While helping my daughter learn to read, I have explored the world of literacy in a much more personal way. Pre-reading activities such as reading together everyday, rhyming, story telling etc. have always been apart of our regular activities. I tried four different approaches to teach my daughter the sound system. First, we started with …
Author Archives: Kai Long
An Early Reading Adventure: Part II
So now it is April, I just got my daughters progress report, and she says she is able to read “D” books. In September, she was reading “D” books. What are “D” books? Its part of the leveled rating series Cambridge uses that progresses readers in a systematic way. Therefore, from September to April my …
An early reading adventure: Part I
My daughter and I read every night. When she was four, she loved to look at the pictures and tell me the story. Since I often teach reading and reading comprehension, I was surprised she was not a reading by three. I mean she was not that interested at two, so I waited another whole …
Small talk: Who needs it?
Until I found out what an important role small talk can play in life, I was not a big fan. Some people are very good at it, politicians or sales people for example. Small talk is the initial conversation American’s use to establish contact and break the ice. Did you know that other countries like …
Writing
The standards for written language are higher than for spoken language. Written language is one of the primary tools used for assessment in formal education. For all students acquiring basic written skills is important; however, for college bound students it is crucial. Spoken language is easier to learn because spoken language allows for repair when …
Reading comprehension
Reading comprehension improves greatly with the ability to visualize. Visualization is the ability to create pictures from words. In the example, “Sam the dog ran out the door” Can you picture Sam? The door? The yard? Maybe Sam is a medium-sized black and white spotted dog with short hair running out of a white screen …
Verbs
Writing is a challenge for many with language-based learning disabilities. Who knew writing was so complicated. Subjects, verbs, objects, how often do any of us think of them when we write. Yet, they are the building blocks of writing and the ability to identify them is part of reading as well. Writing remediation can take …
More on social skills
For people with social skills challenges it is not enough just to teach how to recognize different facial expression or how to greet someone, it is equally important to teach when and where to apply non-verbal language skills. Social skills make it possible to form relationships in order to feed our need for social interactions …
You don’t like my ponytails!
One day my daughter was on a play date, and she came running in crying that someone had made fun of her ponytails. My daughter’s ponytails are more like cotton puffs, but we both knew that her ponytails were a special hairdo. I asked her if she liked them. She tearfully said “yes” I told …
How do we learn to make friends
Today at lunch, my friend told me about a problem her son was having on the bus. She went on to describe how one little boy on the bus who was unpopular, teased and not befriended, had decided to bring his Nintendo with a “Star Wars” game on the bus. He let other kids play …