(gently chiming bells)
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- Hi everyone.
I'm Shelli Kurth,
and I'm here with my colleague, Dr. Nicole Assisi.
And today, we will be talking to you about
how to stay sane in these unprecedented times of parenting.
Our background together
is we have over 30 years of teaching and leading schools.
We're both working moms and now we're homeschooling moms.
So we're right there with you.
Our goals for these episodes,
are to provide you with tools and resources
to keep your kiddo thriving and to keep you sane.
- And specifically today,
we'll be talking a little bit about reading
in this short little five-minute video.
And for more resources on reading
you can check our previous episodes,
or go to some written resources that we've put together
at thriveps.org.
Just click on the Family Playbooks for more instruction,
but let's jump right into some reading resources and tools.
Shelli, take it away.
- Well, I first just wanna lay out
a few things to always remember.
And the first one is, to stay calm.
Don't get all worked up.
If your child isn't doing exactly
what you think they should do,
at exactly this precise moment,
wherever they are in reading and writing
is an okay place for them to be.
You don't need to move mountains
or solve these major learning problems
in just a few months
that you're doing this distance learning.
So prioritize
just building that strong relationship with your kiddo,
and celebrating that they're learning to read
and that you're there doing it with them.
And also make sure you reach out
to the resources that you have.
Reach out to your teachers and to your school teams
to help guide you when you're feeling stuck.
They are going to be very happy
to help you figure out what you can do at home
to support your reader,
and they'll know the level that your child's reading.
So lean into that
and build that relationship with their teacher too.
Now is the perfect time
to begin a friendship with your kid's teacher.
- And your teachers
could actually come in immensely helpful
when you start out with the reading work
to figure out your child's reading levels.
So in order to find some great books
that your child can either read independently
or with support,
having the right reading level actually is really critical.
Now, again, asking your teacher is a great way to start.
If you for some reason are unable to reach them,
we have two resources for you
to figure out your child's reading level.
One is a principal resource, and one is an online tool.
Both of those will let you click through,
figure out your kid's reading level to get started.
From there, comes the fun part.
Putting together a little reading basket or a reading bin.
We recommend having at least five books available
for your kid to choose from that are at their level,
that they can look through, reference,
try to read the words.
If you have an older student that they can just pick up,
jump on the couch with a good book and read.
Now, when students are in the classroom,
the teacher usually has a big library of books
that a child can reference.
Now, we understand that for many of you,
libraries are still closed
and getting access to lots of books could be challenging.
So we've got some tips and tools for you.
Always start with the Libby app.
You'll remember we mentioned it in previous episodes.
Libby gives you access to all of the library books
at your local library,
at the fingertips of either your computer or your phone.
And for other reading resources, check the comments,
we're adding some articles that you can read.
Newsela is our favorite news source,
because you can put in your child's reading level
and it takes a current event articles
and just moves them down to your child's reading level.
So that's a great tool.
We've got others like Scholastic and Epic and Storyline.
So again, check the comments for those links,
so that you can find
some really great reading resources and tools
and get your kiddo reading.
But having great books is only part of the equation.
Especially if you have younger readers,
there are some other tricks and tips
that as teachers we have at our fingertips.
And to tell you a little bit more about those,
Shelli is gonna talk about that.
- One of the things that I think
is really great for parents to do
to support their reader at home
is to help them with their sight words.
Sight words are those words that are commonly used,
but they are not spelled the way they sound.
So you have to memorize them.
Keep a bank of these sight words,
either maybe on a binder ring, make them like flashcards,
or, I used to hang them up on the walls of my house.
I know it sounds crazy.
But you work on five at a time.
We can provide a list
of some of the sight words for your kids by grade level.
But look at them
and once they master those five add to them.
You can add a new one there.
You can practice every single day. It becomes fun.
And again,
it's an instant celebration once you get through them
and it doesn't take long at all,
but really has a lot of power behind it.
Of course, read to your child.
Almost everyone loves to be read to.
So read to them.
Even your older kid, who was an independent reader,
take some time and read a book together as a family.
That listening,
it shows them what fluency is like,
it really makes them love a story,
and you could just share something fun with them.
And have your family read together.
That's really awesome too.
If you all are independently reading at the same time,
you're modeling reading as part of a lifestyle.
So hopefully you can find some time in your day
to show your kiddo that you read too.
And reading for pleasure is so important.
I'd love to be able to say that I get to do that sometimes.
So eking out a little moment in your time, in your day,
to be able to read something for pleasure,
models some great life habits for your kiddos.
And of course, read together.
Read a page, and then they can read a page,
and then you can read a page, and they read a page.
You can work on hard words together,
you can talk and ask questions
and talk about the same books.
Again, a fun thing to do together,
and it really builds fluency and builds your relationship.
- Now, we've said this many, many times before,
but reading truly is the best indicators of longterm success
for students in their academic paths.
So spending time on reading is critical.
That's why you're getting two episodes of reading.
For more resources on reading, you can go to our websites,
thriveps.org,
or check out episode 11 for more information about reading.
Until next time, have a great day.
Bye.
- Bye.
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