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English Grammar Tenses form an important element of the English language. They are really the building blocks of the language and help explain situations and the “when” of actions. Everybody has learned these tenses in school but to remember them now may be somewhat grim. So here we’ll dig a little deeper into understanding and using English Grammar – Tenses.

The English Language has 12 tenses. The present tense tells about the current or the existing situation. Some examples are ‘I do’, ‘they do’ etc. Another tense is the present continuous and an example is ‘she is going’ or ‘they are going’.

In the present perfect tense, the sentence should be ‘I have done’. Past tense tells about the things of the past. Here, the situation which has already happened can be considered and the example is: He already did. This tense also includes other subtenses like past continuous, past perfect and past perfect continuous. Future tense tells about the future and directs a situation which is going to happen. An example is: I will do it. It also includes subtenses like future perfect, future continuous and future perfect continuous.

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Understanding and Using English Grammar – TensesRead More »

The basic idea is simple: learning to tell stories from memory is a great way to learn all sorts of essential skills. Children who fill up with stories by listening and retelling create an inner store of language, ideas, and imagination. So let’s see how to become a good storyteller.

They will then draw upon this store in their work and life. Speaking, listening, confidence, empathy, ideas, facts, sequences, plots … you name it, storytelling can teach it.

We believe that all children benefit from developing their storytelling skills throughout their education. In schools where improving basic literacy levels is a priority, the Storytelling Schools method has been used to quickly raise standards. Storytelling provides a natural way of developing rich and active story language, for children to recycle in their own story making and writing.

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How to Become a Good StorytellerRead More »

Michael Heggerty was a great veteran educator at the elementary level. He was active in the education world for over 30 years, of which 28 as a classroom teacher. All through his life, Dr. Heggerty has always been life-long learning himself and his CV includes two master credentials and one doctorate degrees. Let’s look a little bit closer at Heggerty Phonemic Awareness/

When Dr. Heggerty was a 1st-grade teacher, he was working on a research project about the key role phonemic awareness plays in the process of how to acquire and master reading skills best. For the succeeding years, he continued his research and started to develop materials for a consistent and efficient curriculum for phonemic awareness development.

Michael Heggerty went on to (in 2003) establish Literacy Resources Inc. and he published “Phonemic Awareness”, his first version of the now so well-known curriculum for phonemic awareness lessons. The full title read: “Phonemic Awareness, the Skills To Help Students Succeed! This was Heggerty’s finished product of his classroom work and research. Trough the years, Dr. Heggerty has presented his research results and his highly acclaimed instructional design at numerous conferences and other meetings.

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Heggerty Phonemic AwarenessRead More »

Whooo’s Reading is a great app for motivating, monitoring, and tracking student progress. Students can earn coins and go to the owl store for upgrading their owls. Students have many choices and it’s easy to track their progress.

Whooo’s Reading Comprehension questions are based on Common Core Education Standards and are set up in a way that students can deepen their critical reading skills. The app is a great and accessible tool for teachers wishing to keep up with their students’ process of reading comprehension.

Accelerating your students’writing and reading comprehension skills is now easier and more authentic than ever before. Whooo’s Reading lets your students think independently through open-ended quizzes and questions for every grade’s book, rather than filling in D, C, B, or A.

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Whooo’s Reading – How does it work?Read More »

Reading Wonders is a fully digitalized reading education program that is developed in line with the Common Core Education Standards for Reading English. Every component of the program combines research-based learning methods and instruction with lots of new tools to meet contemporary education requirements and challenges. All components of the program and all lessons are designed for efficiently and effectively meeting the Common Core Standards. So let’s check it out: Reading Wonders Grade 1 – How does it work.

Reading Wonders is an English Language program developed by education publisher McGraw-Hill for Kindergarten-K–6. The Wonders Literacy Program offers research-based literacy education, a great scaffolded program for student success, as well as a well-designed parent section with updates and weekly newsletters.

The Wonders program is in line with the Common Core Standards that are introduced in and accepted by most American states and the program includes many materials that allow teachers to personalize their instruction, guide small group or whole group learning, and to focus on writing at the same time.

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Reading Wonders Grade 1 – How does it workRead More »

The picture didn’t bother me at all and my little one is more than used to see a woman naked. But I checked the rest of the newspaper and the truth is that the lingerie was the most naive picture in it. On the other pages, there were police handcuffing a man, dead bodies on the street and a bleeding man taken to an ambulance.

What kind of newspapers are you reading? You might ask. Physical newspapers, none really. I only read online. And to be more honest, I go on a healthy information diet. I read what interests me, I actively seek the information that suits me.

And guess what? This doesn’t prevent me from knowing the breaking news just a few hours after it happened. It’s quite difficult to hide from big news, actually. Apart from that, newspapers are unhygienic!

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Be Careful when Recycling Newspapers (so X-rated for children)Read More »

Developmental Continuum for Phonics Knowledge by the End of Kindergarten:

• • Children have an understanding of how our alphabetic language works. They are learning that sounds and letters are related.
  • Children may be able to locate and begin to use some high-frequency words from shared reading and writing books that have been added to a class word wall.

  In the following video, Dr. R. Marc Crundwell talks about the Development Continuum of Reading:

  By the End of First Grade:

  Phonics skills are taken from words that children encounter in their reading and words they commonly use in their writing.

  They include:

  • High-frequency sight words, many of which do not follow spelling patterns, are often learned through the use of a word wall. For more information see Sight Word section of this web site.
  • Words with consonant digraphs and have a known word for each digraph (sh, ch, th).
    Words with the most common word families. For more information see High Utility Word Families.

   

• By the End of Second/Third Grade: …

  Developmental Continuum for Phonics KnowledgeRead More »

Phonemic awareness is an oral language skill. It is the awareness that phonemes exist as abstractable and manipulative components of spoken language. It is not phonics, and it is more than auditory discrimination. In the following video, Peggy Semingson talks about the terminology surrounding emergent and beginning reading teaching. She addresses the distinctions and definitions of phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, and phonics:

Phonemic Awareness Tasks

In short, children have learned to communicate effectively.
Talking to and with children develops their receptive and expressive skills using this language. As they refine and extend their language skills, children learn new words, new meanings for familiar words, and new ways of saying things.

They develop an awareness of the sounds that make up spoken words and the ability to manipulate those sounds known as phonemic awareness. Let’s take a look at the most common examples of Phonemic Awareness:

For students to understand different topics, it is of utmost importance to have a teacher who may be well equipped with all those skills that are essential to achieving the task. Teaching is a respected profession and it has become rewarding as well.

But, it is important for teachers to have degrees in a specific field. For instance, a degree pertaining to early childhood education is getting quite popular today. The reason for this popularity is that parents don’t have time to deal with the different needs of their toddlers and young ones. That’s why they prefer to get in touch with a school for the admission of their child.

What will be the responsibilities? Most of these schools and centers offer a certain level of facilities for children. They make sure that children get the opportunity to stay involved in different constructive activities. Generally, teachers are hired to work with children to make them knowledgeable. A teacher having knowledge about early childhood education may start his job by dealing with infants.

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Early Childhood TeachersRead More »

Poor comprehenders often suffer from what experts call learned helplessness. Some children who struggle when they are learning how to read develop a negative perception of themselves as learners.

This self- concept of being helpless in a learning situation leads the struggling reader to believe that he/she has little or no internal control over success and failure. They underestimate their ability and expect to do poorly in future learning situations.

These expectations of failure often lead to poor motivation, which in turn leads to inactive learning meaning they do not engage in strategic efforts to promote effective learning. This inaction leads to more failure, which confirms their negative perception of themselves as learners. A child’s personal beliefs about himself/herself as a learner does influence how a child addresses and solves problems that they encounter when comprehending.

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Characteristics of the Poor Comprehender and Implications for InstructionRead More »