It could also involve making a connection between two books. When a child connects what is being read to something they experienced or can relate to, it makes the reading even more meaningful and understandable.

Asking Questions: These have to do with the who, what, why, where and how questions. Again the key is to be as natural as possible while reading. Keep it light, and make it fun.

Think Aloud: This involves voicing your thought process while you are reading. For example, “I wonder why…”

Making Inferences: Try to understand what the character might be feeling at a given point. Also, try to figure out what might be going on, even though the story might not say so.

End of the book: Talk about the part you liked or did not like in the book. Always give a reason for the opinion.

There are quite a few strategies that could be easily incorporated during this natural discussion. Your child will enjoy the quality discussion, and it takes reading to another level. Understanding and comprehending come naturally to adults, but for a child, they have to be modeled at first. Using these simple strategies would not only enhance your reading time together, but also set the stage for an active, fluent reader in the later years.

🔔 Vocabulary in Everyday Living

Usually, when we think in terms of academic vocabulary, we think they are words that are separate from the ones we use in a regular conversation. However, in the elementary years, they can be very easily be integrated into the daily conversation.

There are several websites that give you the vocabulary words that your child should be familiar with in a particular grade. You could ask the teacher to provide you with that information too. The more the word is used, the more the child is comfortable with the word, and then it can be transferred to the academic setting.

When you look at your child’s standards for the year, pick up a few words that you can easily use in your conversation. Understand how the word is being used in academics, and its meaning. Now start using it whenever you talk to the child.

Here is an example. Opinion is a word you will be seeing coming up a lot in all writing prompts from 2^nd – 5^th grade. When you first use the word for the first few times, give the meaning of the word too, so the child can associate with it. You could say something to this effect, “Mike, in your opinion, and when I say your opinion I mean what you think we should do this evening?”

Give the meaning of the word a few times in the same sentence that you use the vocabulary word, until you feel the child has got the meaning. After that, you could just use the word itself. This way, when the word comes up in an academic setting, the child transfers their understanding of the word.

If one looks at the elementary curriculum and standards, it can be seen that at least 80-90% of the words can be easily integrated in everyday conversation.