How Can Parents Help Children to Learn

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How Can Parents Help Children to Learn?
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What is SIG?

• Grant Funded by OSEP
• Goal Increased Literacy for Students Pre-K
  through High School
• Professional Development
• Family Involvement

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Your workshop presenters are
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Supporting Childrens Learning

• Why are parents important in education?
• Important areas in Reading Research the five
  pillars
• How does reading develop and improve?
• How/why students struggle with reading
• Strategies for reading improvement

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Why are Parents Important in Their Children's
Education?

• What does the research say about the effect of
  family involvement?
• What is family involvement?
• Parenting
• Communicating
• Volunteering
• Learning at Home

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Building Blocks of Reading
Phonemic Awareness
Reading Ability
Vocabulary
Phonics
Comprehension
Fluency
Reading Readiness
Read
Listen
Print
Talk
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Phonemic Awareness

• A Phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a
  spoken word.
• Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear,
  identify, and manipulate the individual sounds in
  spoken words.
• cat how many phonemes?/c/ /a/ /t/
• cake how many phonemes? /c/ /a/ /k/
• manipulating sounds
• Beginning sounds - bat /b/ .
• Ending sounds - bat /t/
• Rhyming /b/ /a/ /t/ /c/ /a/ /t/
• Hearing syllables clapping, etc.

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Phonics

• Phonics is the predictable relationship between
  phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (letters).
• Systematic and explicit instruction
• Connecting sounds to symbols
• Consonants and vowels
• Combinations and patterns
• Assists in decoding efforts to make reading less
  of a struggle

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Fluency

• Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately,
  quickly, and with expression.
• Bridges word recognition and comprehension.
• Different than speed reading.
• Changes with stage of development, familiarity
  with words, amount of practice
• Ways to improve fluency
• Modeling good reading
• Repeated reading
• Adult-child reading
• Choral reading
• Tape-assisted reading
• Partner reading

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Vocabulary

• Vocabulary the words we use and understand in
  reading, listening, and writing. We have a harder
  time reading and understanding those words whose
  meaning we do not know.
• oral speaking and listening
• reading recognize in print
• Sometimes taught directly through word learning
  strategies like dictionary, word lists and parts,
  context clues
• However, most vocabulary is learned indirectly
  through everyday experiences
• talking, listening, reading
• repeated exposure to words read, write, say

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Comprehension

• Comprehension is understanding what we read. Its
  the reason for reading.
• Good readers think when they read
• Purposeful know why they are reading
• Use background knowledge decode, recall,
  compare
• Active think while reading
• Monitor comprehension and use strategies
• Identify where the difficulty occurs
• Identify what the difficulty is
• Restates in own words
• Look back through text
• Look forward for info that helps resolve
  difficulty
• Able to use graphic organizers
• Able to ask and answer questions
• Use prior knowledge, predict and summarize

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Example of importance of background knowledge
What do you need to know to read this recipe and
bake these brownies?
Recipe for Brownies 6 tablespoons Cocoa 1/4
cup butter 1 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt 1/3 cup flour 1 cup
toasted pecans (optional) 2 eggs Pour batter
into greased and floured pan. Bake at 350 for ½
hour.
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Literacy for All

• If your child has a disability, does that mean he
  or she shouldnt be working on reading and
  writing skills?
• Would you like to learn more about helping your
  child in those areas?
• Support and Training for Exceptional Parents
  (STEP)
• (800) 280-STEP
• and
• Family Voices of Tennessee 1-888-643-7811
• are two Tennessee organizations whose staff help
  parents of children with special needs. Call
  them for more information.

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Model Good Reading

• Read aloud - example
• Let them see you read
• Show children how to define the purpose for
  reading and to ask questions during reading
• Show how theres always more information to read
  about a subject

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Venn Diagram

• Similarities and Differences

The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
Different
Different
Similar
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Story Map
Main Characters
Setting
Problem of the story
A story event
Another story event
How the problem is solved
The ending
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KWL Chart
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Parents Role in Reading

• Provide support
• Read and have your child read get them thinking
  and talking
• Help them find interesting sources of reading
• Visit the library and other places give them
  background knowledge
• Dont make reading time at home a chore be
  positive - Now we get to read instead of You
  have to get your reading done.
• Read, read, read

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Recap
What can parents do to support their children's
learning? When do children start the learning to
read process? What are the five areas
researchers say are most important for learning
to read? What are some of the ways in which
children struggle with reading? How can we help
children in those areas?
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• Questions??

Please visit the SIG Website for more strategies
and ways to help your child improve reading
skills http//sig.cls.utk.edu/
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Toolkit Tools

• The following material can be downloaded at no
  cost from http//sig.cls.utk.edu/
• Toolkit Book Families Helping Children Become
  Better Readers
• PowerPoint Presentation
• Facilitators Guide