Side By Side Reading

Exciting News…

I have received some teaching resources from Brookes Publishing .  I am currently plowing through them and hope to have some examples for you to use later this week.  I love getting this stuff (especially for free) so that I can see what great things are already out there.  If you have anything you’d like me to include on any of my posts PLEASE SEND THEM TO ME!  I will take them with open arms J

Today, I stumbled upon a series of books from Scholastic called Side By Side.  They are intended for adults and children to read together.  One page has very simple writing for children to read, while the other has read-aloud material for adults.  The one I found today was “Miss Moo Goes to the Zoo.”  Poor Miss Moo, the cow, is misplaced at a zoo.  You can read her journey together with your child’s help!

LISTENING -  Have your child on the lookout for whenever you say MISS MOO.  When he/she hears you say it, he/she must jump up, or hug you, or repeat her name, etc.

RHYMING -  Emphasize rhyming words when you hear them.  You will notice a pattern of rhyming words with each stanza on the read-aloud pages.  See if after a few pages your child can fill in the missing rhyming words.  At the end of the book, have your child create a cow out of construction paper.  On this cow, use markers to write down any rhyming words (real or nonsense) that your child can think of to rhyme with COW or MISS MOO.

WORDS/SENTENCES -  Use the child-friendly pages to show yours the different words.  At each page, point to the words as you read them.  Have your child do it on his/her own, after you model.  Use a pointer, such as a fly swatter, fancy pencil, decorated clothespin, etc. to point to the words.

SYLLABLES - Have your child make some small cows out of construction paper or toy farm animals.  Give your child words from the book and have them use the cows to illustrate how many syllables are in each word.  For example, your child would give you one cow for the word MOO.  Try these words: city, animal, strange, turning, around, elephants, giraffes, lions.

INITIAL/FINAL SOUNDS - Create an M box.  Grab a shoebox, empty juice/milk carton, etc. and have your child design it.  Place a large M somewhere on it.  Go around the house or search through magazines to find words that begin with M.  For a bonus, make another box to fill with words that end with M.

PHONEMES - Bring back out the cows from the syllable activity (or if you have farm animal toys, use those).  See if your child can name all the phonemes in the animals’ names by pushing an item forward with each phoneme.  For example, for LIONS, your child would push forward a farm animal for L, I, O, N and S (5 farm animals).  Try these words: COW (c-ow), HORSE (h-or-se), CHICKEN (ch-i-ck-en), SHEEP (sh-ee-p), etc.

LETTERS/SPELLING - Have your child read the child-friendly pages with you.  Grab a markerboard, shaving cream or construction paper with a fun writing utensil.  See if they can sound out and write some of those phrases after seeing them.  Don’t be picky with spelling, but help your child sound out words he/she may have really gotten wrong!

Ladybug’s Birthday is another Side by Side book from Scholastic.  I don’t have it personally, but it’s probably a great read for you and your child!