{"id":205,"date":"2009-08-21T21:23:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-21T21:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.wordpress.com\/2009\/08\/21\/10-fun-ways-to-get-kids-ready-to-read\/"},"modified":"2009-08-21T21:23:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-21T21:23:00","slug":"10-fun-ways-to-get-kids-ready-to-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/21\/10-fun-ways-to-get-kids-ready-to-read\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Fun Ways to Get Kids Ready to Read"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center;\"><em><span style=\"font-size:medium;\"><strong><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3498\/3755321266_6e2367ca55.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/><\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-size:medium;\"><strong><br \/>It&#8217;s back to school time, and the time of the year when parents are most prone to worrying about what their kids can and cannot do.&nbsp; If reading is a skill on your child&#8217;s horizon (or just a fairly new skill), here&#8217;s some fun ways to help make it easier.<\/strong><\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size:medium;\"><strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size:x-large;\">Cut<\/span> some paper into strips and write a letter on each one.&nbsp; Put a piece of tape or a sticker on top of each and ask your child to stick them to things that start with that letter.&nbsp; You may want to save tricky letters like Q or X for later!<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size:x-large;\">Dictate<\/span> lists and letters.&nbsp; Put your child in charge of writing up the grocery list or making up a wish list.&nbsp; Help her write a letter to Grandma or a thank you note.&nbsp; You can even help her write down her songs, dreams, stories or poems.&nbsp; Don&#8217;t worry about over-correcting backwards letters or crazy lines.&nbsp; Right now, the goal is to make it something she loves to do.&nbsp; Provide fun, colorful pens and paper to make it even more enticing.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size:x-large;\">Play<\/span> letter toss.&nbsp; Draw a large chalk grid (of anywhere from 9 to 20 squares) on the driveway or basement floor.&nbsp; Write a common letter in each square.&nbsp; Find a bean bag or make one by filling a child&#8217;s sock with dried rice or beans and tying it.&nbsp; Now take turns tossing the bean bag onto the grid and saying the letter name, the sound it makes and a word that starts with it.&nbsp; Make it trickier by saying a word that ends with the letter if you want to make it harder.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size:x-large;\">Go<\/span> on a scavenger hunt like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.magicalchildhood.com\/articles\/treasurehunt.htm\">this<\/a> and fill your list with lots of letters and easy words.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size:x-large;\">Read<\/span> <u>Hop on Pop<\/u> by Dr. Seuss.&nbsp; Lots.&nbsp; This was the single best book for all of my kids to learn to read.&nbsp; Dr. Seuss did such a great job of showing how letters work with this fun book.&nbsp; The words are large and change just a little bit, easily showing children how letters make up words in a totally funny way.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size:x-large;\">Play<\/span> rhyming games.&nbsp; Rhymes help children form mental connections that help them read.&nbsp; Take turns making up sets of rhymes while you&#8217;re in the car, make up silly poems together and so on.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size:x-large;\">Make<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.magicalchildhood.com\/crafts\/alphbooks.htm\">alphabet books<\/a> and use them for games together.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size:x-large;\">Play<\/span> this game, courtesy of Magical Mama Tiffany: <font face=\"Arial\"><b><i><font face=\"Book Antiqua\"><font size=\"+1\">Here&#8217;s something fun we did here. We called it &quot;treasure hunt.&quot;&nbsp; I hid a piece of candy under a hat.&nbsp; I used&nbsp; stickers with short words written on them as clues.&nbsp; I would put the wrong sticker on the item, eg, a CUP might have the word MAP on it.&nbsp; She had to read the word, find the correct place to stick the sticker.&nbsp; On that item would be another sticker etc. etc.&nbsp; She followed the &quot;clues&quot; until finding the HAT with the candy under it!!&nbsp; It was great fun and she had no idea she was reading!!!&nbsp; She keeps begging to do it again!!!!!<\/font><\/font><\/i><\/b><\/font><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size:medium;\"><span style=\"font-size:x-large;\">Read<\/span>,<strong> <\/strong>read, read together.&nbsp; Take time sometimes to trace words as you read them but don&#8217;t get caught up in teaching and take the fun out of reading.&nbsp; Books should be a fabulous treat, a source of fun and together time and neat stuff.&nbsp; Keep it fun and every book you read together will help make it easier for him to learn to do it on his own.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size:x-large;\">Be<\/span> patient.&nbsp; Children develop their skills on their own timetables.&nbsp; Little ones learn to walk, talk, potty train, ride a bike, read and all of the other milestones at their own unique times and it has no bearing on how well they eventually do these things.&nbsp; Trying to teach a child anything before he&#8217;s ready just frustrates everybody and takes the joy out of something inherently joyful.&nbsp; Believe in your child and make it easier for him.&nbsp; In the meantime, model the joy of reading and just have fun!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s back to school time, and the time of the year when parents are most prone to worrying about what their kids can and cannot do.&nbsp; If reading is a skill on your child&#8217;s horizon (or just a fairly new skill), here&#8217;s some fun ways to help make it easier. Cut some paper into strips&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[86,108,132,179,188],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}