Beginning readers and older
children who learn
most easily through right-brained methods such as visuals,
body motions, and stories benefit from nontraditional teaching methods because traditional classrooms are
typically designed for left-brain dominant learners. One way to help
right-brained learners succeed is by using multisensory materials from the
beginning, and also using crucial helps for children who are struggling. The
Easy-for-Me™ Reading Program
incorporates many right-brained methods into teaching elemental building blocks
of reading, to ensure success for beginners and help struggling readers soar. We’ve
shared some of the research behind the materials as well as what is covered and
sample lessons below.
Easy-for-Me™ Multisensory Reading Phonics Curriculum Contains the Five Essential Components of Reading
1. Phonemic
Awareness
Because words are made of sounds, that is how we teach reading. Children
learn their sounds and then have a chance for extensive auditory practice in
every lesson. Every lesson is written so that the teacher has the activities
for each day already planned out. One reason this program is so successful with
children who struggled is because we rely so heavily on hearing sounds in words
rather than on remember sequences of symbols (letters) as we learn to read. For
right-brained learners and children with learning disabilities, this is
critical.
2. Phonics
Careful, in-depth phonics instruction forms the backbone of the Easy-for-Me™
Reading Curriculum. Instead of teaching letter sequences, the program focuses
on sound spellings so that every letter in a word is accounted for.
Patterns
are emphasized, as well as the context of the word within its
word family. For instance, when the children learn the sight word
"play," they also learn that AY says [sound of long] A, and that that
particular spelling pattern is found in all these words: day, say, may, lay,
jay, stay, spray, tray, etc. The sound spelling is colored so that it stands
out visually as a unit, showing that the sound is used in many other
words.
3. Vocabulary
Learning vocabulary is key. Starting in Lesson 1, children learn not only
their first sound, but also their first sight word. In introducing each sound,
eight illustrated words that begin with that sound are provided. The teacher
can use these in teaching vocabulary and also for ongoing initial sound
discrimination activities. Any new vocabulary is explained and is sometimes
illustrated for the teacher. For instance, when using the word family OG,
information about bogs and hogs are provided so the teacher can share these
tidbits of information with her class without having to do research on her own.
4. Fluency
From the very beginning of the curriculum, fluency is a critical goal. Children
not only are taught to scan text looking for patterns they have learned, but
they also are learning many words on sight, learning to use pictures to cue
their reading, and echo-reading with their teaching in learning phrasing and
expression. Every single skill the children learn is immediately placed within
sentences that are meaningful to them and that they can read!
5. Comprehension
Among the many resources provided for the teacher, comprehension activities
abound. Included are activities for word/picture match, initial sound/picture
match, sentence/picture match, story sequencing activities, etc.
Easy-for-Me™ is Research Based
We've done our research to discover how children learn best. We know they are tactile learners from the time they first notice their world. They learn via stories. They love patterns. They love to move! The disconnect is not in the area of our understanding how children learn naturally, the great crying need has been for an approach to teaching reading (and everything else!) that will take the information we know about how children naturally learn, and apply that knowledge to programs we design and use with our children. The beginning pages of the Teaching Manual lay out some of the research I read as I was in graduate school, studying everything I could find about how children learn. I was captivated by the notion that every child CAN learn. I came to believe the problem was not with the brains of our children who fail, but the system we use is what is lacking. Reading the experts on learning motivated me to search out ways to meet the needs of my students. Research provided a framework for me as I would leave class and return to my little short people... many of them not able to remember from one hour to the next a word we'd "learned." The passion became to discover how to apply our knowledge about children's brains to designing materials that turn on the "aha-lights" for all our children. There is nothing like it when you are witness to that moment with a child who had previously struggled to read.
Easy-for-Me™ is based on years of research with real children
I was blessed to have my own students to work with while I read the experts on how children learn. It was my task to figure out how to help them learn. If something did not work with all the kids, I would try something else. Only what made that "aha-light" come on stayed in the repertoire. The emergence of the notion of stylizing sight words came as a result of having a group of kids who could literally decode anything at age five (including words with ough in them!) and yet they could not do anything BUT decode! They decoded everything tediously, and none of us were enjoying the process! They had acquired the skill of decoding; not reading.
One day in my utter desperation, while trying to teach the word "help," I asked the kids, "What does this word LOOK like to you?" One child answered, "It looks like someone in the water raising their arms and yelling HELP!" Quite true. Help does look like that when you write the word all in lowercase: help. The h and the l are the arms.
For the next months, I worked through a word at a time with these kindergarteners, asking "What does this word look like" and then stylizing them on my computer. Next day I'd show them the word and get their okay or their suggestions on how to improve the word so they could really remember it. This process started in December. By April, those same children were able to fluently recognize sight words through 3rd grade. Of course, this success led to other experiments that utilized similar principles of teaching and learning. Now, teaching to the child's brain has become second nature: all because of what those children taught me about what helps them the most.Some
adults fear the new visual, fun thing we are doing, saying that these visuals
and patterns are crutches that children will
not be able to do without, or
maybe it is like cheating! But what these materials do is take the work out of
learning, provide visual and kinesthetic hooks for recall, and allow a lot
of children experience success who would not have otherwise. Whenever I have
been greatly surprised that a student knew a word in his reading, I would ask,
"HOW did you know that word?" Invariably the answer was that that
word had the picture of ..... with it.
In the sample page below, fingermapping is introduced. Fingermapping is a simple tool I discovered works wonders with children who simply cannot seem to know the order letters go in a word. Little ones who omit the middle vowel, or middle schoolers who leave letters out, substitute letters, or reverse sounds.... all this melts away when you fingermap.
Easy-for-Me™ Closes the Gaps for Learners
Teachers also say "this is easy for me!" because we include many helps for teaching concepts that children may find difficult to remember. This is a sample "poster" that you may use in teaching and then post in the classroom. There are posters for remembering how to spell OU and OW, for distinguishing between ME and MY and much more.
Easy-for-Me™ Is a Careful Blend of Sight Words and Phonics Instruction
Kids need instruction in both sight words recognition and extensive phonics skills. We start on day one teaching both, so that by Lesson 20, the child can read his first book! This practice will PREVENT problems for kids who cannot just decode, kids who can ONLY decode, kids who struggle with collections of symbols. The marriage of phonics and sight word learning via visuals and motions is like a magic trick for learning. The process of learning to read truly is easier and for sure it is more fun for teacher and child!
Easy-for-Me™ Uses Structural Analysis of Sight Words to Drive Phonics Instruction
Advanced sound spellings are introduced and taught when that spelling pattern appears in a sight word. For instance, long A spelling pattern AY is taught, and a list of words is generated when the lesson includes the sight word PLAY. In Lesson 66 (below), a sight word taught is ARE, so the concept of Bossy R (R controlled vowels) is introduced. Every time a new sound spelling is taught, children are directed immediately to "real text" such as newspapers or magazines or books to search for other words that follow that pattern. When children understand that a sequence of letters is going to show up many many times in their reading, the whole task of learning to read will not seem so difficult. Although there are myriad spellings, there is a very limited number of sound spellings. For this reason, using the skills of sound awareness (words are made of them! not letter names) and the skill of knowing the sound spellings, the process of reading is greatly demystified for the child.
Easy-for-Me™ Supports the Teacher in Small Group Instruction
Teaching in small groups maximizes learning for all children for many reasons. The teaching can be planned to match the needs of the group, focus and attention is ensured, teacher will be able to observe needs and abilities much more readily, each child will be able to practice the skills taught, and the teacher will be able to listen to each child read. We have made the format of our lessons with the goal in mind of taking a lot of the work out of teaching in small groups by providing a plan and reproducible resources for the busy teacher to use. See centers in lessons below.
Easy-for-Me™ Provides Skills Tracking Forms and Assessments
We have a skills tracking form for each of the three sections in the Teaching Manual. These serve as easy-to-use records on each child, and best of all, when it is report card time, just photocopy the page and send it home to the parents so they will see specifically how their child is doing!
What I love about the skill tracking form is that the focus becomes "what do I need to re-teach or teach in a new way so that this gap is filled for Johnny?" The focus turns away from just getting through the lesson, and towards bringing EVERY child into success.
Easy-for-Me™ Provides 180 Pages of Reproducible Resources
Activities for centers, cross-curricular activities and information, comprehension activities, reading follow-up, picture cards for each letter of the alphabet, story sequencing, games, and so much more. Every lesson has resources provided!
There are not only activities for teaching sight words, but there are word wall activities, and comprehension activities. Having the Easy-for-Me™ Teaching Manual is like having two whole books in one.
It hasn't been that long since I was in the classroom, so I can remember vividly some of the challenges I had as I tried to provide meaningful and useful activities to the children in my classroom. First of all, I had a wide range of ability levels, had many children with learning challenges, and had several ESL students. There was no way I was going to ever be able to do lesson plans for my class and expect to reach all the learners - unless I planned for all the different needs represented in my room. I remember being bedeviled by the suspicion that as I searched for materials to use (we had very little provided to us in terms of curriculum), I was very likely omitting some really important reading skills that I should cover.
The
National Reading Panel Report has identified
five areas of skill that must be
addressed in order to produce successful readers. Those five areas appear on
the flower petals in the image to the right: phonemic awareness, phonics,
vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. I add the skill of writing as I believe
that what a child is learning to read, he or she also needs to learn to write.
Because of the importance of this research and knowing how stressful it was for me to be sure I was covering all the important skills, I worked to create a resource that addressed all these areas, while meeting the needs of visual, right-brained learners who rely on patterns, visuals, and hands-on means of learning for success. The Reading Teacher’s Encyclopedia is a comprehensive resource that is full of fun activities that provide necessary practice with the five essential components of reading. The book contains activities on five difficulty levels that correspond to the five lists of SnapWords™, while each list is also divided into five sections of activities based on difficulty. Simply print or photocopy the activity that meets your students' reading needs to provide them with valuable practice. Activities include ABC ordering, reading assessment, vocabulary bingo, vocabulary crossword puzzles, fill-in-the-blank, go fish, illustrate the sentence, making phrases, making sentences, making words, picture cards, sentence unscramble, sound manipulation, word searches, word sort, word wall games, and a write about it section.
I’d recommend using the 306 SnapWords™ set along with The Reading Teacher’s Encyclopedia as the Encyclopedia guides you through teaching 10-12 words at a time while incorporating phonics, writing, comprehension, etc.
How to Teach SnapWords™
I recommend
displaying one group of words at
a time in a pocket chart visually accessible
to the children at all times. Use the games and activities in The Reading
Teacher’s Encyclopedia as the children learn and practice their reading skills.
When they have learned one group of words, put the plain version on your word
wall and display the next group of words in the pocket chart. You will be
amazed at how quickly the children learn! Following are the words taught in
each of the 25 levels.
List A
Group 1:
a, and, at, by, go, in, is, me, no, not, on, the
Group 2:
do, he, help, I, it, my, now, or, see, sit, to, up
Group 3:
big, but, can, down, get, has, like, out, play, so, stop, will
Group 4:
call, come, did, for, here, little, look, said, this,
want, we, you
Group 5:
an, are, as, back, have, hi, his, if, jump, make, ran
List B
Group 1:
am, ask, be, cut, got, him, into, its, let, run, us, yes
Group 2:
away, from, funny, may, must, of, put, say, that, them,
they, went
Group 3:
any, fly, just, last, many, she, show, than, try, what, when, why
Group 4:
ate, fast, good, our, pull, saw, sing, then, too, took,
who, with
Group 5:
about, all, eat, gave, new, read, still, take, tell,
work, your
List C
Group 1:
after, bring, cold, going, giving, had, her, hold, man,
old, told, was
Group 2:
began, better, far, find, kind, never, next, off, over,
soon, under, were
Group 3:
another, came, give, live, made, oh, other, ride, there, think, very, where
Group 4:
around, before, found, how, know, more, much, own, pick,
these, those, which
Group 5:
again, day, didn't, does, don't, first, gone, hard, long,
some, walk
List D
Group 1:
across, best, both, fall, full, hot, I'm, left, most,
open, same, yet
Group 2:
always, clean, high, keep, light, might, need, right,
small, upon, well
Group 3:
animal, close, even, every, leave, mean, myself, near, sleep, use, while
Group 4:
been, draw, grow, hurt, only, round, short, start, today,
turn, warm
Group 5:
buy, could, done, goes, laugh, once, pretty, should,
their, would
List E
Group 1:
basement, clapped, drink, father, playmate, prize, stove,
stuck, thank, wash, wish
Group 2:
because, bicycle, company, flapping, giggle, hitch,
imagine, passenger, stumbled, willing
Group 3:
careful, carry, certainly, decide, hundred, husband, together, toward,
twice, write
Group 4:
breath, heard, indeed, instant, mother, pleasant, please,
pleasure, tomorrow, wonderful
Group 5:
accident, different, enough, it's, realized, shall,
struggled, thought, through, whole
Getting Started
1) For each section (there are 25 in all), find the word walls first and display them in a pocket chart clearly visible to all your students. If you want to jump-start your class, use the SnapWords™ in a pocket chart and post the supplied words in a word wall.
2) Print
off the reading assessment and have it
ready on a clipboard to use in your
small groups as you finish each section. Have each child read as far as he/she
can in a minute; record the date and how many words the child read. If you make
a copy of each child’s assessment, it would be great to share with parents
during parent-teacher conference time.
3) With your lesson planner in front of you, lay out plans for 2 weeks at a time. Divide the activities into groups: teacher-led, independent center, whole class games, partner or small group games, writing etc. Record in your planner which days and times you will use each activity.
4) Any activity that is recorded on paper would make a great contribution to a student portfolio. It would be so easy to tell how each child is doing, where he/she needs more support, and how parents could reinforce their child’s learning at home.
5) When you have determined that all your students know that group of words, post them on the word wall in ABC order and take out the next group of words.
A month ago, we received the following email from a customer who believed that her son was bright even though he was struggling in school.
“My son is 6 and in K, the staff is suggesting he suffers from auditory processing, however; my belief is that he is smart and right-brained... I know he is smart so I am frustrated at this point and will not let the school give him a label that does not fit or isn't even age appropriate at this time. In addition, my son has great comprehension skills and pays very close attention to detail. He states he gets 'bored' in school.”
After trying the SnapWords™ cards with him, this mother was able to explain so well how her active child responded to the images and body motions included with the SnapWords™ sight word cards.
“My sister printed off the try
before you buy SnapWords and [my child] responded very well to the pictures and
the motions. I explained to my
son why he is smart and explained the
camera to him. He looks at the SnapWord, explains what he
sees, takes a mental picture, and then closes his eyes to recall the
picture. Then we go through the SnapWord cards again. When I turned
them over today to do the side without the pictures, he had a bit of a struggle. I then reminded him to do the motion and that was helpful. For instance,
when he sees "laugh" he will say "funny," then I remind him
to do the motion and then he will say, "oh, it's laugh!"
Then yesterday the customer updated us about her son’s progress.
“I purchased the first pack of SnapWord cards and find them very effective! My son enjoys the pictures on the cards and continues to take pictures with his camera in his mind. I have another meeting with the school staff tomorrow morning and I anticipate a positive meeting this time as my son has been bringing home tests with high scores and has recently received a 100 percent!”
I love that this mother was able to articulate so clearly how her son learns and was willing to try something different and nontraditional to meet him where he was.
Update: "The meeting went much better than the previous meetings. My son had completed an individual test that was not timed, he only missed one or two questions. They did not mention auditory processing again and admitted that the only issue was on the web test that is timed with only 60 seconds to answer. I showed the teacher the SnapWord cards and she stated she tries to include motions when teaching the class, but she then explained that she has to do so much testing during class time that she has very little time left to actually teach. The plan for the summer is to continue with the SnapWord cards, I plan to eventually have the entire set, I also plan to purchase items related to math. We will continue to practice over the summer and hopefully 1st grade will be a different experience...The entire experience was stressful, but I'm thankful that it encouraged me to do research on learning that led me to your website. Thank you for all of your help and time!!"
Kudos to this mother for standing up for her son and his learning strengths/needs!
Keeping the term “right-brained” from becoming the next cliché or fad in education
It has been on my
mind to dive into this topic
for quite some time now, considering that the term
“right-brained” is all over our blog, website, and products. If we should want
to be super-technical, saying that our products are right-brained is completely
misleading! If that were the case, there would be no symbols in any of our
products, no numbers, no letters, and no words! All we would have would be
color, images, patterns, rhythm, and so forth.
To say our focus is on right-brained learners is completely accurate, but to say that our products are right-brained, not so much. That term is just shorthand for saying that our products are FOR right-brained learners: are designed to marry the functioning of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. To simplify, we have taken to just calling them right-brained.
For example: Right-Brained
Addition & Subtraction (or Right-Brained
Place Value or Right-Brained
Multiplication & Division.) What we really should name our first
Right-Brained math book is this: An Approach to
Addition & Subtraction for Right-Brained Learners that Integrates the
Functions of the Left Hemisphere with the Primary Functions of the Right
Hemisphere, which are the Right-Brained Learners’ Primary Areas of Strength.
But if we attempted to name a book that way, we would run out of real estate on
which to print such a title.
What does it mean to integrate left and right hemispheres in the learning process?
Let’s paint a scenario. Say you have a child who is
obviously bright and creative, quick-witted, and sociable. Let’s also say that
wonderful child is really having a hard time in kindergarten, cannot seem to remember letters and their
sounds, or if they were successful with
learning their sounds (possibly because
they were embedded into a chant or song) they are now seemingly unable to
progress much further than that. They have trouble sounding out words, or if
they do laboriously sound them out, they cannot remember having seen the word
10 minutes later. Say we conclude the bright, witty, creative child is actually
right-brained dominant because he or she comes out with the most off the wall
ideas, can draw amazing pictures, loves to make things with his/her hands, or is
talented with anything that involves movement.
IF we have concluded the child is dominant right-brained, would it help him or her if we laboriously translated everything strictly into pictures? Kind of a picture sign language of sorts? Or would that serve to further weaken the functioning of their left hemisphere, the hemisphere of their brain that deals with symbols, procedure, rules, steps and all those intangibles that school is made of.
Our goal is to strengthen left hemisphere functionality by using right-brained elements to convey left-brained concepts
How does this happen?
What we are doing is actually enlisting the aid of the right-brained talents
and putting them to use to help left-brained concepts come to life. BOTH
hemispheres are working at the same time. To get really technical, we are
strengthening communication and collaboration of the hemispheres in learning.
This can be done just like we can strengthen any muscle in our body through
repeated use. This is the wonderful news!
The corpus callosum (see diagram at left) is like a bridge, a communication network between the various regions in the brain. The more we develop the networks between the hemispheres, the more and more information will travel between the hemispheres.
This is so great! Look at the functions labeled in the drawing. There is hearing, touch, speech, spatial visualization, language and mathematics, and calculation. When we set a task before our young children, the best outcomes result when they are drawing from multiple regions in the brain. If, for example, we take one of those pesky sight words (left hemisphere) and embed it in a picture (right hemisphere), and add a body motion and sentence, we are causing multiple regions in the brain to fire at one time. Is it not amazing how rich the learning experience becomes?
What if the communication via the corpus callosum is weak?
This is a reality for many children! If you have a child you have attempted to teach to read (for example) and he or she is just not getting it, it is not because he or she doesn’t have the capacity to learn. It is likely that communication in the brain can be strengthened, and there is help!
1. Get plenty of the right physical activity. Notice that the left hemisphere controls functions on the right side of the body and vice versa. Any activity that comes naturally to children who have plenty of free time to play will help strengthen the corpus callosum. Running, crawling, going hand over hand on the monkey bars, jumping in a way that your left leg goes out as your right arm goes up in the air, using your right arm to reach around in front of your body to grab something, marching as you swing your arms opposite of how your feet are going, dribbling a soccer ball to the goal in the back yard, and so many more!
Research shows
that a
large percentage of
children learn in visual and kinesthetic ways, while
much about our traditional classrooms is designed for those left-brain dominant
learners. One way to prevent failure for right-brained learners is by using multisensory materials from the beginning,
and also provide much-needed helps for those children who are struggling. Comments that we hear often are written below in orange, while our recommendations are arranged by educational
setting.
The child needs to learn basic sounds or is unsure of basic sounds.
Since words are made of sounds, it is essential to have a solid foundation in letter/sound relationships. Frequently, vowel sounds present the biggest difficulty.
Homeschool
Easy-for-Me™
Teaching Kit (EFM-TK)
The EFM Teaching Kit
empowers you to reach
diverse learning styles, and is especially effective in
closing gaps for children who aree missing basic skills or are
beginners. The non-consumable kit includes:
· EFM Teaching Manual & CD
· Alphabet Tales
· SnapLetters™ Teaching Cards
· SnapWords™ Teaching Cards (97 words in all)
· Easy-for-Me™ Books, Set A (22 titles)
· How to Teach SnapWords™
· Writing the Visual, Kinesthetic, and Auditory Alphabet
Grades: K - 1st.
Support at Home
Alphabet Tales (ABC-S)
Each tale tells a
story about how the letter came to have its shape and sound, creating an/ unforgettable
learning experience. Embedding learning in stories makes it nearly impossible
for any child to forget the all-important story content. Charming full-color
illustrations enhance this learning/story time for all types of learners. 111 pages,
softcover.
New, updated edition.
Classroom
SnapLetters™
Kit (ABC-Kit)
This
convenient kit contains everything you
need to give your students a
solid base in letter recognition, sound/symbol correlation, and writing, all
taught through visuals, stories, and body motion.
Kit includes:
· Alphabet Tales
· SnapLetters™ Display Alphabet
· SnapLetters™ Teaching Cards
· Alphamats, 24-pack
· Writing the Visual, Kinesthetic, and Auditory Alphabet
The child needs to learn more sounds and their spelling patterns.
One of the main reasons children struggle with reading is that they are unaware of the patterns in spelling that are found in the words in our language. Boost their phonics skills and their spelling at one time.
Homeschool
We completed the Easy-for-Me™ Reading Program. NOW WHAT?
The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their
Spelling Patterns (STSP)
Reproducible, kid-friendly, ready to teach, leveled,
non-consumable.
A perfect "next product" to follow the Easy-for-Me™ Reading program.
Use in conjunction with
· The Reading Teacher's Encyclopedia
· SnapWords™
Sight word recognition, spelling, phonics and
reading skills are all included.
Grades: 2-3.
Support at Home
The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns (STSP)
The right
brained approaching to teaching reading in 20 minutes a day - for
kindergarten through adult.
You can help your
child improve his reading (word attack) and spelling at home in 15 minutes
a day.
Classroom
The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns (STSP)
The right brained approaching to teaching
reading in 20 minutes a day - for kindergarten through adult.
Reproducible, kid-friendly,
ready to teach, leveled, non-consumable.
The child can't seem to remember words; it is as though he/she's never seen them before.
OR
The child tries to sound out every word he/she comes
to.
Many children can't "just remember" words. They need a visual or body movement (or both) to help them remember. Using SnapWords™ will not only smooth this out, but will also greatly enhance reading comprehension!
Homeschool
Help at Home Kit (SW-HS)
Don't need a whole
reading program? The Help
at Home Kit contains 306 SnapWords™ cards that teach
sight words instantly through visuals and motions – great for visual/tactile
learners. Follow up learning sight words with our Sight
Words in Sentences(included), which provides practice reading sight
words in real sentences. Also includes How to Teach SnapWords™.
Support at Home
Help at Home Kit (SW-HS)
Take the pressure off
and enjoy the process of helping your child learn to read. The Help at Home Kit
contains 306 SnapWords™ cards that teach sight words instantly through visuals
and motions – great for visual/tactile learners. Follow up learning sight words
with our Sight Words in Sentences(included),
which provides practice reading sight words in real sentences. Also includes How to Teach SnapWords™.
Classroom
SnapWords™
Teaching Cards (SW6071)
SnapWords™ Cards are
essentials for teaching sight word recognition. The images embedded into each
word ensure that children gain a rich sight word vocabulary as easily as a
camera snapping a picture and storing it in memory. The reverse of each card
displays the word without a visual and describes a hand motion for the word.
This complete set contains over 600 words, including 220 Dolch words,
500 Fountas & Pinnell most frequently recurring words, 300 Fry
instant words and some extra high frequency words. 5.5” wide by 4.25”.
The child is below grade level in reading. Reading is a chore and he/she struggles with unknown words.
Two helps for this situation include a strong sight word vocabulary and a good sound spelling background.
Homeschool, Support at Home, Special Needs
Help at Home Kit (SW-HS)
Take the pressure off
and enjoy the process of helping your child learn to read. The Help at Home Kit
contains 306 SnapWords™ cards that teach sight words instantly through visuals
and motions – great for visual/tactile learners. Follow up learning sight words
with our Sight Words in Sentences(included),
which provides practice reading sight words in real sentences. Also
includes How to Teach SnapWords™.
The Book of Sounds & Their Spelling
Patterns (STSP)
All sounds are taught with all of their possible
spellings to prevent confusion, to maximize vocabulary acquisition, and enhance
the students' abilities to read unknown words.
Includes:
· 55 units on varying levels of difficulty
· Taught through cartoons and humorous sentences that tie related words
together.
· Includes other concepts such as plurals, homophones, past tense, complex
endings and more.
· 128 reproducible pages require no prep.
· Related Sound Spelling Teaching Cards
make sound spelling patterns unforgettable.
At home or at school, simply follow the included sequence of lessons, going at the student's pace.
I suspect the child will benefit from a reading program that has all the right-brained helps included for me.
If the child responds well to the sample words with visuals and body movement, doubtless he will benefit from a program that teaches all concepts in the same way. Best of all, the helps are done for you!
Homeschool, Beginners, or Special Needs
Easy-for-Me™ Teaching Kit (EFM-TK)
The EFM Teaching Kit empowers you to reach a diverse
group of learning styles while ensuring that no child is left out. The program
is especially effective in closing gaps for children who have missed out
on basic skills. The non-consumable kit includes:
· EFM Teaching Manual & CD
· Alphabet Tales
· SnapLetters™ Teaching Cards
· SnapWords™ Teaching Cards (97 words in all)
· Easy-for-Me™ Books, Set A (22 titles)
· How to Teach SnapWords™
· Writing the Visual, Kinesthetic, and Auditory Alphabet
Grades K - 1.
The child encounters many words he/she doesn't know when reading. I would like books for reading practice as he/she learns the sight words.
To enhance your child's success rate, use books that contain words he knows how to read.
Homeschool & Support at Home
Easy-for-Me™ A Books (CFDB-A22)
The Easy-for-Me™ series of readers is unique because of the carefully designed
combination of phonics concepts and sight words
that ensures every reader will
be reached. Use the teaching tips provided to prepare your students for success
before reading. The teaching tips detail specific sight words used in the book
as well as phonics concepts children will need to know. Nothing is left for the
teacher to do past following the directions to ensure that all the gaps are
filled that might cause a child to stumble and fail. Easy-for-Me™ Books are
designed to be read in sequence as they build on each other and gradually
increase in difficulty. Each set of 8 books has 22 titles. These decodable
readers are perfect for providing reading practice after children learn sight
word vocabulary using SnapWords™ cards and sounds using SnapLetters™ cards.
Easy-for-Me™ B Books (CFDB-B22)
The Easy-for-Me™ Set B covers sight words from List B
(59
words), long vowel spellings, digraphs, past tense, -ing endings, diphthongs, and
so much more. These decodable readers are perfect for providing reading
practice after children learn sight word vocabulary using SnapWords™ cards and
sounds using SnapLetters™ cards. B Books pick up where A Books leave off.
"If you are a strong auditory
learner, it means that in most circumstances you need to hear yourself
say it in order to effectively
commit it to
memory."
Cynthia Ulrich Tobias, M.Ed.
Child1st addresses the needs of the auditory learner in our Easy-for-Me™ Reading Program by making sure that when children are learning, they are also sounding or reading out loud. One of the most powerful strategies in this program is the daily practice called “Quick Draw.” In this game, children utilize all three main modalities: auditory, tactile, and visual. Children who rely on hearing their voices as they learn thrive with this approach.
Read more about Quick Draw.
Why is a multisensory teaching approach best and what does one look like?
What does it really mean when we say multisensory? The
accepted, traditional teaching techniques typically used in the classroom meet
the needs of (left-brained) sequential learners. Concepts are introduced in a
step by
step sequence and are practiced and reviewed using drill and
memorization; children must also show evidence of their learning in a
particular time frame. This is all very good for children who are left-brained
or sequential learners. The problem is, of course, that while the approach to
teaching is great for those children who are sequential, every learner is
taught this way and this traditional approach is ineffective at best for all
the non-sequential learners.
Try before you buy: FREE SnapWords™ to download
We have free samples of our sight word cards available for download on our website. Try them out with your students before investing in the complete resources!
List of sight words for kindergarten (and up) to download
We’ve created an index of which sight words are in each of our lists so you can compare to which words your child already knows or your district requirements and see which lists would be the best fit for you.
Resources for parents/teachers of auditory learners:
The Sound of Learning: Why Self-Amplification Matters by Timothy Rasinski
The Way They Learn by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias
A Mind at a Time by Mel Levine, M.D.Children who are active and learn most easily through
movement need to have some helps since it takes a lot of concentrated focus
to
get through the tasks usually associated with reading. Snippets of information,
learned through visuals and movements, prove most successful. Kinesthetic
learners typically prefer hands-on learning and activities that let them make
things. Their attention will follow their hands. Child1st addresses the needs
of the kinesthetic learner by incorporating hand and body motions in every
concept taught.
Is my child a kinesthetic learner?
Kinesthetic learners learn best when they are moving. If they are using their hands and bodies in learning, their attention will be focused right on the learning they are doing. Conversely, if they are expected to sit very still and pay attention and listen, success will not follow. The more they have to sit still, the less they can focus and learn!
What are the strengths of the kinesthetic learner?
Common Strengths of Gestalt Learners
What are some good teaching strategies for kinesthetic learners?
A small study of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder last year found that walks outdoors appeared to improve scores on tests of attention and concentration. Notably, children who took walks in natural settings did better than those who walked in urban areas, according to the report, published online in August in The Journal of Attention Disorders. The researchers found that a dose of nature worked as well as a dose of medication to improve concentration, or even better.
(Taken from a NY Times article by Tara Parker-Pope)
I was very happy to read about this study. I think the topic cannot be emphasized enough. At some point, however, you have to bring the child back into a formal classroom, and there will still be difficulties around focus.
Using Movement in
Learning
When I was in graduate school, excited to learn how to teach in a way that would result in a better learning rate for children, I kept hearing people talk about incorporating movement in learning activities in order to benefit tactile and kinesthetic learners. I was curious about that, so I kept my eyes and ears open to see what I could learn.
Why is a multisensory teaching approach best and what does one look like?
What does it really mean when we say multisensory? The accepted, traditional teaching techniques typically used in the classroom meet the needs of (left-brained) sequential learners. Concepts are introduced in a step by step sequence and are practiced and reviewed using drill and memorization; children must also show evidence of their learning in a particular time frame. This is all very good for children who are left-brained or sequential learners. The problem is, of course, that while the approach to teaching is great for those children who are sequential, every learner is taught this way and this traditional approach is ineffective at best for all the non-sequential learners.
Try before you buy: FREE SnapWords™ to download
We have free samples of our sight word cards available for download on our website. Try them out with your students before investing in the complete resources!
List of sight words for kindergarten (and up) to download
We’ve created an index of which sight words are in each of our lists so you can compare to which words your child already knows or your district requirements and see which lists would be the best fit for you.
Resources for parents/teachers of active learners:
Your Active Child by Rae Pica
A Running Start by Rae Pica
Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World by Jeffrey FreedA visual-spatial learner is a student who learns holistically (all at once) rather than in a step-by-step fashion. Pictures, whether printed or imagined, play an important role in the learning process. Because the child is processing primarily in pictures rather than words, ideas are interconnected, and the child must not be rushed and should be judged on how well he/she can put into words what he/she sees.
When you use SnapWords™ for learning high-frequency words, the brain snaps a picture of the word and easily recalls it later when the child no longer sees the image.
Is my child a visual learner?
As a parent, you naturally want to provide the best learning
experience for your child. You’ve doubtless heard a lot about the various
learning styles and how they might impact how your child learns, but you also
might wonder how much of it is relevant to your situation. If your child is
sailing through learning reading and math, likely not much of the learning
styles discussion would impact you and your family. However, if your child is
struggling with learning the basic skills, looking at learning styles might be
important. In particular, visual-spatial learners tend to face learning
difficulties because traditional curricula are designed for a different type of
learner.
What are the strengths of the visual learner?
Common Strengths of Gestalt Learners:
What are some good teaching strategies for visual learners?
Many visual learners must see the whole picture before they
can make sense out of a single detail. They have to see each detail fitting
into the whole and see the relationship between all the parts. Any detail not
located within the map – not related to other details – becomes a serious distraction.
When presented with details they don’t know how to deal with, visual learners
can come to an abrupt, stammering halt. They appear to be absolutely dim and
incapable of grasping what seems amazingly simple to their sequential peers.
Thinking in whole pictures is actually a wonderful ability – it is just not
appreciated in traditional lessons.
Are there many children who learn best through pictures?
The same applies to different types of learners. We have come to the point in our society where every child seems to need a label and one that details specifically how he learns or doesn’t learn. We have visual learner, tactile learner, dyslexic learner, autistic, and many many other labels. The implication is that each of those types of learners requires a specific set of directions for how to teach them successfully. In doing research, however, and as I have read the experts in each of the most common areas of disability, one element keeps on showing up: the fact that so many of these non-traditional learners learn best through pictures and hands-on lessons.
Helping visual learners with reading comprehension.
One of the constants in classrooms across the country is the sight word list. Every teacher has a list and one of her important tasks is to get her children to learn all the words on the list. I remember paying a lot of attention to sight word acquisition when I was in the classroom; after all, we had testing every quarter and a big component of each test was sight word recognition. The children who had become very fluent in instantly being able to call the words as they flashed before their eyes scored highest on their testing. Those children who preferred to think a bit, to make sure they were saying the right word, or who needed to look for clues to help them remember, well, they scored lower. At any rate, it was something we all focused on quite a bit.
Why is a multisensory teaching approach best and what does one look like?
What does it really mean when we say multisensory? The accepted, traditional teaching techniques typically used in the classroom meet the needs of (left-brained) sequential learners. Concepts are introduced in a step by step sequence and are practiced and reviewed using drill and memorization; children must also show evidence of their learning in a particular time frame. This is all very good for children who are left-brained or sequential learners. The problem is, of course, that while the approach to teaching is great for those children who are sequential, every learner is taught this way and this traditional approach is ineffective at best for all the non-sequential learners.
Free games and activities for teaching sight words
We have free samples of many of our sight word games and other resources available for download on our website. Try them out with your students before investing in the complete resources!
Try before you buy: FREE SnapWords™ to download
We have free samples of our sight word cards available for download on our website. Try them out with your students before investing in the complete resources!
List of sight words for kindergarten (and up) to download
We’ve created an index of which sight words are in each of our lists so you can compare to which words your child already knows or your district requirements and see which lists would be the best fit for you.
Testimonial:
“I just have to say how thrilled I am with the Snap Word cards! I just figured out my homeschooled 6-year-old daughter is a right-brained and visual learner. We have been using sight word flash cards for about a year with the curriculum we are using and she was just "not getting it". The words were not soaking in. We would drill the flashcards over and over and she'd memorize a few of them, but when I would show her the same words in the context of a reader, she would act like she had never seen the words. I was starting to get so frustrated and then I happened upon your website and saw the Snap Word cards. I ordered all of them and I just can't believe how quickly my daughter is now "getting it"! It's as if a light bulb has been turned on in her head! We are already! almost through the first set and usually I just have to show her the side with the drawing only once and she has it! I am AMAZED! And now, she is picking those words out in the books we read together. It's as if her mind takes a snapshot of the drawing side and then it's easy! Even later in the evening when we're reading books and she sees one of those words, she will actually say the little saying on the back of the card and I can tell she is visualizing the card and and then the word appears in her mind. AMAZING! Thank you so much. I am so glad I discovered the Snap Words cards!”Recent years have brought an
increased emphasis on teaching school content to younger and younger children.
While this is not the primary work of toddlers, there are wonderful
developmentally-appropriate ways to introduce
letters, sounds, and numbers to
toddlers. The really young learn most readily through pictures, stories,
music, games, and a whole lot of hands-on play. Read more about how visuals and play can bring learning
success for very young children.
I believe that the most successful learning takes place when an environment is prepared with such careful thought that when a child enters that environment, he automatically begins to absorb concepts without anyone instructing him and without even realizing that he’s learning. This kind of learning environment is perfect for any child but most of all for the very young.
Some specific elements work well to create a natural learning experience for little tots, a learning experience that is not only effective but is fun and easy for you as the teacher!
Song. If you want your little tot to learn a specific procedure (very important), put it to music. When I was little we used to sing “This is the way we wash our hands, wash our hands, wash our hands. This is the way we wash our hands so early in the morning.” You can replace “wash our hands” with whatever you are teaching at the moment. If you encourage the child to mimic what you are doing while you sing, you will be modeling for her how you do the particular job, and she will be practicing the skill as you sing.
Visuals. We’ve all heard that a picture is worth 1,000 words and wow is that true! A visual can convey so much in the time it takes a child to take a look. Pictures and images make use of visual memory where the picture and all its details are stored intact. Memorable images often can be recalled many years later in minute detail, carrying with them any learning concepts that were embedded in them. Combine a visual with song or story and you have a doubly effective teaching method.
Story. Stories can be considered childhood’s language. Children are natural storytellers, they think of their lives in terms of story. The story line or plot is the glue that holds all the elements of the story together. If you want your little one to remember a sequence of events or steps in a procedure, make up a story that links all the pieces together. Combine a story sequence with images to make an even more effective learning experience.
Touch. Very young children learn about the world through their senses—sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste. They pick up cues about natural characteristics of objects in their world; they learn about things that are soft or hard, heavy or light, smooth or rough, hot or cold, sweet or sour, and so forth. They learn about shape, what happens when you drop something, what “round” means and how round objects behave. They learn so much that becomes background for formal learning later in life. The richer the sensory background, the broader the store of prior knowledge and understanding the child will bring to school.
Now that we’ve talked about some elements that help the very young connect with learning, what are some specific learning tools for that age group that use these elements? Especially designed for the very young, our stylized alphabet is the easiest way for children to connect letter symbols with the sounds of the letters. Pull up the rocking chair and enjoy the Alphabet Tales together, and as a wonderful by-product to cuddle time your child will permanently link the images of the letters with their sounds.
Once the children are comfortable
with the alphabet shapes and sounds, our SnapWords™ Numbers and Colors Teaching Cards and SnapWords™
Nouns 1 Teaching Cards are perfect ways to introduce young children
to basic sight words, while keeping with the laid-back, fun approach that was
started with Alphabet Tales. The Numbers
and Colors set contains the numbers 1-10 and 13 color words. Colors included:
black, blue, brown, gold, gray, green, orange, pink, purple, red, silver,
white, and yellow.
The nouns list includes 59 nouns commonly used across the curriculum. These
concrete words are perfect for beginning readers and may be combined with sight
words from other lists for sentence-building.
One of the advantages of
teaching your children at home is the ability to tailor the curriculum to meet
their specific learning needs. Although every child is unique and cannot be
perfectly described by one general label, children do typically rely on one or
more type of intelligence, so it’s worth thinking about in
order to make sure
you are teaching in a way that will meet his/her needs most completely. Read
more about how to discover your child’s
giftedness. Allowing your children to do activities that
take advantage of their natural strengths goes a long way toward building learning
confidence and toward helping them advocate for themselves and their needs.
Once we start talking about different learning strengths, it’s easy to think that we must use completely different resources or methods for teaching each child if they are all so unique. However, research has shown that many nontraditional learners learn best through pictures and hands-on lessons. Read more about what the experts have to say about incorporating images and body motions into teaching.
So what are some resources that use images and body motions to reach a variety of learners the way they learn best?
To teach reading, the Easy-for-Me™ Teaching Kit contains everything you need to teach your children to read. The multisensory materials empower you to reach a diverse group of learning styles at one time while ensuring that no child is left out. The program is especially effective in closing gaps in understanding for children who have missed out on some basic skills and are not progressing as they should be. The materials are also perfect for beginners, and if used as outlined, prevent learning difficulties for many children who would otherwise struggle in learning to read.
To teach/review sounds, Alphabet Tales includes a story about how each letter came to have its shape and sound, creating a
quirky,
yet memorable learning experience. SnapLetters™ Teaching Cards are perfect for instruction in letter
shapes and sounds and are a wonderful follow-up to Alphabet Tales which
introduces each letter through story and illustrations.
To teach sight words, the SnapWords™ Help at Home Kit equips parents with tools to effectively boost a child's reading ability without resorting to flashcard drill and memorization. The kit includes 306 SnapWords™ Pocket Chart Cards that teach sight words instantly through visuals and motions - great for visual/tactile learners. Follow up learning sight words with our Sight Words in Sentences, which provides practice reading sight words in real sentences that coordinate with each level of sight words learned. Also included is the booklet How to Teach SnapWords™.
To teach sight words, while providing reading practice, the A Collection, B Collection, and C Collection are ideal. The SnapWords™ Teaching Cards introduce children to new sight words, while each section of The Reading Teacher's Encyclopedia provides practice reading and writing their new words through games and activities. Finally, the Easy-for-Me™ readers provide reading practice in context, using only words learned up to this point.
To teach spelling and phonics, The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns (STSP) introduces all the sounds in the English language and includes all of their possible spellings to prevent confusion, to maximize vocabulary acquisition, and enhance the students' abilities to read unknown words.
