Book-making - Part 1

My girls love books. They love to read books. They love to make books.

I have lately found that Cupcake is struggling to cope with boredom when at home. This struggle is usually expressed through misbehaviour. So I decided to teach her some sight words and challenge her in an area she seems to excel - reading and languages.

Firstly, I chose four sight words for her to use from the Ready to Read series taught in New Zealand schools. The sight words were from the Emergent/Red level books and were words most likely to be used by Cupcake in everyday life.

like                     it                       the                      I

 

I then thought about what Cupcake liked that I could apply to colours. At the moment her passion is eating apples. She would eat them all day if she could. So "apples" was the chosen theme. Its important when teaching children to make the learning relevent to them. If they do not see a reason for the learning, they often put less effort into their learning. It must be real to them and contextual.

 

Thirdly, I needed to make it easy so that I would not turn her off learning. I did this by typing the words and printing them out. They were then sorted into a partitioned plate. If the activity contains not enough challenge, or too much challenge, a young child is less likely to take risks with his or her learning.

 

Lastly, I needed to make it her own. To do this, I taught her how to draw a simple apple and helped her to colour it in.

 

Here she is writing her first sight word book:

 

 

Everything was prepared and ready to use. If you are fumbling around for materials, younger learners are more likely to 'tune out' and lose interest in the learning activity.

 

She loves her new book so much, that she chooses to read it at least once a week during our bedtime routine. She is now reading it - not just to me - but to her siblings.

 

Success!