Montessori Tidbits

Dr. Seuss books listed by reading levels

2012-02-29T19:14:00.001-08:00

I vividly remember reading Dr. Seuss books as a child, and I have been looking forward to the day Aikman can read those books to me! We have a fairly extensive collection of Dr. Seuss books, and I assumed that most of them were for “just learning to read” beginning readers. Was I wrong!

I’ve been carefully reviewing the reading levels for the Dr. Seuss Bright and Early and “I Can Read It By Myself” Beginner book series. A majority of these books are by Dr. Seuss (or his alias), but several others are by the Berenstains and a few others. I determined the reading level for each book using the Accelerated Reader grade level equivalent. The books are listed in numerical order, based upon the reading level. So if a book is listed at the top of a section then it is easier to read than a book at the bottom.

Late Kindergarten:
**These books are primarily sight word books. Each page contains one 5 word or less sentence.
The Foot Book
The Ear Book
Great Day for Up!
The Eye Book
Bears In the Night
Bears on Wheels

Beginning 1st grade:
**These books are more structured. They contain longer sentences with sight words from the Dolch 1st grade list, CVC words, and a few long vowel words.
Inside Outside Upside Down
Hand Hand Fingers Thumb
Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!
The Berenstain Bears and The Spooky Old Tree
Snug House, Bug House
Fred and Ted Go Camping
Fred and Ted Like To Fly
Go, Dog, Go!
Wacky Wednesday
Old Hat New Hat

Middle 1st grade:
**These books deal with word families and use long vowel letter combinations.
Put Me In the Zoo
The Nose Book
Green Eggs and Ham
Hooper Humperdink…? Not Him!
Hop on Pop
Are You My Mother?
The Bike Lesson

Late 1st grade:
**The text in these books are getting smaller, the storyline is becoming more involved, and is relying less on word families.
A Fish Out of Water
Little Black, A Pony
Sam and the Firefly
The Big Honey Hunt
The Shape of Me and Other Stuff
I Want To Be Somebody New!
Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?
Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!
Robert the Rose Horse
The Berenstain Bears and the Missing Dinosaur
A Fly Went By
The Bears’ Christmas
The Bears’ Picnic
The Berenstain Bears On the Moon
He Bear, She Bear
In a People House

Early 2nd grade:
**These books begin to introduce the 2nd grade Dolch word list. The storylines are more complex, and many of these books are great transition books as a child gets ready to for chapter books.
Flap Your Wings
I’ll Teach My Dog 100 Words
Mrs. Wow Never Wanted a Cow
Stop, Train, Stop!
The Bears’ Vacation
Dr. Seuss ABC
Fox in Socks
Have You Seen My Dinosaur?
I Am Not Going to Get Up Today!
The Cat in the Hat
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back
the Tooth Book
There’s a Wocket in My Pocket
Thomas and Friends: Trains, Cranes, and Troubles
Because a Little But Went Ka-Choo!
I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!
I Wish That I Had Duck Feet
Please Try to Remember the First of Octember!
The Bears Detectives

Middle 2nd grade:
Babar Loses His Crown
The Bear Scouts
The Digging-est Dog
Honey Bunny Funnybunny
It’s Not Easy Being a Bunny

Make sure you check out all of the other blogs in the blog hop! These ladies are very creative!

Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

Ready. Set. Read!

Reading Confetti

Montessori Tidbits

Make, Do & Friend

Putti Prapancha

Kitchen Counter Chronicles

Living at the Whitehead's Zoo

Mama Mia's Heart2Heart

Living Montessori Now

Kindergarten for Teachers and Parents

Toddler Approved

Creativity My Passion

Rainbows Within Reach

PreK & K Sharing

Got an idea to share? Link it below!

TOS Review: All About Reading Level 1

2012-02-28T21:52:00.001-08:00

We’ve been working on reading for some time with Aikman, and it definitely has had its ups and downs along the way. We’ve tried numerous programs for reading – Montessori materials, Hooked on Phonics, Explode the Code, I See Sam, and Abeka phonics to name a few. All of these have had their advantages and disadvantages, but none have fully helped Aikman read without some type of supplementation. I was honored to find that All About Learning was offering their All About Reading Level 1 program for review!

All About Reading is based upon the Orton-Gillingham method, involving the senses of sight, sound, and touch, to understand and learn to read and spell. It’s interactive design naturally progresses in a logical step-by-step order, that builds upon the previous lessons. The program is also based around the 5 key components that teaches reading: phonological awareness, phonics and decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

If your child is prepping to read, then Pre-Level is the appropriate place for him, which covers the letters and their sounds, along with crafts, read-alouds, and activities to reinforce this.

If your child is beyond letter identification/sounds and is ready to start sounding out words, then the Level one is the perfect place to start!

The level 1 reading kit comes with the teacher manual, student pack, and 3 hardback decodable books. However, you will also need to purchase a reading interactive kit. The basic kit contains the magnetic letter tiles, phonogram CD-ROM, and reading divider cards; the deluxe kit contains all of the items in the basic kit, plus a canvas tote, reading review box, and star stickers.

The program is very similar to the popular All About Spelling program, which involves reviewing phonograms and words daily, in flashcard style, until they are mastered. These are neatly stored in a handy storage box. The activity book contains cut-out activities, puzzles, etc. to supplement the lesson, which primarily uses the letter tiles.

The teacher manual is very easy to use. It has everything laid out in simple step-by-step directions – from reviewing the phonogram and word cards, directions on teaching a new sound, activities (found in the activity book), reading practice, and/or fluency practice. Each lesson is specifically written so the child masters the material in a fun way, while building upon previous knowledge and working on fluency all at the same time!

Personally, one of the most freeing tips that I received was in lesson 14. I had hounded Aikman over and over again about how he was struggling with reading 3 letter words – words I felt he should already know how to read without having to stop and concentrate on them. The teacher book mentioned, “It is normal for beginning students to read choppily, one word at a time. They are working very hard at decoding each individual word, so don’t expect smooth reading at this stage.”

Wow, so it was normal for him to have trouble reading each word, without fluency! It then gives some wonderful suggestions for improving fluency, such as doing a “cold” and “hot reading”, and modeling fluency for the child, followed by letting the child repeat what you say. The tips in this teacher edition have been invaluable!

Beginning at lesson 16, AAR moves from reading CVC words to consonant digraphs. By the end of level 1, the child has been introduced to compound words, the beginnings of the additional sounds for several letters (ie g says /g/ and /j/) and counting syllables.

The activity book is invaluable, as it contains many games and activities that break up the instruction time into chunks of fun learning segments.

What did we think?

At first, we were having a hard time finding exactly where to place Aikman. So, instead of starting somewhere in the middle, we began at the beginning, and reviewed the concepts he already knew. At first, I was very stressed about him not being very fluent. However, after reading many of the tips in the teacher guide, I loosened up on this, and let him just read the words at his own pace.

Since many of the beginning lessons were review, he found them to be a little repetitive and slow. We moved quickly through the first half of the book, and are now dividing the lessons into two parts, where he completes the tiles and half the fluency work on one day, and then the activities (found in the Activity Book) and the other half of the fluency work the following day.

Aikman and I also enjoy the hand-drawn (black and white) phonics readers. The stories are engaging to a young reader, and the pictures help with context clues while decoding. In fact, I believe the stories are probably Aikman’s favorite part about this program! My only wish was that these books were soft-bound, rather than hardback books. I believe that this would be an alternative to help bring down the price of the program to make it more affordable.

Speaking of the readers, here is Aikman reading at bedtime from one of the readers.

The only negative thing that I can say about this program is that it is a bit more pricey than I like to spend on curriculum, especially one that we are moving through quickly. Likewise, since level 2 is not yet complete; I’m afraid that if we did purchase level 2, that by the time we finished with it, that level 3 would not yet be ready.

You can purchase Level 1 here for $99.95. Additionally, the basic interactive kit is $28.95, and the deluxe kit is $48.95.

You can read what other crew members think here.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of the deluxe kit and level 1 in exchange for an honest review.

Teaching number words

2012-02-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, teaching Aikman how to read has been an extremely hard task. It’s not that he struggles with it – he does seem to pick it up at a fairly quick pace, not quite as fast as he does math, but still at a very quick pace – but rather it’s a matter of me knowing techniques to help him learn it, find it engaging, and create a desire to want to read.

So, to teach the number words, I set out to spend a day playing with the words, using several techniques, and then to reinforce these words for the next few weeks…

I first introduced Aikman to the number words using these magnets, which came as a set from the Dollar Tree. I stuck the numerals to the inside of a small tray, and then showed him how to sound out each word, unless it was a sight word (one, two). This sometimes involved showing him the double letter vowel sounds and vowel combinations (ee in three, ou in four, eigh in eight) as well as the CVCe long vowel words (five, nine).

I started out with just the sight words one and two. For some reason, one was quite easy to understand that when he saw it, it was the number 1. However, two was a different matter. He continually wanted to sound it out – “tt wwh ahh”. He would laugh that it wasn’t a word, but it sounded close to “two”, and then knew that two would match up to 2.

A while back, I remember seeing this post that used a Candyland game to help with sight words. To build on Aikman desire to play games, I created a number words game based around Chutes and Ladders. I printed off 4 sets of each number word, from one to ten. On your turn, you draw a card from the pile, read the word, and then move your pawn that many spaces on the game board. If you can’t read the word, then you cannot move your pawn on that turn.

Here’s a link to the Chutes and Ladders cards that I made, in case you’d like to use them too. (They are nothing fancy… just the number words written out as game cards.)

Need additional resources for teaching sight words? Below are links to several online games and other printables that I’ve found useful…

Online games:

Match the number to the number word – from primary games

Number Labeling from crickweb (scroll down half way down the page to find the applet)

Ordering number words 1-20 from Roy the Zebra

Printables: (all are FREE)

Fun in the Sun File Folder game from Positively Autism

Sending Love Word Sort from Mrs. Wills Kindergarten – perfect for Valentine’s Day that is quickly approaching!

… and another Valentine’s themed printable that we have be using this next week. I have Aikman put the designated number of conversation hearts on top of the number word on the printable. (Grrr… this link has disappeared! If you know where this printable is from, PLEASE let me know so I can link to it! We’ve been playing it, and Aikman loves it!)

Jan Brett’s number/word self-checking puzzles

Enchanted Learning has these super cool number wheels that practices counting as well as reading the number AND the number word.

Bar graphing idea using “One, two, buckle my shoe” from Bright Hub

Music:

Sing and Read Number Words cd from Frog Street Press ($$)

For more ideas for teaching sight words, make sure you check out my sight words pinterest board or the Reading and Writing Readiness pinterest collaborative board, which is a board of ideas on teaching reading and writing from bloggers around the world! (click on either image below to be taken to the respective board!)

TOS Review: Math Rider

2012-02-09T20:24:00.001-08:00

Does your child need help in memorizing math facts?

Math Rider is a program designed for ages 6-12 to aid in memorizing the 4 basic math operations – addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It focuses on the memorization and quick recall for numbers 0 – 12.

The basis of the program is that the child is on a quest with his/her favorite horse, “Shadow”. Along the way, you must enter in the correct answers to the math facts as they arise at the bottom of the screen. Answer correct, and the horse jumps the obstacle. Answer incorrectly or not at all, and the fact appears on the screen for the child to learn.

Here’s the horse jumping a correct answer, with the next obstacle approaching.

Here’s a snippet of what the screen looks like when the rider misses the question – the answer is presented for a few seconds.

The program keeps up with the facts that the child has learned, and which facts still need to be mastered. Here’s a sample view of the multiplication mastery table, with green boxes indicated mastered and red not yet mastered.

System requirements for Math Rider can be found here. It is supported on both Windows PC and Mac machines (not on Linux).

What did we think?

I was a little hesitant about letting Aikman try this program, but upon showing him a video about it, he was quite interested. Unfortunately, I should have listened to my gut feeling about him not being quite ready for this program. The biggest problem for him was that he has not yet gained the quickness of recall combined with the dexterity of entering in the values from the keyboard to make this program work effectively for him. He could answer several of the questions, but being able to enter in the answer in time proved very difficult for him. So, he quickly became frustrated. However, I do not fault Math Rider with this, as the program is designed for kids ages 6-12 (he’s a young five year old), and states that the user needs to have an understanding of the math operations. I do believe that Aikman has an understanding of how addition works; however he does not yet have enough background knowledge to think of the facts quickly. Rather, I would recommend it for children who have at least learned all of their addition tables. Also, the program is not designed to teach the basis behind the math facts, but rather simply drilling the facts so that they are quick recall.

I have heard that many people love this program, and that it works incredibly well for being drill practice. So if your child is needing work on memorization, I would highly recommend it. It will definitely be a program that we will revisit in a year or so, when he has a better grasp on the addition tables and is working on subtraction and the beginnings of multiplication tables.

You can purchase Math Rider here. It normally sells for $47, but now until Feb 15, it is on sale for $37. Read what other crew members say about Math Rider here.

Disclosure: I was given a 2 month online access to Math Rider, in exchange for an honest review – whether good or bad. I did not receive any additional compensation.

{almost} Wordless Wednesday: The Winter that Wasn’t

2012-02-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

This post is entirely in honor of my friend Rockabye at Rockabye Butterfly…. (Do you know her? She has an awesome blog, filled with great ideas!) Yes, this is that great snowstorm I was telling you about several weeks ago – on Jan 13.

… and yes, that’s my son wearing a snowsuit in his black dress shoes.

Hmmm, I guess that’s also where the crumbing broom from our practical life supplies disappeared to…