June 2009

Kindergarten Activities – Letter Identification

Prior to entering kindergarten, work with your child to ensure that she recognizes both the upper and lower case letters. The ability to recognize the letters will assist her in learning to read. In addition, the ability to quickly identify and write letters will aid in her writing development. In an earlier post, I recommended [...]

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Vocabulary Learning – Don’t Dumb It Down

This post refers to certain words that we use when communicating with children. These words are not found in the dictionary or if they are we are not properly using them. Do they need to use the potty? Or do they need to go to the restroom? The primary definition for potty, chiefly used by [...]

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Kindergarten Activities – Making Playdough & Letters of the Alphabet

My daughter will be entering kindergarten in a few months. At kindergarten orientation, my daughter received some fun activities to do over the summer to prepare for kindergarten. Two recipes for making playdough are noted below. After you make the playdough, use it to make both upper and lower case letters. As always learning should [...]

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Inventive Spelling

Inventive Spelling Inventive spelling (often referred to as creative or incomplete spelling) is used by young children to represent letter-sound relationships; typically it begins with initial consonants to represent a word. Using this method children often spell words incorrectly, but they demonstrate an understanding of our language. The developmental approach to teach writing emphasizes the [...]

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How to Hold a Pencil

Lightly pinch the pencil between the thumb and the index finger and support it with the middle finger. Is your child griping the pencil correctly? At first, both my children awkwardly held the pencil; they wrapped all their fingers and thumb around it making writing difficult. With some assistance they eventually learned to hold the [...]

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Fun Phonics and Letter identification Games

Fun Phonics and Letter identification Games At my daughter’s kindergarten orientation, she received index sized cards that contained: Upper- and lowercase letters, Word to emphasis the letter’s basic phonic sound, and Picture of the word. Click here to access a PDF file of both the letters and words. A fun activity to do with your [...]

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