It doesn't matter what winter holiday you celebrate...there are lots of language rich activities you can do with your child this season. The holidays bring out excitement in children (and adults) of all ages. Spending time with family and friends to celebrate the season is a wonderful way to practice a variety of language concepts such as:
1. Crafts! There are so many different craft activities available online and at hobby stores. While you are crafting with your child, they are hearing new words (ornaments, candy canes, tinsel, garland, wreaths, sparkly, glowing, blinking, twinkling, fireplace, dreidel, menorah, festival, etc.) The following button will take you to a quick reference for some fun and easy crafts for the holidays. Making holiday cookies is a fun language rich activity. You will practice following directions such as "put one egg in the bowl", "pour the cup of flour in the bowel", etc. You will also be introducing new vocabulary: flour, vanilla, frosting, sprinkles, etc. Younger kids may learn new language concepts such as "hot", "roll", "cut", etc. Older kids may be given a little more independence to follow a recipe with limited or no guidance from the adult. Of course, the adult should be nearby to answer questions and supervise the activity while talking about the activity. Below is a link to some fun holiday cookie recipes. There are lots of other recipes available online too! Reading holiday books and watching holiday movies is a fun way to provide language interactions with your child! During and after the books and shows, asking your child questions about the main idea, details, prediction questions, and problem solving questions will spark deeper thinking. Also ask your child to retell or reread the story to you with or without the book. Ask your child what their favorite part of the story or movie was and why? The following are some suggested holiday books:
Do a Holiday Countdown. Either make an advent calendar or use one that you already have. Practice counting and using sentences. For example, "there are 14 more days until Christmas." or "this is the third night of Hanukkah." Holiday Mad Libs are fun! Here is a link to some quick print mad libs. Practice Sequencing by talking about and doing easy sequential activities such as:
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Phonemic Awareness, Phonological Awareness, Phonics...aren’t they the same thing? NO. Although it seems that they are the same, there are differences. When children learn to read, there is a continuum of skills that have to be developed. You can’t jump ahead in levels...you must first build the foundational skills before moving on. Let’s investigate these differences. Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate different sounds in spoken words. Phonemic Awareness is the foundation required to learn to read. Skills within this category include:
Phonological Awareness is the awareness of sounds in bigger units such as syllables and words. For example, understanding how many syllables are in a words, understanding that two letters make up one sound (sh), word families and rhymes, recognizing sounds in different parts of words (what sound is at the end of bat?). Skills in this category include:
Phonics is a teaching tool for reading. This focuses on the relationship between sounds and their spelling. So before teaching phonics and spelling, a child must first understand that specific letters make specific sounds (phonemic awareness) and then understand that several sounds go together to make syllables and words (phonological awareness). The first two steps are auditory skills. Phonics is both auditory and visual. Here is a great visual to help you understand the building blocks for reading: Despite these different focuses, phonics instruction and phonemic awareness instruction are connected. In fact, phonemic awareness is necessary for phonics instruction to be effective. Before students can use a knowledge of sound-spelling relationships to decode written words, they must understand that words (whether written or spoken) are made up of sounds. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that a word is made up of a series of discrete sounds. Without this insight, phonics instruction will not make sense to students.
How can parents reinforce these phonemic skills at home?
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