Doing More With Less Since 1972
I have read several accounts of parents whose kids have learned how to read on their own. Some of these children began reading slowly while others took off quickly. As impressive as it may seem, I don’t believe that reading truly came as a natural ability for them. I absolutely believe that these parents feel that their kids learned how to read naturally, however, I don’t think they realize how much of a role they played in their children’s learning. While they may not have explicitly taught their kids to read, they certainly taught them implicitly. What I mean is that everything these parents did for their kids (some from the time they were born) helped to build a foundation that would later translate into them becoming literate. Many of these parents share how they would read books to their kids daily, track words while reading, discuss books, provide books and experiences with literature at home, model reading, take them to the library, and many other wonderful activities that expose children to the world of reading. Just because these parents didn’t sit down and provide their kids with formal lessons on reading doesn’t mean that they didn’t teach them how to read. These parents did amazing things for their children even if they don’t realize it! It is this type of parent that is often found behind a child that has learned how to read “naturally”. These kids are one extreme.
Let me give you an example of the other extreme, because some kids aren’t as lucky. I had the opportunity to work with a little girl that convinced me that reading does not occur naturally for everyone. She was an eleven year old girl that was raised by her illiterate grandmother in a small Central American country. Having never attended school, she came to me knowing nothing academically, and had absolutely no knowledge of the alphabet or numbers. Other than that, she was of average intelligence – she just lacked education. She never had anyone that read to her and had never even seen a book until moving to the US. She didn’t even grasp the concept that writing was a representation of the words we speak – she had no idea what those “black and white scribbles” were. Needless to say, she was a very challenging case.
Now most kids fall somewhere in between these two extremes. They probably have parents who read to them occasionally, are exposed to literature, and are aware of why the ability to read is important. Yet their daily modeling of reading may only include functional reading – such as reading menus, tv guides, signs, or other things that simply get people through the day. They may not have someone who emphasizes the importance of learning new things or who encourages them to read nonfiction just to learn about things that interest them. In my opinion, these kids would probably not be able to learn to read if left to their own devices.
I’ll assume that if you’ve made it this far in this article then you’re someone who enjoys reading for the sake of learning. If your kids are in the room while you read this, you are modeling for them right now. Congratulations! You are already taking steps to ensure that your children learn to read and will later read to learn!
Comprehension is THE ultimate goal of reading! Everything we teach our kids in reading is so that they will end up having comprehension, or an understanding of what they read. We spend so much time learning how to read just to get to the point where we can read to learn. Comprehension = knowledge. But just because comprehension is our ultimate goal doesn’t mean that you need to wait till your kids are older or have “mastered” everything else in reading before you teach it.
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You’ll need some newspaper, magazines, catalogs, coupons (any other print material you don’t mind cutting up) and some art supplies (construction paper, glue, scissors, markers, etc.) This one can be worked on over time – so it may take your child a while to complete the whole book. Part of the book can be created while you’re working on letter recognition and the other part can be completed when you work on letter sounds – so there will be two parts to this activity. Some of you may choose to do both pages at the same time – it’s up to you!
Part 1 – Page 1 for each letter
Part 2 – Page 2 for each letter
You’ll need some alphabet cereal and a simple grid that has the letters of the alphabet separated into individual boxes.
You’ll need a pocket chart and some word cards (you can make them with sentence strips) for this activity.
You’ll need a paragraph from a book, magazine, or article (this works best if you type up the individual sentences of a paragraph and cut them to make sentence strips).
I’ll never be able to forgive myself for watching both seasons of Rock of Love in their entirety. The only thing I can do that would possibly atone for my actions is recommend a few shows to VH1 that may allow me to gain some of my self respect back. In no particular order, here are eight shows that would be more interesting and more entertaining than Rock of Love.
The Purity is Right With Nikki SixxContestants shoot heroin with the Motley Crue bassist and try to guess it’s purity. The contestant closest to the actual purity level without going over gets to spin the big wheel, which contains various rehab packages. The grand prize includes detox and a spot on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. All contestants receive a complimentary double dose at the methadone clinic good for one visit only.
Survivor DLRContestants are stranded on a deserted island with David Lee Roth. Instead of being voted off of the island, contestants remove themselves voluntarily. The contestant who can stand DLR the longest is the winner. The game gets harder as more contestants leave and survivors are forced to spend more and more time with Diamond Dave.
The Ultimate Fighter with Kid RockThe concept is pretty simple–we follow Kid Rock as he tours the country’s Waffle House’s and nightly challenges drunks in pugilistic competition. A game show? Not really, although I guess you could consider anyone who doesn’t get Kid Rock’s bodily fluids on them a winner.
What’s My Line with Ozzy OsbourneUnlike the original “What’s My Line”, contestants on this show simply listen to Ozzy and translate. Contestants accrue points based on the number of words in each sentence they are able to correctly identify. The winner gets to avoid ever having to know anything about Ozzy’s annoying offspring for the rest of their lives.
Name Buy That Tune with Lars UlrichLars hosts this new version of the old classic, but with a catch. When a contestant successfully names a tune they are immediately swarmed by lawyers and retired concert security guys with RIAA t-shirts (sleeves rolled up of course). If the contestant is not able to produce proof that they actually purchased the song they’ve just heard, they must choose between being sued by Metallica’s attorneys or having the security guys bludgeon them with those big flashlights (after which you will be sued anyway).
The Roadie with Axl RoseThis one is sort of like The Apprentice. Each night, Axl Rose will either cancel an appearance, no-show the event, or storm off stage pissed off. Axl will then decide which contestant was responsible for the mishap and fire one. The winner of The Roadie earns the right to be blamed at the next concert for Axl’s behavior, and subsequently fired.
Celebrity Arm Wrestling with The Drummer From Def LeppardNo commentary necessary. On second thought, why did I even post this?
This one is special because it actually pits celebrities people who used to be in bands against one another to see who truly is the biggest loser, literally. It should probably feature the members of bands like Faster Pussycat, Enuff Znuff, Britny Fox, and Vixen
With apologies to those who come here only for the ranting…
I have a plan to do a whole series of articles on search engine optimization (SEO) for bloggers. While the topic of full vs. partial feeds may not be directly related to SEO at first glance, I feel that it is in a round about way. After all, the goal of SEO and is to get more visitors to your site, and that is probably one of the goals you’d like to accomplish with your feed as well. I’m by no means saying that partial feeds are bad, and I think they definitely have their place. But for me (and probably most other bloggers) I believe full feeds are a more effective way to drive traffic. While much of what I’m about to say is based on experience, I believe I can back it up with logic and human blogger nature.
So first off, what’s the argument for partial feeds? It’s actually not a bad argument, and I used to subscribe to it myself. When I first set up my feed, I was sure that partial feeds were the way to go. I thought I had to do everything I could to force entice people to visit my site. There was no way I was going to give away all my content through the feed. Only after they loaded up the entire site, ads and all, would I give away my content.
But then it hit me–I’m giving it away no matter what. It didn’t take me long to realize that full posts in my feed were better than partial feeds, not only for my subscribers, but ultimately for me as well.
Anyone who uses an RSS reader is probably addicted to it. One of the first things we do after we read an article we like on a new site (especially a blog) is to look for the feed subscription button. And as a blogger, one of the first things I check every day is my FeedBurner stats, mostly out of vanity, because I’m truly flattered that people care enough about what I have to say to choose to subscribe to my feed. I feel like the least I can do for the folks who’ve paid me such a big compliment is to say “thanks” by making my site as easy as possible for them to read in the way they choose, and that means no ads in the feed as well.
But that means subscribers aren’t going to see any of the ads on my site in their reader, so they won’t ever click on these ads, right? Well…I don’t believe that’s necessarily true.
Think about it…the people who are subscribed to my feed are people who already may be interested in what I have to say. They are also likely to engage me in conversation by leaving comments on my blog. By giving them full posts in the feed, I increase the chances they will read everything I wrote. That increases the chances that they’ll want to comment on something I wrote, and that means they will visit my site. By contrast, a partial feed means that I have three or four sentences to entice them into visiting the site. Frankly, I don’t have enough faith in myself as a writer to accomplish that with every post.
An even more compelling reason–I think it’s pretty safe to assume that many of the people reading my feed are other bloggers. And while comments are great and encouraged, an even bigger compliment from another blogger is a link back from their blog. In fact, I’d much rather have a single link than ten comments. Again, providing the full feed increases the chances that someone will read something they’d like to write about on their own blog.
How do links back to my blog help me so much? Obviously, exposure to the the other blogger’s readers has a lot of value, but there’s another reason, and this is where the SEO part comes in. Search engines (especially Google) see a link as a “vote” for a site. So a link increases my “clout” with search engines, which means that I can greatly increase search engine rankings, which greatly increases my traffic. And I have to believe that the random visitor from a search engine is less familiar with my site layout and less likely to be wise to blog ad placement in general. This means that they are more likely to click on an ad than a regular subscriber who visits my site every day (because I don’t provide full posts in my feed) would be. More search engine traffic also increases the chances that I’ll get even more subscribers–rinse and repeat.
Full feeds reward loyal subscribers with the ability to read your site with ease. In my case, this includes keeping the feed ad free.
Full feeds reward you directly by increasing the chances your subscribers will visit your site and leave comments. One way conversations are fine, but I have those in my head all day, and sometimes I get tired of hearing only myself.
Full feeds increase your chances of getting back links, which increase your search engine rankings, and ultimately your traffic. Back links increase your exposure to other bloggers’ readers, and search engines are an excellent source of readers who would never find you otherwise.
I hope this helps those of you are trying to decide whether to use full or partial links, and I really hope I’ve convinced those of you who to whom I subscribe and are currently using partial feeds to give me the whole thing in my reader!
I remember when Poison was really popular and I thought they were stupid. Mostly it was because I was a music snob back then, but a lot of it had to do with the fact that they just sucked.
Now we have Rock Of Love, and honestly, I can think of 5 people I know right now who are happily married with kids and regular ol’ jobs who act more like rock stars than Bret Michaels. I had Easter dinner with one of them (and our wives and kids) today, after he got out of church of course. I think we drank enough beer between the two of us–it had to have been 2/3 of a six pack–to put Bret Michaels under the table.
I wouldn’t let this guy be a roadie for a boy band–that’s how NOT Rock Star he is. I submit these five facts for your consideration.
You would think that after having girls throw themselves at him for a few years in the 80s, he would at least have a little bit of game. This guy couldn’t close the deal with a drunk hooker if he had crapped crack and pissed liquid gold. Want to see a rock star with game? Give me (of course) David Lee Roth.
Bret Michaels is was actually attractive and famous. And he has to go on TV to get a date? Yeah he dated Pam Anderson (briefly) a long time ago. But my guess is she quickly figured out how lame he is (see reason #1). Even the girl he picked in the first season of Rock of Love didn’t want to date him, presumably because she was already too famous for him. Let me have Rick Ocasek, Billie Joel, Adam Clayton, Kid Rock or instead of this Z-list supporter.
Not a trip into and out of Vegas for a weekend on a private jet. Not a run to Tijuana to get tats and piercings. Not even a strip club. Dave and Freaking Busters. Give me a break. Nothing says ROCK STAR like sipping on a Zima and playing a few rounds of skee-ball and wak-a-mole, huh? Instead, I’d like to see Lemmy from Motorhead. Yeah, he’s not going to go anywhere uber-cool either, but he’ll show up with a cooler full of beer and keep you up all night telling funny stories and burning you with cigarettes when he catches you nodding off. That’s cool.
As far as I know, he hasn’t fought anybody. Not that I’m surprised by that–I’m sure he’d get his ass kicked. But he’s never even shown that he has a temper. I’ve never heard stories of dressing rooms being trashed. I’ve never heard of him being thrown out of a club for breaking a beer bottle across someone’s face. Nothing. I’d so much rather watch this show with Tommy Lee, who I bet has fought EVERY member of Motley Crue at one time or another.
That’s actually admirable for people like me and you. But this is America. We like our rock stars either troubled, violent, or toxic–preferably all three. He’s never even been drunk on his own “party like a rock star” TV show. I have a feeling that “Bret’s Brew” is actually 30% lemonade, 30% fruit punch, 30% Sprite and 10% soda water. Give me Bret’s old guitar player, C.C. DeVille in his place. At least there’s a chance he’ll go on a coke binge and freak out right in front of our eyes.
Earlier today I was reading a book to my friend’s little boy. In the book, Big Bird was asking the kids to pick objects that fell into certain categories. For instance, he would ask the child to pick out something that we eat from a page full of blue objects, and the child would pick the bowl of blueberries. A page of green objects may contain a coat, and Big Bird would ask the kids to choose the thing that we wear. We expanded this game a little by talking about the other objects on the page as well, not just doing what was in the book, but going further than Big Bird asked us to.
We both had a blast reading the book, and I was telling Ana all about it on our way home. She told me that what we were doing was called “categorizing and classifying”. I had no idea while we were reading we were actually working on developing this little boy’s critical thinking skills. I was giving him categories and he was classifying the objects into those categories. We were building up his classify and categorize foundation that will allow him as an adult to read op-eds in the newspaper (if those still exist by then) and determine the author’s political leanings and motivations as he is considering the points the author is making. Pretty cool, huh?
Now I’m thinking of other activities we could do with the same book. One of the ideas I had was to close the book and ask him to find an orange animal. This would exercise his mind by asking him to classify an object into two categories instead of just one. As a computer nerd, I’d be interested to see how he’d approach that problem. Would he take the most efficient search approach and flip through the book to find the orange page, then look for an animal? Or would he look at each page identifying all the animals and then classifying them by colors? My guess is that kids of different ages may take different approaches.
Over the weekend we were visiting some friends who have a three year old, and we were talking about activities parents can do with kids his age to prepare them to be successful readers. One of the ideas we came up with was to go on a walk or hike with a digital camera. The mission/game in this activity is to get the child to take as many photos as they can of things that begin with a certain sound (phoneme). The game can be played a different way for more advanced kids, who you can ask to take photos of things that begin with a certain letter.
In the first game we’re working on phonemic awareness, so if we’re trying to find things that start with the /f/ sound, a phone booth is a great photo. In the second game we’re working on phonics (connecting sounds with letters), so the phone booth becomes tricky. It would be a great photo if we’re looking for things that begin with the letter “p”, but not if we’re looking for things that begin with the letter “f”.
You can even make this a math activity by having the kids count the photos, add the correct and incorrect answers together, subtract incorrect from correct, etc.
There is some debate regarding this question. Some parents and authorities maintain that children will develop the ability to learn how to read on their own when they are ready and exposed to text. Most others believe that reading has to be taught to children. So who is right? Both sides offer up what they consider to be convincing research or evidence to support their stance. Yet in the midst of this debate, you have to ask the question . . . If reading is a natural occurrence, why are there so many illiterate people in the world? I’m by no means claiming that I know the answer to this, yet I feel that part of the answer may lie in the possibility that these people may not have been exposed to much literature or to an environment that fostered a love for reading. Read about Karla to find out more on my theory. Continue reading
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