Homemade Books
Do you have tons of old photos hanging around the house from your days before digital photos or ones that were printed for a scrapbook but they didn’t quite make into the album? I have boxes of pictures that I am storing right now. I really want to put those photos to good use. How about you? Enhance your home school reading curriculum with this great idea.
My daughter is on the brink of reading right now, and I am trying to give her lots of learning materials that will help her along. We created books that she can “read” with old baby pictures. This project requires at least two sessions that last about 45 minutes each (depending on your children’s ages). You will need glue, mounting paper, construction paper, stapler, and a permanent marker.
I gave my daughter a few old photos to select her favorites from. Then we mounted the photos onto scrapbooking paper, and I organized them into categories that made sense for a few short books. We put each group of photos in order and glued them onto construction paper. We talked about what was happening in each of the photos and came up with a sentence for each picture that I wrote in permanent marker on each page. Then we stapled the book together and added a paper binding to cover the staples. Finally, we read the book together pointing to each word on the page. Presto! Now she has books that she “wrote” and made, and she can read them!
The key here is that making books is getting my daughter interested in actually reading the books. She is intimately involved in the process of illustrating and writing the books. Plus the books are all about her and the familiar things in her life. She is more likely to return to these books now because they are her books. Practice makes progress, so the more I can get her to reread and practice sight words, the better able she will be to apply that in other books.
When you write your own books with your children, be sure to include repetition of sight words, your child’s name, and the vocabulary that s/he uses. Your child will reread these books time and again so s/he will have plenty of practice with those critical words. The project lends itself to teaching reading strategies, too, like using the picture clues to understand the book and figure out unknown words.
Older children also enjoy making their own books. You can try having your older child write the story that goes along with the photos. You could even use the computer to type the words. There could be more than one photo on each page with much more text. You could require your older child to use particular spelling and vocabulary words in the story, too. Use your imagination and have fun making books about your family together!
Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness, the ability to hear and distinguish between sounds in spoken language, is important to the process of reading. There are many fun ways to give your children opportunities to practice this skill.
This week we are studying “p”. We created a box of things with the sound/letter of the week. We searched through our toys and found things to fill our box up. The kids need a lot of guidance and some direction in order to think of items that start with the focus sound. Our box was filled with people, pigs, pajamas, a princess, a puzzle, a purse, a pony, peas, a pot, and a policeman. The next day we went through our box carefully saying the names of the items and focusing on the initial sound, /p/. I wrote a list with the names of the toys. We read the list together focusing again on the initial sound.
In addition to the “sound” box we made a collage for /p/. We leafed through some of those catalogs that keep piling up in my house to find pictures of things that start with /p/. Catalogs are nice because they don’t have any inappropriate ads in them, and the pictures are organized. We cut the pictures out and glued them to pink paper (another “p” word). This is some great fine motor practice.
We combined phonemic awareness with handwriting practice as well. We made the letter “p” using die cut paper shapes (scrapbooking paper). I wrote the capital and lower case “p” onto a piece of construction paper. We glued the paper shapes along the outline of the letters. Then we traced over the outline with our fingers. Since the paper has a texture to it, it provides a nice tactile component to the activity. We also made the letter “p” out of play dough. Again, this is tacticle and kinesthetic.
Read Alouds are Motivating
Reading is such a pleasureable experience, and homeschoolers want to capitalize on the benefits of reading. But what if your child is not interested in reading or struggling to read? How do you motivate children to read?
One of the best ways to build interest in reading is to read aloud to your children. I know that you’ve heard it a million times, but there really is something special about the time that you spend reading to your child. It would be great if we could expect our kids to read the best books on their own, but sometimes they need to hear the book read in order to see the beauty of the language, the excitement in the plot, and to get connected to the characters.
- Reading aloud is a time for you and your child to engage in meaningful discussions, to snuggle, and to even learn something new together. Having that time with you means a lot to kids.
- In our home school have been trying out different genres than we usually read to change our read alouds a little. My children might not choose to read a nonfiction book about kangaroos on their own, but reading it to them helps them see a new genre in a different light. Maybe they will choose a nonfiction book to read in the future.
- The book you read aloud can be a more challenging book than your child can read independently. Knowing the story line of a more challenging book can be exciting and help your child talk to other kids about great books.
- Listening to a book gives your child a break from doing all of the work. It allows your child to focus on the meaning of the text instead of also thinking about how to decode the words.
- Your child learns about reading behaviors that s/he can use in the future. You use inflection, ask questions, use pictures, and make connections to your life when you read. You show your child how to do that when you read aloud. Seeing those skills in action help your child read independently, which builds confidence. Being confident in reading means you are more willing to read.
Why not read that great book to your child? There are some other great tips for reading aloud to your child at Mustard Seeds. Maybe you and your child can try something new! It might motivate you and your child. Happy reading!
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