A World of Learning

 It's important to learn how to read, but it's also just as important as reading to learn. I have a particular student that I tutor who prefers to read informational books rather than most fiction. I had a hard time choosing books that he actually wanted to read, so I suggested that I take him to the library, where he could pick out his own book. It worked! We've been reading this book for a while, which is all about different habitats and the various animals who live there. He loves choosing which animal he wants to read about next. This week, one of the animals he read about was the Toco Toucan. (which we at first read as Taco Toucan)😄  He said that Toucans are some of his favorite animals, and he already knew some interesting facts about them. He learned more about them, and when this boy learns something, he'll never forget it. Seriously. His mind is like a steel trap. lol  But, to sum up, he loves reading to learn (as long as it's a subject that interests him....

My first post for April!  The six-year-old girl I've been working with has been learning to read blends and doing so well! Bl, tr, st, ch...  But she's started to get confused about what sounds the vowels make. So I've decided to take a break from her workbook and go back over the sounds of A,E,I,O,U. I have special lined paper in a book for young writers, and I wrote the vowels across the top of a two-page spread with lines representing columns. Then I would say a word with a vowel sound in it, like "cat," for example. Then she would need to recognize which vowel sound she was hearing, and write the word under the correct letter. (A)  I used some really easy words like bat, sit, had, dog, cup, etc. but I also included some of the newer words she's been learning, like play, trip, chug, and so on. She did okay, but she really had to think about the sounds. So I'm going to be working on the vowel sounds with her over the next couple of weeks (I tutor her onc...