Feeling the pinch to get through a whole book/chapter one night?
Too much to take it in one go?
How about taking a page from a book you know they can manage - cut up into sentences, words, or chunks and give it to them in pieces. In our case I just made some up along themes from the boys' nightly readers.
See what you can do with these words - can you make it make sense?
What kind of crazy combinations can you make?
If I read you the text coming up to this page does that change the order you will put it in?
Skills you will be developing in this activity:
- text literacy - capital letters go at the beginning of sentences, full stops come at the end... this kind of activity enforces basic conventions of narrative stories and information like speech always starting with a capital letter, speech marks...
- sight words - when the words are broken down sight words can easily be identified and trickier words separated out
- reading for sense - does this sentence work? Also engages basic editing in terms of checking for all the words you want or need and eliminating words that don't work.
- multiple reading - sentences will be read, re-read, re-ordered and re-read.
Remember without context the 'tricky' words will be trickier so be generous with clues/help because you want it to be fun and confidence building rather than defeating. Make it fun (and difficult) for yourself by drawing the word they don't know, acting it out, telling them rhyming words...
My boys totally enjoyed this and engaged with it independently as well as being open to assistance and discussion together.
At our place Flip's story was long but he loved it - the story he made was rather nonsense-ish and that made him laugh even more. He re-read it aloud to me several times, to Bounce, to the teddies and to Daddy when he got home. The sentences still worked but the story was crazy and we got a lot of reading aloud with no protests! Success.
Learning Together a series for primary aged children and their parents - activities that break up homework monotony, promote skills and create positive experiences together.
My boys totally enjoyed this and engaged with it independently as well as being open to assistance and discussion together.
At our place Flip's story was long but he loved it - the story he made was rather nonsense-ish and that made him laugh even more. He re-read it aloud to me several times, to Bounce, to the teddies and to Daddy when he got home. The sentences still worked but the story was crazy and we got a lot of reading aloud with no protests! Success.
Learning Together a series for primary aged children and their parents - activities that break up homework monotony, promote skills and create positive experiences together.
love you more than a spontaneous activity loved by the participants xxxx
