Category: Homeschool For Success
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Making the Jump: From Learning to Read to Reading to Learn
By Lauren Bailes, Aim Academy English Teacher
I don’t remember quite when it happened. At one point, I was reading phonics books about dogs, boys, hats, and bats. Making meaning from even these simple words was laborious. There was just so much for my mind to hang on to — the long and short vowels, what characters were doing and saying, when certain letters were silent or pronounced. I vividly remember sitting on my mom’s lap in the living room as she read A Cricket in Times Square aloud. I followed along as best as I could but the words were complex and beyond my ken. Even more overwhelmingly, these complex words wove themselves into an even more complex story. My mom’s voice was the only thing that kept the story alive because, independently, I couldn’t have put those moving pieces together in a way that made sense.Then, after a few more chapters of Cricket and a few more phonics books (anyone remember Mr. G-H?), those same moving pieces started operating on their own. Words I had previously struggled to assemble became recognizable on sight. Stories and information came to the fore as the work of reading became as natural as breathing or walking. Books became magic instead of work. Characters could now do so much more than jog or swing; they could ambulate, deceive, wonder, and vindicate.
We all love that moment when readers take off. Seemingly overnight, they go from sounding out words syllable by syllable to taking in whole chapters and whole stories in one gulp. They emerge from the library arms full of chapter books or their favorite series. Or – get ready – they start making their own selections on your Amazon Prime account…
This is a gratifying time for homeschool parents and for their blooming readers. But is there anything we can do to help this process along? There certainly is.
Parents help young readers jump from learning to read to reading to learn by providing two opportunities: volume and choice. Lay a solid foundation by providing your kids with vast and interesting choices of what to read – from narrative nonfiction to how-to books, from classic fairy tales to short stories bursting with vignettes of puzzling characters and everything in between. In this broad array of reading material is an important point for your readers to grasp: the knowledge adults share in common can be found in print. And reading is the key to access those mysteries. Secondly, kids need time to read every day: at least an hour of uninterrupted, unstructured leisure time when reading is what everyone in your family makes it a priority to do.
Now that my homeschool days are a distant memory, it is the long and luxurious time I spent with my nose in a book, surrounded by my brothers and mom doing the same, I remember best.
[Part 2 — How to Help Your Child Read for Inference–will be posted Monday.]
Lauren is a homeschool graduate and an award-winning literacy teacher. She holds an M.A. in literacy from Columbia University and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Ohio State University. Lauren is offering the following classes for Aim Academy:
Course (grade) Teacher Optional Live Class Discussions* EST Register Middle School Tools: Writing(6th-8th) Lauren Bailes 1st sem. Fri 1-2 PM EST Register Middle School Tools: Reading Comprehension(6th-8th) Lauren Bailes 1st sem. Fri 11-12 PM EST Register Pre-AP English (9th-12th) Lauren Bailes Fri 3-4 PM EST Register -
Safe Landing: Reading for Inference after Making the Jump
Part II by Lauren Bailes, Aim Academy English Teacher(Part I discussed the value of the development jump, when readers go from learning to read to reading to learn. Find it here.)
It’s easy to watch children begin their trajectory as emerging readers, but shaping that trajectory is just as important. Until about 3rd grade (8 to 10 years old), children generally focus on doing reading, like I did as I read about Sam and his bat. They sound out words, tap out syllables, make sense of strings of words, recognize organizational structures like lists and paragraphs, and hold multiple narrative episodes in their heads in order to enjoy all of the exploits of Horrible Harry or Laura Ingalls Wilder. But after this point, there’s a shift in the activity of the brain during reading – one that we want to watch for very closely. Kids move from doing reading to learning other things through reading. They can answer their own questions, generate their own research interests, and deepen their knowledge by accessing worlds of information in books. The reading itself has become instinctual.
Such a shift in the student brings an additional set of responsibilities for parents. We need to model and assess a new set of skills. No longer is the focus on merely decoding sound combinations or word meanings – kids must move on to deducing and inferential reading. If children are proficient, voracious readers (two essential prerequisites for inferential reading), they need to be coached into a transformed way of thinking about books and stories.
When we talk to our children about books, let’s move away from retelling questions and move toward critical thinking questions. Here are some of my favorites for fiction and nonfiction:
Fiction:
– What does this character want most? What’s getting in the way?
– How would the character behave or speak differently if this other character were not in the book?
– Where do you see characters feeling confusion or conflict about their own choices?
– What is the turning point in the story? Are there lots of smaller turning points?
– What lesson does each character learn at the turning point?
Nonfiction:
– How is this text organized or ordered? Why do you think the author made that choice?
– What information do you already know that helps you understand this new information better?
– Is there new vocabulary in this text? How does the author help you understand what it means and how to use it?
– What is the most important information in this section you think the author wants you to know? How can you tell?
There are endless variations and extensions for each of these questions. The important thing is to teach our emerging readers to raise and answer questions while reading so that deducing becomes as instinctive and exciting as decoding.
Lauren is a homeschool graduate and an award-winning literacy teacher. She holds an M.A. in literacy from Columbia University and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Ohio State University. Lauren is offering the following classes for Aim Academy:
Course (grade) Teacher Optional Live Class Discussions* EST Register Middle School Tools: Writing(6th-8th) Lauren Bailes 1st sem. Fri 1-2 PM EST Register Middle School Tools: Reading Comprehension(6th-8th) Lauren Bailes 1st sem. Fri 11-12 PM EST Register Pre-AP English (9th-12th) Lauren Bailes Fri 3-4 PM EST Register -
How to Help Your Teen Succeed on the SAT Math Exam
Kathryn (Bell) Gomes By Kathryn (Bell) Gomes
As a senior in high school I was guaranteed a full-tuition scholarship to Eastern University before I even officially applied. It wasn’t because of my rigorous course load, well-written application essay, or volunteer service. The scholarship was based solely on my SAT scores.
You might disagree with this snapshot approach to accepting and awarding students, but it should convince your high schooler to study.
The SATs are challenging, but it is realistic to think students can dramatically improve their scores. Here are the three main reasons a student doesn’t score well and all of these can be addressed:
1) They forget. The math on the SAT is not that broad, it only includes the most essential concepts of Algebra I, geometry, and Algebra II. But most students have moved well beyond these courses and need to brush up on the basics before the test.
2) They don’t prioritize preparing for the test. Both the SATs and PSATs are normally taken in the fall. Classes have just started and there are always countless assignments to be completed. How do you balance AP courses, volleyball tournaments, and that hefty Gruber’s SAT Guide? It’s difficult but in the long run earning a better math score might be more important than an “A” on that next English exam. (My mom found a way to count my SAT prep work towards my math or English credits for the year.)
3) They don’t learn time-saving strategies. Many of the most difficult SAT problems can be answered quickly if students know certain tricks. The questions are designed to be solved in a minute or less. Students who use an elaborate formula or work through 15 different steps have missed an easier method. However, many popular math programs homeschoolers use do not take time to teach these strategies.
I treated test prep as a part time job in high school. I took the SATs/PSATs a total of 5 times. (A bit obsessive? Perhaps.) But considering the scholarship money my SAT scores earned me it was definitely a “well-paying” part time job.
Kathryn Gomes teaches SAT math prep online for Aim Academy. She is in her seventh year as a high school math teacher outside of Philadelphia. She was a presidential scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, where she was awarded 36 credits for her AP and SAT exam scores earned during high school.
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College Prep Science at Home? Here’s What We Did.
My kids love to needle me by telling me the best teacher they had in high school was Vicki Dincher. She was also the coolest (she played bass guitar). Her science classes at our high school co-op were always the most popular — and they still are.Well, I know how to capitalize on a good thing when I see it: I convinced Vicki to join me in teaching online after we both finished homeschooling. And didn’t she just go and beat me at that game, too! I’ve never seen anyone master technology faster than Vick. Her lectures are punctuated with illustrations, video clips, live demonstrations, PowerPoint presentations with animation and, starting this year, a state-of-the-art microscope that she and all her students can look through simultaneously — no matter where they are in the world! Wow, I never thought teaching online could compete with a live classroom, but technology allows a teacher to do some things you just can’t do in person — and in some ways online instruction can be a better context for learning. For one thing, Vicki records all her classes and stores them in the cloud where her students can watch them repeatedly as they prepare for SAT, AP or CLEP exams.
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Creative Writing: Interactive and Aware
by Lilianna Serbicki, Aim Academy English TeacherWhile there are a myriad of writing guidelines and “best practices”, creative writing in particular has a very intuitive element. A delicate balance between discipline and individual expression is required. This is why detailed critiques – from both myself and student peers – are such a vital portion of my Creative Writing course. My students’ imaginations are given free rein and then continually “pared down”, with elegant and succinct writing as our goal.
My creative writing class has a three-pronged focus: literary analysis, student writing, and peer critiques. Each section of the course focuses on a different element or genre: Character, Dialogue, Setting, Tone, Conflict, Point of View, Plot, Science Fiction, Realism, Poetry, Drama, etc. As we explore each topic, we analyze a work that highlights the appropriate element, complete a creative piece, and participate in peer critiques. We study short pieces by authors such as Flannery O’Connor, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Katherine Mansfield, James Thurber, Tennessee Williams, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and others.
The goal of isolating literary elements is to help students write with a greater awareness. All of my recent students were bright, enthusiastic, eager readers. However, even a well-read high-schooler who is working independently may not consider how individual elements such as tone, point of view, and dialogue enrich a piece of fiction. A writer must deliberately use each of these elements to tell their story in the best way using the best choice of words; last year we often worked through several drafts of a single short story to experience how writing evolves. As we added new elements to our repertoire, students were able to “build upon” the skills learned in each project.
I am immensely proud of my creative writing classes the past few years. My students were able to build a full writing portfolio for use in their homeschool portfolio, contests applications, literary magazines, and other venues. Several students have won Scholastic Art and Writing Awards; others have won college scholarships for their writing.
I look forward to a wonderful 2013-2014 year! I will close with a few words from Creative Writing student Carmen Paddock. Carmen’s sympathetic analysis of human nature and keen ear for dialogue made her pieces uniquely poignant!
“Mrs. Serbicki’s Creative Writing class is a must not only for those students interested in fiction and poetry, but for any student wanting to expand their writing horizons beyond the research paper (and have a great time while doing so)…Covering both the elements and forms of fiction made it unique and well-rounded among the other online creative writing classes that I’ve seen.
While there was some variation in the structure, we read and discussed a famous piece of fiction one week and then worked on a related fiction project the next; while prompts were (thankfully) often provided, there was a lot of leeway to pursue our own ideas and plot lines! We also had weekly Skype chats which were wonderful for that jolt of inspiration – chatting with Mrs. Serbicki and classmates was a great way to free writer’s block! Over the course of the year my favorite projects were the character study, the dialogue study, the speculative fiction assignment, and the poetry weeks…I feel that Mrs. Serbicki’s instruction helped me get past my fear of writing fiction – under her guidance I actually finished stories – and fine-tuned my narration and plot development, steering me away from melodrama into honest, engaging tales. I highly, highly recommend this class to any high school student interested in honing storytelling skills or just looking for a fun alternative to traditional English courses.”
