Rainbows: Compound Words

For a few years now I've been fine tuning how I teach preschoolers how to read.  The bottom line is that it really depends on the child, which route to take, or even if they are ready to learn how to read during their preschool years.  Remember that when most of us were in school...we didn't learn to read until 1st grade!  There are studies out there that show that the worse time for children to read, due to brain development, is 5 years old...and yet that is the main goal in Kindergarten now.  Personally, I find that if they have a good early literacy foundation, most 4 year olds are capable of beginning how to read more formally. 

One aspect of reading that some children seem to struggle with is this concept of sounding out the letters and blending it into a word.  For example, saying /c/ /a/ /t/ and then understanding they said "cat".   Yes, if they know their letter sounds they can sound out the word but some have difficulty blending those sounds together to hear the word.  Sometimes it can get past you if you are saying the sounds with them.  Just be aware that there are children who are quite capable of blending sounds together if they hear them but not if they are saying the sounds themselves.  Adjust your teaching style accordingly.  :-)

Rainbow Compound Words

One activity I do to help beginner readers with this concept is to do Compound Word Work.  Actual words/pictures are more concrete then letter sounds and so easier to work with.  And it helps that the activity is visual and kinesthetic (actually moving the pictures).  For individual student use I place five sets of pictures across the top of the tray with the answers vertical along the right side.  They choose a set and place the top card on the left rainbow and the bottom card on the right.  After saying each word, they slide them together at the top of the rainbow and state the compound word.  Selecting the answer picture on the right allows for them to self-check or you to check for understanding. 

Feel free to download the Rainbow Compound Words activity for your own personal use.  There are 18 compound word sets.  I've included a rainbow mat but feel free to use the cards for any theme mat you have or wish to create.  I suggest you write numbers/symbols on the back of each set of words for easier sorting or self checking and laminate for durability.  Laminating the materials also allows for the pictures to slide across the mat easily, as well.

T is for Tree (evergreens)

Seriation Trees

Well, this was a bit of an informal assessment for the children.  Typical expectation would be that the children would be able to order three (big, medium, small) shapes.  I find that they can normally order six-eight if they experience it on a regular basis through their preschool years.  I LOVE the bottom picture.  T. actually participated!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Can't tell I'm excited, can you?!)  I've made sets of materials for him to use since he stopped taking morning naps but he always refused...just wanted to watch.  But today?!  He did this one activity.  And asked for specific colored markers to use and so I tried to mix it up a bit and give him a different color and he always corrected me.  Yes, he knows his basic colors...that's for sure!  (So his own little informal assessment-and he thought it was all a game!) 

Compound Words Evergreens

 I find it very beneficial to slip in compound word explorations in preschool.  If a child is having a hard time putting two sounds together (which is necessary for reading) than I go back to compound words because it's easier to slide together two words than it is two sounds which may be still pretty meaningless to them.  So since we were focusing on evergreen trees today...it's a great time to slip in some compound word practice.  :-)  We did the simple tree puzzles first, then pulled each side apart saying one word than the other and sliding them back together to say the compound word.  Ex)  Pan......Cake = pancake.  Having the compound word images available to see help younger students but I've done enough of this type of thing with my students that they are familiar with how this works and did not need the compound word pictures.  Then K. sounded out the word "ever" and the word "green" and we slid them together to make "evergreen". Took less than 5 minutes but great review! 

Pictures I used came from http://thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com/2011/03/potpourri.html.

E is for...

First off, I wanted to say that we officially started our Postcard Exchange, set up through TeachPreschool!  We are SO excited!  We pulled the map and globe down to see where our post cards were going.  We had Indiana, New York, Texas, Montana and one to the UK for this month.  What fun!  We'll start coloring in a map and learn a bit about each state as we receive post cards. 

E is for Engine!

We read The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper this morning.  And one of the following activities today was to talk about needs and wants.   (We also pulled in our post cards and I asked about whether we could take the train to all the places.  Of course, we "could" to all but the UK because then we'd have to cross the Atlantic Ocean.  Oh!  This is going to be such a great learning process!) 

http://www.makinglearningfun.com/

I find that these conversations are very important with this generation of children.  They really have it "easy" in some regards and do NOT understand the difference between a need and a want.  So I always teach the three basic needs are food, shelter, and clothing and the rest are wants.  There are times we get into the details of each....especially with older PreK students and school agers.  We need healthy food but not necessarily mac 'n' cheese or steak dinner.  We need basic clothing but not necessarily Armani, Gucci, Adias (or whatever brand that pops into your head).  We need shelter but that doesn't mean we need a mansion or some fancy place (and as much as we've "grown out" of this house we can still live here...we don't NEED a new house...we want one.)  So important to have those conversations. 

www.kidssoup.com

KidsSoup had a compound word Train that was right up my alley.  :-)  I just printed, laminated, and added velcro and ta-da, finished.  No reason to recreate the wheel!  We had a set of 9 compound words/cars.  Good practice.  Reminder, if your child is having difficulty blending sounds together to make a word (you saying /c/ /u/ /p/ and they answer with cup) then go back a step to compound words.  This definitely helps.  Blending sounds together is a necessity in being able to read.

We ordered our wooden number magnet trains from 1-10 and the other train from 10-1. 

We tried something "new" today for art.  I used a train paper plate stencil from http://www.makinglearningfun.com/  and allowed them to paint as they wished.

The child on the left was trying her hardest to use every color...definitely more interested in the "new" tempera cake tray.  The child on the right had a plan.  He also told me that "The sun is just a really big star".  :-)

And my biggest smiles came from our shape train activity from www.kidssoup.com.  I showed them what the train looked like originally and then let them go.  I do not require them to make it exactly like the picture unless it's a following the direction activity and then I go about it differently.  But just letting them go with the shapes all spread out on a tray allows for a bit of creativity.   My big smile came in when one child began singing a song we have on our Cars, Trucks, Trains CD and then wanted his dictation sentence to be "Chug chug, clickety clack, over the mountains and over the fairies."  :-)  He even told me the fairies had wings. ;-P  And the other child said, "Ms. Amber, I wrote "look"."  And sure enough, there it was on her paper.  She then said she wanted to write "Look, I see a train."  Oh wow!  The best part was that SHE wanted to write it, not have me write the rest of the sentence.  BIG SMILES!!!  So, I could use some ideas...I feel the reason why she knows "look" so well is that I created eyeballs in the oo when I first introduced the word.  And if you  look closely, she wrote the word more than once after the initial one for the sentence and they all have dots in the center of the oo's.  Yesterday, she wanted to watch Dr. Seuss ABC and "Living Books" come up at the beginning.  She put her hands around the word Books and said, "look...it's like look."  Yeah!  Anyway...I'd like to have some other pictorial ways of introducing other sight words...which is proving to be difficult.  Any suggestions out there?  Thanks ahead of time!

We used E is for... magnet sheets also from http://www.makinglearningfun.com.  When a child isn't here full time, they do definitely miss out on lessons and there are always reasons why I do what I do...there is always a process that is in place due to my own experience with children and their development.  Anyway...since this little one is not here all the time, it's been hard for him to grasp the "leapfrog" concept of these letters.  But today when he was putting the magnet chips on the letter E (their task was to choose one magnet card to do first then they were welcome to explore with the magnets) he was all excited when he told me "I did it!  I leapfrogged up!" and he showed me with his finger how he did it.  :-)  A step in the right direction!  So proud of him!

Better let this be all for now.  Lots to do in the 30 minutes or so...then it's K.'s "reading time"!