10 Great Books That Help Promote Phonological Awareness

 

Reading aloud with your children is one of the best ways to prepare them for future reading success. Shared Book Reading helps your child develop language, build comprehension and learn more about print (see our Top 10 List of Books to Read with Your Young Child through Shared Book Reading). Shared Book Reading also helps children raise their knowledge of Phonological Awareness, the understanding that our spoken language may be broken into smaller parts: sentences into words, words into syllables and syllables into individual sounds. 

Phonological Awareness is a progression of skills that help children become aware of the individual sounds of our language and eventually code these sounds to the letter 
representations.

Many children's books have wonderful rhymes and many alliterations that help children to hear the same sound at the beginning of words. Our BUILDING BLOCKS FOR LITERACY® coordinator, Brenda Buzzell, recommends some books that will help promote Phonological Awareness while reading. Here are 10 great stories to help get you started:

Why Focus on the First Years?

Forty to fifty percent of Vermont’s children are not ready for kindergarten. Why are so many of our kids unprepared for school?

Science points to the earliest years. Modern research tells us that the most critical time for a child’s development is the first five years. Eighty percent of the brain develops by age three, and ninety percent by age five. Seven hundred to one thousand new brain connections are created every second, forming a mental foundation for more complex learning. The connections that are stimulated and used are strengthened, and those that are not used will be lost. Therefore, it’s important that children have quality experiences during the earliest years that stimulate their brain connections in a healthy way.

“Serve and return” interactions are an important element of healthy brain development. Scientists use this phrase to describe the back-and-forth interactions between an infant and an adult: the baby makes a bid for attention with a coo or gesture, and the adult returns it in a direct and meaningful way—perhaps with encouraging words or a smile. These simple interactions actually strengthen the connections in the growing brain. As Dr. Lewis First writes in his Let’s Grow Kids blog post on serve and return interactions, “[Such] interactions play the critical role of strengthening brain connections between all of the different areas of the baby’s brain—helping them develop the emotional and cognitive skills they need for life.”

Thursday Thoughts: Interesting Learning and Literacy Links

Brain Teaser:

A man is headed to a mountain along with a lion, a goat and a basket of vegetables. On the way, he needs to cross a river and the boat can only carry two things at a time. If he takes the vegetables, the lion will eat the goat. If he takes the lion, the goat will eat the vegetables. How does he cross the river?

(Answer at the end of post. Find more teasers like this on Buzzle.)

Interesting Learning and Literacy Links:

Homework in Elementary School Divides Educators. "PDF"—play, downtime, and family time—has replaced homework for kindergartners, 1st graders, and 2nd graders at one Chicago elementary school. Education Week, September 15, 2014.

Ted Talk: Rita Pierson, Every Kid Needs a Champion. Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, once heard a colleague say, "They don't pay me to like the kids." Her response: "Kids don't learn from people they don’t like.’” A rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level. May 2013.

Thursday Thoughts: Interesting Literacy and Learning Links from the Past Week

BRAIN TEASER:

How Well Do You Know Classic Literature? From Jane Austen to Alice in Wonderland, how many details can you remember from these beloved books?
 
INTERESTING LINKS:  

Dear Daddy in Seat 16C. One mother’s perspective on how the kindness of a man she and her autistic daughter shared a row with on a plane made their lives better. Kindness Blog, Kindness Changes Everything.

Grant Provides Money for Education Study. The grant marks a joint venture between Dartmouth and the Stern Center for Language and Learning and is a two year project that provides instruction for students who struggle with learning to read but do not qualify for special education. The Dartmouth, August 15, 2014.

Where in the World is Brenda "Building Blocks" Buzzell?

Brenda just returned from Orlando, FL. Numbers, year to date 2014, of children positively impacted by Building Blocks for Literacy® program: over 1,000!

Where's Brenda follows our Building Blocks Coordinator, Brenda Buzzell, around the United States as she works with preschool teachers, and early care providers and coordinators to teach them best practices for teaching early literacy skills to children ages three to five. www.buildingblocksforliteracy.org.


 

Thursday Thoughts: Great Literacy and Learning Links From the Past Week

BRAIN TEASER:

What occurs once in a minute, twice in a moment and never in one thousand years?
(See answer below)

INTERESTING NEWS AND COOL LINKS:
 
Books Are Just a Start. Although reading can be a powerful force for early brain development, the nature of parent-baby conversations while reading and during other interactions matter at least as much. Huffington Post Parents, July 9, 2014.

Math and Reading Abilities Driven by Same Genes. July 9, 2014.Children’s reading and math abilities have a large and overlapping genetic component, according to a new study published in Nature Communications this week. 
 
The Secret of Effective Motivation- There are two kinds of motive for engaging in any activity: internal and instrumental. Which is most conducive to success? The New York Times, July 4, 2014.

10 Reasons to Keep Reading Aloud to Your Toddlers Even When They Prefer to Climb on Your Head

Do you get frustrated while reading aloud with your toddler? You pick out the perfect book. You get your child all comfortable on your lap. After one, maybe two, pages your little one tries to eat the book, hops off your lap and starts playing with a different toy, starts climbing all over you and in general seems completely uninterested in the story you are reading?

Don’t get discouraged.

Don’t stop reading.

This is all completely normal.

Your child is still listening and learning.
 
Reading with your child, young or old, on a daily basis is one of the best ways to ensure your child's future success in school and later in life. Here are 10 reasons why:

1. Eighty percent of a child’s brain is developed by the time s/he is three years old. Reading to young children stimulates brain development, improves listening skills and builds vocabulary.

2. Toddlers learn that there is a front and a back to the book. They also learn how to hold a book and how to turn its pages.

3. Reading nursery rhymes and singing songs spark children’s awareness of language and sounds.

Thursday Thoughts: Cool Links and Interesting News

BRAIN TEASER

In honor of the World Cup taking place this week here is a logic puzzle for you: How can you throw a ball as hard as you can and have it come back to you, even if it doesn't bounce off anything? There is nothing attached to it, and no one else catches or throws it back to you. (Answer at the end of the blog.)

COOL LINKS AND INTERESTING NEWS

Why Free Play is the Best Summer School, The Atlantic, June 20, 2014. The more time children spend in structured, parent-guided activities, the worse their ability to work productively towards self-directed goals. Children who engage in more free play have more highly developed self-directed executive function. 

VPR's five-part series on early education in Vermont, Ready or Not, is airing this week and looking at early education on many levels from childcare to kindergarten all the way up to teaching the teacher.

How-To: Help Your Child Get Ready to Read Through Games Part IV

This week's "How-To" focuses on vocabulary. Did you know that children from middle to high-income families have heard 30-million more words than their peers from low-income families by the time they are four? Unfortunately, this gap keeps widening as kids move through school. Below are two videos demonstrating ways to help increase vocabulary and understanding of words.

The more words a child hears, the more that child's vocabulary grows. There are numerous ways to promote language development in young children. Modeling gives you the opportunity to use multiple words with the same meaning so the child learns a word and its definition. For example, "That's a fragile statue. It's very delicate. If you knock it over, it could break." Watch how this preschool teacher models new words for her students:

Why I Read: Communications Coordinator, Suzanne Loring

by Suzanne Loring 

I was quite a skilled eavesdropper by the time I was 13. You see, growing up in my house meant that each night before bed a story was told to each child in his/her own bedroom. It was a special time alone for each child with my mother at the helm of a book. Unbeknownst to my younger brother I used to sit in my bedroom doorway, well before my bedtime, and listen to his stories being read to him by my mom. It was in this doorway that I took my first and only wild ride in a giant, magical peach, and then traveled through a magical wardrobe and was introduced to the White Witch. 

Even though sitting in the doorway was magical, I couldn’t wait until it was my turn and my mother would read my story to me.With an open book and a voice as her only tools, my mother would transform my room into Orchard House in Concord, MA during the 1800s and the wonderful attic where my inspiration, Jo March, would write short stories.Or sometimes we found ourselves deep in the Ozark Mountains where the fate of two Redbone Coonhounds, Old Dan and Little Ann, changed my perspective on reading forever. This was the first time I cried when reading a book.

How To: Help Your Child Get Ready to Read Through Games (Part I)

How-To: Help Get Your Child Ready to Read- Games, is a four-part series of how-to videos for parents, and early child care providers and educators that shows you different games you can play with your children to help get them ready to read in kindergarten. Each of the videos models a different technique that will increase your children's early literacy skills through fun and games. For more information about helping your child prepare for reading or to find more videos, check out the Stern Center's Building Blocks for Literacy online program for parents and educators.

This week's How-To is all about rhyming and showcases a great game to play while driving in the car, sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office or while grocery shopping.

Have fun today, rhyming away!