When my one-year-old son was still mostly pre-verbal, I “read” to him books about a baby doing the simplest of tasks—jumping, crouching, and clapping, for example. Each time I turned the page, I asked him, “What’s the baby doing?” He would act out the drawing—jumping, crouching low and applauding—all without words.
My son was engaging in the world of books long before he had verbal vocabulary to explain what he saw. He used what he had—the gestures, the motions of his body—to “say” what he saw.
Another time, I worked with a third grader who had excellent verbal fluency, but she could not read. We worked on phonics, and she slowly acquired skills to take apart words into letter sounds and to assemble letter sounds into words. She was an excellent actress, so when she would learn a vocabulary word, she would act it out—standing, moving about the room, using her whole body to memorize the meaning of a word. I was flabbergasted. And when she came upon a word she had previously acted out, she would go through the same motions—this time sitting in her seat—to remember what the word meant.
Working with these children opened my mind to using gestures and body language to learn. These allow a child’s thinking to progress even when he doesn’t have the vocabulary to explain what he is thinking. Or sometimes he does have the vocabulary, but it is quicker to respond with gestures than to recall the appropriate words. What is “slope,” for example? Doesn’t lifting a hand and sliding it downward on a diagonal show understanding? What is “ferocious”? If a child bares her teeth and makes a growling sound, doesn’t she show that she knows that word?
Large numbers of children in preschool and in the primary grades are kinesthetic learners. Yet teachers rarely call upon these children’s body language and gestures to help them learn. With a little imagination, it’s possible. Three students stand in a row, holding hands. One student lets go. Three minus one equals two. A child curls herself into the letter “C.” Another creates a big “O” with her arms. A third stands tall and stretches out both arms into a “T.” They move close together. “COT.” Three students act out “ice” by hugging and not moving. Three more act out “water” by making swimming strokes. Three more act out “steam” by dancing rapidly.
Performing to learn takes time, yes. But it’s also fun. It engages students. It uses many of the senses. It works.
First, buy two copies of “Why Johnny Can’t Read” by Rudolph Flesch. Send one to your grandson and you keep one. Go to the back where there are lists of words. Start on page one, asking the boy to pronounce the sound of each letter shown. When he can do that, move on to the page of short a words. Have the boy read the short a words, or a portion of them.
Second, buy two copies of “Explode the Code” workbooks 1, 1 ½, 2 and 2 ½. (Eventually, buy the next sets in this series, but for starts, these workbooks are enough.) This series teaches reading using a phonics-based approach. Kids like it because of the silly illustrations. Have the child start reading while you follow along on your copy, noting and correcting mistakes. Eventually, the child might do some of the pages for homework or with his parents.
Third, buy a set of letter tiles. You can use the tiles from a Scrabble game or from Bananagrams. Or use a keyboard. What you want to do is to introduce, teach and review new concepts. using tiles or computer words. If you are teaching short a, for example, manipulate the tiles so the child can see them to form “cat” and then “hat” and then “fat,” etc. Changing the first letter while keeping the ending vowel and consonant is easier for beginning readers to decode. Using tiles or computer-generated words enables you to go quickly. Later, you can move from “mat” to “mate” or from “mick” to “mike” and back and forth quickly to show differences in spellings and sounds.
Fourth, recommend to the child’s parents that the child watch the Netflix series “Alphablocks,” an animated series using silly letter characters to teach phonics. This British series offers tiny segments of three or four minutes to teach particular phonics skills. Even three-year-olds will learn to recognize letters from watching this series. Older children will be able to read words as they pop up on the screen.
Little children need to learn so many words, but 15 are especially important for answering questions in school and on tests. For example, if students think “compare” means to show how two things are different, they will answer a test question incorrectly. Knowing the meaning of direction words is vital.
If you teach students vocabulary, check out 101 Strategies to Make Academic Vocabulary Stick by Marilee Sprenger.
comicphonics for early readers 