Category Archives: vocabulary

Can dyslexia be identified in a preschooler who can’t read yet?

Posted on July 29, 2016 | Leave a comment

Yes. Check this list of indicators developed by Decoding Dyslexia, New Jersey. But keep in mind that a child exhibiting one or two of the indicators isn’t necessarily dyslexic. For example, almost all children learning their letters mix up b and d. But a child EPSON MFP image showing several of the indicators might foreshadow problems learning to read or spell. That child should be tested.

Dyslexia is defined as a neurological learning disability. Children having difficulty with word recognition, fluency, poor spelling or decoding might be dyslexic. The sooner it can be identified in a child, and the earlier intervention can begin, the better the chances that the child will learn to read.

A key indicator is family history. If a parent or a sibling has had trouble learning to read, there is a greater chance that another member of the family will have trouble.

According to Decoding Dyslexia, New Jersey, Language indicators could include:

delayed speech
trouble learning the alphabet, numbers, and days of the week
difficulty rapidly naming people and objects
lack of interest in stories and books
mispronouncing words
difficulty using new vocabulary words correctly
trouble distinguishing words from other words that sound similar
struggling to identify or produce words that rhyme

Reading indicators could include:

difficulty naming and recognizing the letters of the alphabet
problems matching letters to their correct sounds
scoring below expected reading level for his/her age
trouble understanding the difference between sounds in words
difficulty blending letter sounds within words
trouble recognizing and remembering sight words
confusing letters and words that look similar
losing his/her place—and skipping over words—while reading
avoiding reading tasks

Writing indicators could include:

problems copying and writing at an age-appropriate level
confusing the order or direction of letters, numbers and symbols
spelling words incorrectly and inconsistently most of the time
a tendency to spell phonetically
poor ability to proofread and correct written work
handwriting which shows poor letter formation and placement

Social / emotional indicators could include:

Lack of motivation about school or learning
lack of confidence in learning
negative self-image compared to grade-level peers
expressing dislike for reading and other academic tasks
exhibiting anxiety or frustration

Other indicators could include:

poor sense of direction/spatial concepts, such as left and right
performing inconsistently on daily tasks
appearing distracted and unfocused

If your child shows some of these characteristics, don’t be discouraged. Most children show some of them. And if your child is dyslexic, there is so much you, as a parent, can do to prepare your preschooler to read fluently. In the next blog we’ll identify some of those activities.

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Posted in dyslexia, early childhood education, fluency, kindergarten readiness, mixing up letters, phonics, reading disabilities, Spelling, vocabulary

How to retain new vocabulary

Posted on June 30, 2016 | Leave a comment

Review, review and more review is the way to help children retain new vocabulary.

"I know that word, Mom," says the child lookin

Too often the push by teachers is to teach more words rather than to solidify the words students already “learned.” The result is that the words practiced weeks ago don’t stick in students’ minds.

What can you do to make words stick?

Suppose one week you teach ten or twelve new words to a student. That week you review the words daily—perhaps asking the student to draw each word’s meaning one day, or to have a spelling bee kind of review another day, or to write the words in sentences another day.

The next week you teach ten or twelve new words. You use the same kind of daily review, but you include a few words from the previous week’s list which have caused the most problems.

For the third week of vocabulary instruction, instead of introducing new words, intensively review the combined words of the previous two weeks. Perhaps you could offer fill-in-the-blank worksheets with a bank of vocabulary words at the top of the sheet. Or during a writing lesson, suggest composing a paragraph using ten of the words from both lists. Offer a prize (a bell rung in a student’s honor or a sticker) if the student can find one of the new vocabulary words in the ordinary course of the day’s work.

During the fourth week, introduce another set of new words, using various strategies. Repeat some of the words from the previous weeks during the daily review.

During the fifth week, do not introduce new words; instead focus on words from the first three weeks which are difficult to remember and which are likely to be used or encountered by the student. Focus on useful words.

Learn new, review. Learn new, sweeping review. Continue this pattern, spending as much time on learning new words as reviewing old ones, and your student will remember vocabulary words.

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Posted in how to make learning fun, methods of teaching reading, reading strategies, vocabulary

One way to increase vocabulary: learn Latin roots

Posted on May 4, 2016 | Leave a comment

Does your child show a logical way of thinking? Does your son delight in finding patterns? Does your daughter love puzzles?

If so, your child might like to learn English vocabulary by studying Latin and Greek roots.

uni- as root word

More than 60 percent of English words can be traced back to Latin or Greek words, sometimes with a bypass through France. Most of those Latin or Greek roots developed into not one or two English words, but eight or ten or more.

If a child can memorize a Latin root, he can find that root pattern in many related English words. Thinking logically, he can assume that those other words are related in meaning to the original Latin root.

The child’s vocabulary can grow exponentially. A student who studies vocabulary the traditional way, learning ten new unrelated words a week, can possibly learn 380 new words in a school year. But a child who studies one Latin root a week might learn thousands of new words in a school year.

The Common Core State Standards recommend that children be introduced to Latin prefixes, suffixes and roots in third grade. But even kindergarteners can learn a Latin root a week and can infer the meaning of words made from that root.

For example, suppose a little kid learns that “mater” is the Latin word for mother. A teacher or parent could introduce the words maternity, maternal, matriarch, matrimony, matron, and alma mater. Even if the child can’t read, she can hear “mater” in those words and can assume they have something to do with a mother.

One easy way is to begin with the Latin and Greek roots for numbers. Or try a word which is part of children’s lives, such bicycle. Cycle, circle, circular, cyclical, encircle—it’s not hard to remember that they all have something to do with a circle. Encourage children to propose their own words. How about circus, a child might ask. Yes, circus comes from circle. Can you guess why? Maybe because of the rings? Maybe.

Having a large vocabulary is associated with strong reading comprehension. Using Latin roots is one way to gain a large vocabulary.

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Posted in Common Core Standards, methods of teaching reading, reading comprehension, vocabulary

Piquant ways to learn new vocabulary words

Posted on April 27, 2016 | Leave a comment

Looking up words in a dictionary is one way to learn new vocabulary words, but children, parents and teachers have so many other options.

girl with ipad in bed

Do a google image search. Type in Google.com/search and when the website comes up, click on Google images. Then type in the word you want to see illustrated.

Create visual flashcards. Copy and paste the image from your google search, print it, and tape it to one side of an index card. Or draw an image yourself. Write the word on that side and on the reverse. Study the image side; test yourself using the side with just the word.

Use those flashcards while walking or exercising. While fresh oxygen is pumping into your brains, you are better able to learn.

Replace words in a song with words you want to learn. “Oh, say, can you discern, by the dawn’s early glimmer. . .”

Replace words in a famous quote with words you want to learn. “Clamor not for what your country can attain for you. . .”

Create word graphics such as mind webs. Children could start with a word they know and find synonyms, shades of meaning or antonyms. Or they could start with the word they are trying to learn.

Still using mind webs, write a root word in the center, and then develop family lines using that root.

Use color-coded flashcards from your paint store. Find several shades of blue, for example, each one more intense than the previous one. Write on each card a word which becomes more intense in meaning compared to the previous one. For example, you could learn “disdainful,” “contemptuous,” and “insolent” this way.

Create BINGO cards with words you want to know. They could be three-by-three or five-by-five cards. Write one word in each box. Then draw an emoji next to each word to help remember it. Write a list of definitions for the words words on the card (minus the word), read the definitions, and find the word.

Read the front page of The New York Times, Washington Post or Wall Street Journal every day. Or read an article from the National Geographic or Sports Illustrated daily. Those newspapers and magazines use a wide variety of vocabulary words. Reading is one of the best ways to acquire vocabulary.

Sign up for a vocabulary learning blog, such as vocabulary.com to learn a word a day. “Search vocabulary learning blogs” to find several such blogs.

Sign up for a dictionary’s website. For example, Merriam Webster (merriamwebster.com) has a word of the day and a list of words which are timely based on the news of the day.

By the way, “piquant” means charming, interesting or attractive.

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Posted in how to make learning fun, methods of teaching reading, vocabulary

How lack of vocabulary stymies reading comprehension

Posted on April 6, 2016 | Leave a comment

Three superior ways of acquiring new vocabulary were found by the National Reading Technical Assistance in 2010. They are

Higher frequency of exposure to targeted vocabulary words
Explicit instruction of words and their meanings
Questioning and language engagement

child with adult helping to read

Working with children daily, I see firsthand how a lack of vocabulary stymies their efforts to comprehend what they read. For example, in the past week, a fourth grader reading aloud to me

pronounced “archaeological” as “architectural” and didn’t realizing his mistake.

did not know the meaning of the word “bid” as it was used in the passage. When I questioned him further, he admitted not knowing any meanings of that word.

did not know the meaning of “ancestral.” Questioning him showed me he did know what “ancestor” means. When I pointed out that the roots of “ancestral” and “ancestor” are the same, he was able to figure out “ancestral.”

did not know the meaning of “interwoven.” Questioning showed me he did not know what “weave” means. When I explained “weave” and “interwoven,” he still had no idea what “interwoven” meant in the passage because it was being used as a metaphor.

could not pronounce or understand “initial” used as an adjective. When I pronounced it, he still had no idea. When I reminded him about the initials of his name, he recognized the word, but had no idea what it meant in context. I explained that initials are the first letters in his name, and that “initial” in context meant “beginning” or “first.” Then he understood.

could not pronounce or understand “notoriously.” He knew “famous,” so I said “notorious” means famous for doing something bad. Still he was confused. “Like Hitler.” “What’s Hitler?”

Even though this boy was reading near his Lexile number, he either missed or misinterpreted chunks of the reading passage because of lack of vocabulary.

I will recommend to his mother that he works on vocabulary each lesson, using one of the many good vocabulary-building series available. He also needs to read more and widely.

But doing one lesson in a vocabulary book, and then moving on to the next, is not enough. He needs to hear the new vocabulary words often, review them, be questioned about their meanings, and be able to use them correctly in sentences.

If you are a parent, I recommend you either begin using a vocabulary-building series of workbooks, or if your child uses them at school, review past “learned” words with him or her. My experience working with children, especially ESL children, shows me they need to engage with the words often in order for the words to become part of their vocabulary.

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Posted in English as a second language (ESL), methods of teaching reading, practice reading skills, reading comprehension, vocabulary

Are digraphs the same as blends?

Posted on March 30, 2016 | Leave a comment

Blends are combinations of two or three consonant sounds in which the original sounds are clearly heard. For example, in the word “friend,” the “f” and the “r” are pronounced the usual way and sound as they normally do. Blends are also called consonant clusters.

child musing about confusion over so many letters

Digraphs are combinations of two or three consonant sounds too, but the original letter sounds change. For example, in the word “thin,” the “t” and the “h” are not pronounced in the usual way. When together in a word, they are pronounced in a new way, to create a new sound.

Digraphs can also be combinations of two or three vowel sounds which create a new sound. For example, when “o” and “i” are together, as in the word “void,” the vowel sound created is neither an “o” sound nor an “i” sound. Vowel digraphs include ai, au, aw, ay, ea, ee, ei, eu, ew, ey, ie, oi, oo, ou, ow, and oy. Vowel digraphs are rarely called by that term; instead they are called diphthongs if they are called anything at all.

In the US, almost always a digraph refers to a consonant digraph.

When I was in school, my teachers didn’t use the word “digraph.” Instead, they called all consonant letter combinations ”blends.” And they didn’t use the word ”diphthongs” either. But today American children are expected to know those words, and more importantly, how to pronounce digraphs and diphthongs.

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Posted in letter sounds, phonics, vocabulary

Turn car rides into educational opportunities

Posted on March 23, 2016 | Leave a comment

Spring break is almost here. For many kids, that means road trips to Disney World, the Grand Canyon or maybe to Grandma’s house.

cars in travvic

Those long hours in the car might mean movie time, video game time or time playing on the phone. But they also offer great learning opportunities.

For preschoolers learning their letters or numbers, make a game of finding a particular letter on a billboard, license plate or directional sign.

Say a letter sound (not a letter name) and let your child identify which letter matches that sound.

If it’s dark, you can say two words and ask the child which word begins with a particular letter. Stick to letters the child knows so she can feel successful.

For kids learning rhymes (sometimes called word families), suggest a word which the child can then rhyme once, twice or three times. Or go back and forth, first you, then the child, then you, then the child, until no one can think of another word. The last one to think of a word could decide what the first word of the next round is.

For kids learning how to put letter sounds together to form words, sound out a CVC word and ask the child to identify it. Then let the child sound out a word and see if you can identify it.

Another rhyming game is for the adult to say a nursery rhyme and ask the child to name the words which rhyme. (Hickory, dickory dock, the mouse climbed up the clock.)

Sequencing is a skill kindergarteners work on. You could say three activities—not in time order—and the child could put the events in the correct order. (Mom filled the car with gas. Dad put the suitcases in the car. Billy packed his suitcase.)

Cause and effect is a skill third graders work on. You could name both a cause and an effect, and the child could identify which is which. (Sleeping Beauty slept for 100 years. Sleeping beauty pricked her finger.)

Categorizing words is an elementary school-aged skill. For example, you could say blue jay, cardinal and bird. The child needs to find out which one in the category word.

Comparisons are another easy word game. You say that the answers are bigger than, smaller than or the same size. Then you say, “An elephant is something than a mouse.” The child tells the correct relationship. You could use longer than and shorter than, heavier and lighter and older and younger.

Working memory is a skill children need to extend. Start with two words (or numbers or letters) which the child needs to repeat. Let the child add another word and you repeat all three words. Then let the child repeat all three words and add a fourth. For some children this skill is incredibly difficult, so for them you might want to cap the list at four words. For other children, seven or ten words might be possible.

This is a great time to review math facts. If your third grader has just learned multiplication, review the facts.

For older children or children learning English as a second language, car time can be vocabulary review time. You give the definition and the child gives the word. Or let your child throw out a word meaning, and you have to identify it. Children love stumping their parents.
Older children encounter idioms all the time, but they don’t always understand them. Throw out an idiom–Jason is blue–and let your child explain what it means.

Of course these educational moments could also happen on your long flight to India or Taiwan. They could just as easily happen on the way to school in the morning or on the way to soccer practice in the afternoon. There are so many times you can exploit one-on-one education with your child.

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Posted in English as a second language (ESL), how to make learning fun, idioms, letter sounds, phonics, reading readiness., reading strategies, vocabulary, working memory

What kind of books do you read to your kids?

Posted on March 16, 2016 | Leave a comment

When my kids were little, I selected their reading materials from the picture book section of my library and book store. In retrospect, I was limiting my children’s literature to fairy tales, Dr. Seuss and fiction of all kinds.

Yet children need exposure to nonfiction as well: how to books, how things work books, information about animals and the natural world we live in, biographies, history, books with maps and tables, books about dinosaurs, even current events news.

Take a quick survey of the books you have read to your preschooler in the past week. Were any of them nonfiction?

Expand your child’s horizons starting today. Find the nonfiction section of the children’s section of your library and see what’s there that might interest your child.

Does he like dinosaurs? Lots of books explore the lives of these amazing creatures. Or does he have a pet? Books on dogs, cats, birds and almost every other animal abound.

Is your daughter into fashion? Find books about how clothes have changed over the centuries. Find a biography of Coco Channel. Look for a magazine with Downton Abbey or Academy Award dresses.

Is your child into building? You can find books and magazines on how to build a soap box, a tree house or a house of cards. Or you can learn how a spider builds a web, how a bird builds a nest or how a beaver dams a stream to build a house with an underwater doorway.

Do you travel with your child? Magazines highlight fascinating places around the world. Even if your child can’t read, together you can compare your home with the ones pictured. Or together you can wonder what it would be like to take a gondola ride or to walk on the Great Wall of China. Maybe you could plan a vacation.

Did Grandpa serve in the Army? Let Grandpa read to your child about the locations where he served or about the military uniforms he wore. Did Grandpa fly a jet? Find books about military aircraft.

Cooking books are great how-to books. With your child, find a picture of something you would like to eat and cook it together.

How about the handbook for your car? Or you phone? Your child and you can look over the pictures and identify parts and what they do, picking up vocabulary.

Look for books with maps, charts, tables, pictographs, photos and other non-textual ways of presenting information. Help your child to understand what those graphics mean.

Reading nonfiction is harder than reading fiction, yet students must be adept at both kinds of literature under the Common Core State Standards. Start now preparing your child for his future by exploring nonfiction together.

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Posted in Common Core Standards, early childhood education, fiction reading, how to make learning fun, methods of teaching reading, nonfiction reading, vocabulary

Numbers, numbers

Posted on March 9, 2016 | Leave a comment

2-3 Between 2 and 3 years old, toddlers learn a new word every day.

3rd Third grade is long past the time to intervene for a struggling reader.

3-4 3 to 4 letters/spaces to the left and 14-15 letters/spaces to the right of where we fix our eyes is where we pick up meaning from what we read .

4 There are 4 ways to pronounce the letter A using standard American English.

4-5 Children should be speaking in complete sentences by 4 or 5 years old.

6-12 Between 6 and 12 months old, infants should start babbling.

10-15 A typical student needs to interact with a word 10 to 15 times in order to learn it.

12-18 Children usually say their first words between 12 to 18 months, but not always.

18-24 Children usually say their first tiny sentences between 18 and 24 months.

20 If a child can count to 20, that is a sign he might be ready for kindergarten.

20-30 Kindergarten children should read or be read to 20 to 30 minutes daily.

24th US students scored 24th out of 65 countries taking the latest Program for International Assessment tests.

30 First graders should read or be read to 30 minutes daily.

42-44 The number of letter sounds in standard American English is 42 to 44, depending where you live.

220 There are 220 Dolch words, better known as sight words.

300 Children from professional families hear 300 more spoken English words in an hour than children of parents on welfare.

1,000 Parents should read to their children 1,000 books before kindergarten, according to the 1,000 Books Foundation.

2,000 A student learns about 2,000 new words a year.

88,500 An incoming high school freshman should know 88,500 word families.

2,250,000 A student reading an hour a day will read 2.25 million words in a year.

32,000,000 Children from professional families hear about 32 million more words—including repeated words—than children from poorly educated families.

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Posted in letter sounds, reading in kindergarten, reading research, vocabulary

How should children increase their vocabularies?

Posted on February 3, 2016 | Leave a comment

Research shows that a rich vocabulary is essential to reading comprehension. But are any methods of learning vocabulary better than others?

Yes. A 2010 survey of research about vocabulary acquisition by the National Reading Technical Assistance showed three ways are superior:

“Higher frequency of exposure to targeted vocabulary words will increase the likelihood that young children will understand and remember the meanings of new words and use them more frequently.” This means rereading The Three Little Pigs or a social studies chapter to a child three, four and five times has value in helping a child learn new vocabulary.

mother works with child reading story book

“Explicit instruction of words and their meanings increases the likelihood that young children will understand and remember the meanings of new words.” Your stopping to explain the meaning of a word helps a child to remember it. Learning words in the context of a story book or a science lesson helps students retain the meaning better than singling out a list of words, not in any context, for learning. Using multimedia, in addition to books, greatly helps ESL students to learn vocabulary and pronunciation.

“Questioning and language engagement enhance students’ word knowledge.” When a teacher or parent asks questions or comments on a new word, a child remembers that word better. Starting with easy questions and then building to more difficult questions helps too. While learning, the child should not be a passive listener; he needs to interact to retain vocabulary better.