a cheap reading toy
[email protected]
One easily made disposable reading toy for kids who say "I want to learn to
read" involves a piece of cardboard (like the back of a legal pad, or even
part of a cereal box, but single-layer tagboard, not corrugated cardboard),
something to cut two slots in (Xacto knife, razor blade) and a long strip of
regular paper (we used to tape more than one strip together.
Fix the paper so it will slide through the two slots.
On the cardboard write part of a word which can be changed with different
endings or beginnings.
Like on the cardboard to the right of the two slots, write "A T"
and where the stip of paper goes through will be the first letters of various
words ending in "_at."
b
c
f
h
m
p
r
s
(kids probably won't know "tat" but if you're a tatter, throw "t" in!!)
v
and
maybe some blends after that, like
fl (at)
or
spl (at)
If that's fun, make others. If it's not, throw it in the trash and make
another one in six months or a year or never maybe.
If it's seen as just a toy or a trivia game and not "a reading lesson" it can
be a stress-free activity.
Sandra
read" involves a piece of cardboard (like the back of a legal pad, or even
part of a cereal box, but single-layer tagboard, not corrugated cardboard),
something to cut two slots in (Xacto knife, razor blade) and a long strip of
regular paper (we used to tape more than one strip together.
Fix the paper so it will slide through the two slots.
On the cardboard write part of a word which can be changed with different
endings or beginnings.
Like on the cardboard to the right of the two slots, write "A T"
and where the stip of paper goes through will be the first letters of various
words ending in "_at."
b
c
f
h
m
p
r
s
(kids probably won't know "tat" but if you're a tatter, throw "t" in!!)
v
and
maybe some blends after that, like
fl (at)
or
spl (at)
If that's fun, make others. If it's not, throw it in the trash and make
another one in six months or a year or never maybe.
If it's seen as just a toy or a trivia game and not "a reading lesson" it can
be a stress-free activity.
Sandra
Nora or Devereaux Cannon
Sandra - your cheap toy was Rosie the Reading Dog here - dd was
desperate for a dog. I am a cat person and basically dislike
dogs. After doing some research and talking to folks who had
working dogs, I was pretty sure that dd would have to be about 5
before she could be the emotional owner of a large dog (we're in
the country and a dog small enough for a hawk or coyote to get
readily would have been a mega tragedy). I had no illusions that
at 5 she would be able to do the physical feeding/ washing and
all, but she needed to able to give commands that were lovingly
obeyed. Biding her time till she was 5, she regularly told dog
stories and made up adventures with different kinds of dogs. One
day the star was Rosie - the dog who could read. DD wanted to
read - and had been reading in the sense of matching brands to
words and identifying some words since she was 2.
She had a good grasp of sounds and a pretty fair sense of which
sounds went with which symbols. As I said, we are in the middle
of nowhere, which involves some long car trips. I heartily
recommend the no equipment, low effort car game of "I see
something that starts with 'buh'" to which the other player may
reply "It's a barn; I see something that starts with 'kuh'" or
"It's a barn; yarn rhymes with barn; what rhymes with 'cow'" or
any other variant the delays the dreaded "Are we there yet?"
But anyway back to Rosie the Reading dog - after she had told me
a couple of stories about Rosie's adventures (the poor dog got
locked into the library all night once, which I attribute to Marc
Brown, but that's OK) - I decided Rosie might be a message, so we
sat down to decide what Rosie looked like. She was a red dog
(Clifford - where are you???) with long ears and so forth. After
multiple drafts and some talking about how creatures with big
eyes are usually the young of a species or are supposed to be
particularly appealing (we did not overtly discuss anime, but she
asked me about Kiki's eyes the nest time she watched it) we had a
pretty cute 8 1/2 x 11 size dog.
Now, dogs like bones and Rosie likes to read....put your selected
word endings on a bone shaped cut out, cut the slits that Sandra
recommended and make your strips of phoneme beginnings. I didn't
tumble to the strips and slits until I had made a half a dozen or
so favorite/new word bones for dd, but I got tired of cutting out
bones and was trying to make things easier on myself. It worked
so well that I actually looked up the 42 (?) (don't remember any
more) consonant based phonemes and consciously mixed them up
between singles and digraphs on each strip. DD has a folder with
Rosie and her bones and strips; it is in with the paper dolls and
coloring books. She periodically gets it out to play with or as
a tool for making poems for birthday cards and so forth.
If it had not been a fun game all the way along, I suspect I
wouldn't have pursued it at all. She will be 6 next week; loves
her dog; and while nothing in the dentist's office magazine
selection interests her, she independently reads much more that I
suspect, and with the occasional "Mom what does *-*-*-* spell?"
is happily working her way through Redwall again.
desperate for a dog. I am a cat person and basically dislike
dogs. After doing some research and talking to folks who had
working dogs, I was pretty sure that dd would have to be about 5
before she could be the emotional owner of a large dog (we're in
the country and a dog small enough for a hawk or coyote to get
readily would have been a mega tragedy). I had no illusions that
at 5 she would be able to do the physical feeding/ washing and
all, but she needed to able to give commands that were lovingly
obeyed. Biding her time till she was 5, she regularly told dog
stories and made up adventures with different kinds of dogs. One
day the star was Rosie - the dog who could read. DD wanted to
read - and had been reading in the sense of matching brands to
words and identifying some words since she was 2.
She had a good grasp of sounds and a pretty fair sense of which
sounds went with which symbols. As I said, we are in the middle
of nowhere, which involves some long car trips. I heartily
recommend the no equipment, low effort car game of "I see
something that starts with 'buh'" to which the other player may
reply "It's a barn; I see something that starts with 'kuh'" or
"It's a barn; yarn rhymes with barn; what rhymes with 'cow'" or
any other variant the delays the dreaded "Are we there yet?"
But anyway back to Rosie the Reading dog - after she had told me
a couple of stories about Rosie's adventures (the poor dog got
locked into the library all night once, which I attribute to Marc
Brown, but that's OK) - I decided Rosie might be a message, so we
sat down to decide what Rosie looked like. She was a red dog
(Clifford - where are you???) with long ears and so forth. After
multiple drafts and some talking about how creatures with big
eyes are usually the young of a species or are supposed to be
particularly appealing (we did not overtly discuss anime, but she
asked me about Kiki's eyes the nest time she watched it) we had a
pretty cute 8 1/2 x 11 size dog.
Now, dogs like bones and Rosie likes to read....put your selected
word endings on a bone shaped cut out, cut the slits that Sandra
recommended and make your strips of phoneme beginnings. I didn't
tumble to the strips and slits until I had made a half a dozen or
so favorite/new word bones for dd, but I got tired of cutting out
bones and was trying to make things easier on myself. It worked
so well that I actually looked up the 42 (?) (don't remember any
more) consonant based phonemes and consciously mixed them up
between singles and digraphs on each strip. DD has a folder with
Rosie and her bones and strips; it is in with the paper dolls and
coloring books. She periodically gets it out to play with or as
a tool for making poems for birthday cards and so forth.
If it had not been a fun game all the way along, I suspect I
wouldn't have pursued it at all. She will be 6 next week; loves
her dog; and while nothing in the dentist's office magazine
selection interests her, she independently reads much more that I
suspect, and with the occasional "Mom what does *-*-*-* spell?"
is happily working her way through Redwall again.
----- Original Message -----
From: <SandraDodd@...>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, August 04, 2002 1:03 PM
Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] a cheap reading toy
| One easily made disposable reading toy for kids who say "I want
to learn to
| read" involves a piece of cardboard (like the back of a legal
pad, or even
| part of a cereal box, but single-layer tagboard, not corrugated
cardboard),
| something to cut two slots in (Xacto knife, razor blade) and a
long strip of
| regular paper (we used to tape more than one strip together.
|
| Fix the paper so it will slide through the two slots.
|
| On the cardboard write part of a word which can be changed with
different
| endings or beginnings.
|
| Like on the cardboard to the right of the two slots, write "A
T"
| and where the stip of paper goes through will be the first
letters of various
| words ending in "_at."
|
| b
| c
| f
| h
| m
| p
| r
| s
| (kids probably won't know "tat" but if you're a tatter,
throw "t" in!!)
| v
|
| and
| maybe some blends after that, like
| fl (at)
| or
| spl (at)
|
| If that's fun, make others. If it's not, throw it in the trash
and make
| another one in six months or a year or never maybe.
|
| If it's seen as just a toy or a trivia game and not "a reading
lesson" it can
| be a stress-free activity.
|
| Sandra
|
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