Tips to work letters and sounds at home!

How to work letters and sounds at home.

The Internet offers us a great number of possibilities and opportunities to continue learning as at school, but from home, from the office, from where they are located.

Nowadays, the access to videos and applications is easy... Most of videos and apps that we share are meant to review letters, sounds, numbers and other PreK concepts. With our mobile devices we can accelerate our learning, as well as having fun! why not to try with kids, too?

I want to share with you the steps to follow to work them at home.

1. Full video viewing.

First of all, we invite our "campeones" to watch a funny video, the ones that we use at school. We don't need to spend so much time during this activity since most of videos are short.
If this is the first time you see them, please pay attention to the video, since the following activities are related to them.

To check comprehension, we can ask you questions like:

- What's the video about?
- What do you like the most?
- What is your favorite __________?
- Can you draw (and / or write, if they already know) what you liked the most?

2. View by parts.

We'll work with the video little by little. Why pauses? 

Because we will stop to repeat and produce the sounds of the letters or words that appear in the video. In case of difficulty, we will help our kids by inviting them to see it again or we will teach them how to do it.

For example, in the video that we give as an example, we find the first letter: A.






We pause and ask:
- What letter is it?
- What is the name of this letter?
- What is the sound of this letter?

(Let's try to avoid expressions like "you know how ...", since the little ones will respond most of the times and they will not produce them).


In case of presenting difficulties we will use the image (APPLE), and we ask them the following questions:
What fruit do you see?
What is it?
Can you say/pronounce its first sound? (or the last since both are A in this case)

We positively reinforce their answers with the following expressions:
"very good"
"Excellent"

"Great job"

If, on the other hand, we do not have positive answers, we try to offer them other help such as "repeat after me ...". We can teach them how to trace the letters on the screen while we (together) repeat the sound and name it.

For the most advanced students, we can invite them to the following activities-games:

- I see, I see a little thing that starts with the letter ...
And they have to guess what is the one that starts with that letter.

- How many things in the room begin with this letter?

- How many things in the room end with this letter?

- Tell me other words that you know start / end with this letter.

Other variants can be write and read. For example, with one of your favorite book stories you can ask the same questions that we have asked for the room.

3- Again full viewing of the video without sound.

In this last part of the activities we can see the full video again and play to see how many letters and sounds you know. For each one that they know (by themselves) we can make points and those points can be exchanged for things they like. By doing so we motivate them to learn the letters and sounds, it will be very fun! 

Can you try at home? How many points will you get?

Other videos to work with letters and sounds:

El Invierno - sonidos, letras y escritura

Another episode of letters, sounds, words,... in Dual-Language Prek. In this time we are working on the word "invierno". This word, "invierno" is part of our project with the same name.

Academic goal:
- to recognize letters based on their sounds(phonological awareness development)
- to order the positions of the letters to create a word- to develop reading skills
- to develop writing skills
- to have fun!


Materials and resources:
- PowerPoint
- ABC
- Picture of Winter
- Digital Board
- Notebook
- Pencil/crayons
- motivation to work together and help others!


Steps:
1) Introduce the picture
The teacher talks to the students about the picture.
Q: What can you see?
Q: Is it hot or cold?
Q: Which season is it: spring, summer, fall or winter?
Why?


Then, they draw and color a picture of winter.


2) ABC.

We say the ABC letter by letter in order with the help of all the students in the classroom.


3) Matching sounds with letters.
Now we focus on the word "invierno". We pronounce invierno for them.
Q: What's the first letter?
We start with the first letter: I
We check sounds and letters.
Q: Is this letter I?


Previously they drew 8 squares -as the ones (blue) you can see in the digital board-. One square for each letter of the word we are studying.
When we get a letter is time for them to write. It's important they follow the order of the sounds and writing.


Q: Where can I put the following letter?

We check if they understand the order of pronunciation and writing.

Q: What's the right order/position for this word?

The highest students, who can already read, help others to understand the letter-order-sequence to read and write.
We interact with them, like a game.

Q: What's the following letter?
(At this time I don't say the sound because one student already did it)
In case of confusion like the sound V and B, they have to use their memory.

They DO know that is V and not B.

We are forming a word TOGETHER!
It's a GREAT team!

It's important to read the sounds we are writing to help them understand we are creating the word.

First, the ones already written, and second the ones missing.
In this case we need an I, again we play with the possible mistake of using I or Y. They know well!

Sometimes they say other sounds/letters and we can play with them by trying to pronounce the word with their sounds.

Student: now we need a V.
Teacher: again V?
Do you say *"InviVerno"?
S: No!
Teacher: So, what's the next letter?
Student: Y!
Teacher: *"InviYerno"?
Student: Yes!
Teacher: We say "InvI-E-rno", so what's the next letter?

We must challenge them and help them too when they need it, they ARE learning (so are we, as teachers).
We can not forget that mistakes and errors are important elements in the learning process.


Student: E
Teacher: Well done! "InviErno"!
Working in whole groups help students who can not know something.

With the students' help learning is funnier and easier for them since they might not feel the pressure of being evaluated directly by the teacher.
We invite students to do what we, as teachers, are doing.

As you can see, our students are already trained to help others: positive classroom management, peer-peer relationship included.
First, it's recommended to offer them a model of how to do the activity. Then, they can practice with our guidance and help. This is what happening now during this scene.
The process of reading and writing is slow, so they must feel comfortable and sure of what they are doing.

Their self-image improves, therefore they feel motivated to keep on working by their own.


Thanks to all my Dual-Language Prek Students for their GREAT JOB everyday!
Mr Usero
Roosevelt ES
Houston ISD
2017-2018

Como hacer un libro para aprender el nombre y las letras

El libro de Sophia

Sophia, alumna de PreK dual-language de Roosevelt, les quiere mostrar como podemos hacer nuestro libro personalizado. 

Con el podemos trabajar con las letras de nuestro nombre, trabajar los sonidos, escribir, dibujar, contar,... y muchas mas cosas.

Comencemos!

Necesitamos papel de cartulina o similar, colores, marcadores o rotuladores, tijeras, pegamento, cinta adhesiva, y otras cosas mas que ustedes quieran usar para decorar.

Para empezar creamos nuestra portada con nuestro nombre y apellidos. Ademas, tambien se les puede anadir una foto. Sophia lo va a hacer en casa (ya mostraremos el resultado final).

Para escribir su nombre Sophia eligio las letras en sellos con la tinta. A continuacion, realizamos nuestro retrato. 

Podemos anadir otra informacion personal como la edad y la ciudad donde vives.

Para las letras de su nombre, Sophia elige escribirlas con las letras en sello y la tinta. Y para demostrarnos que ella sabe escribir perfectamente usa tambien los marcadores.

Una vez tenemos las letras, es tiempo de buscar imagenes, dibujos y cosas que empiecen por la misma letra. Por ejemplo, las letras de Sophia son

S

O

P

H

I

A

pues habra que buscar cosas que empiecen por S, por O, por P, por H, por I y por A.

Una vez las tengamos las pegaremos en sus respectivas paginas.

Aqui pueden ver que Sophia encontro un libro de Peppa Pig. Peppa empieza por P, asi que la selecciona para recortarla y pegarla en la pagina de la letra P.

Con esta actividad desarrollan la exploracion y el descubrimiento por saber, nuevo vocabulario, "conciencia fonologica" ya que emparejan las letras iniciales, y diversion durante el aprendizaje (con ella usamos catalogos de juguetes). Aparte de las habilidades lectoescritoras tambien desarrollamos la motricidad fina (recotar) y la coordinacion viso-manual (pegar).

Otra variante puede ser ver el catalogo y seleccionar aquellas cosas que comienzan por su mismo sonido-letra antes de comenzar a hacer el libro (puede servir de motivacion para realizar esta actividad en casa). 

Ademas, tambien se puede escribir su nombre (esta actividad fue grabada en clase con un tiempo limitado, en casa pueden realizarla durante dias) 

Sophia ya no puede parar de buscar y de aprender!!!

Christmas tree - arbol de navidad

En este video podran ver como trabajamos sobre el arbol de navidad con nuestros alumnos de dual language prek de Roosevelt ES - HoustonISD.



Actividades de conexion, introduccion y presentacion, lectura y visionado de historias, una actividad de arte, escritura, smartboard con gran grupo y una pequena muestra de "small group".







Musica: Podington Bear, Starling

http://freemusicarchive.org/

Storytelling

Storytelling by Maestro Usero on Scribd

Aprendiendo letras con bloques

En nuestro salon cada centro de trabajo (workstation) supone una gran oportunidad de aprendizaje. Estas oportunidades de aprendizaje tambien suceden cuando los estudiantes participan y 

colaboran en el proceso de ensenanza-aprendizaje de los demas companeros/as.

En este caso Aaron (hablante de espanol) ensena una palabra del vocabulario del proyecto de otono: GRACIAS. Como pueden ver en el video, Aaron ensena como hacer las letras con los bloques, incluyendo su grafia, nombre y sonido, a Sergio (hablante de ingles, aprendiz de espanol) tomando como referencia la palabra del smartboard.

Esta semana empezamos con la parte del proyecto que se llama "Accion de Gracias". Tras haber contado la historia de los peregrinos y los nativos americanos, aprendimos la razon de esta festividad y esta maravillosa palabra: Gracias.

El agradecimiento y la gratitud son las puertas de las demas virtudes. Por este motivo, comparto mi mensaje de agradecimiento: estoy agradecido por lo que me ensenan mis propios estudiantes, paciencia para con los demas, conocimiento de si mismos y de los demas y una vision e imaginacion que va mas alla de lo que nos rodea.

Gracias! ;)

Mr. Usero

Dual-Language Instruction (1)

Este es mi video resumen sobre la instruccion del modelo dual en Houston ISD.

En futuros posts hablare sobre otros puntos sobre "dual language instruction"

Si tienen preguntas, por favor me pueden dejar comentarios.

Reading 1 - What is reading?

What is reading?

"In order to wish to read, the child has to know that reading will be useful to him, he/she must be convinced that the whole world will have wonderful experiences, he/she will dissipate his/her ignorance, help him/her understand the world and direct his/her destiny" 

(Quintanal Díaz, 1999)

As a teacher reading is a very important activity that involves school and family, so I´ll write some posts about this importance of this activity. This first article is about the definition of reading and the fundamental ideas that complement this definition.

Many authors define reading, José Quintanal Díaz (1999) defines Reading as "an activity of the first order that should be strengthened and, above all, it is necessary to learn." (free translation from the original quote)

Bernal Pinilla defines reading as "the action of deciphering the symbols of a message; understand their meanings; relate them to known meanings, appropriate some new element and develop them through the process of creativity. " (Bernal, 2011: 6-8). And he explains it to us in the following way:

1. Action to decipher the symbols of a message.

Image of a child deciphering symbols

The act of reading is free, and in that sense the reader exercises his will, fulfilling a wish. On the other hand, reading implies the action of recognizing the signs of the message, and in the first term, the fact of knowing them. Knowledge of linguistic symbols is usually acquired in the early stages of schooling. That is, according to Quintanal Diaz reading requires an effort on the part of the subject who intends to read. 

Children tend to instinctively reject what is expensive, so it is the teacher's job to sweeten that effort and that the task of reading for the student is interesting, stimulating, natural, free, playful and enjoyable. At home, his/her family can help with the same features (we´ll dedicate another post about the importance of reading at home and tools and resources to use at home)

2. Action to understand the meanings of the message.

The action of reading goes beyond the simple decoding of symbols, which is useless without a true understanding. The reading process has a second, important stage, which consists in interpreting, assimilating, and comprehension of the written message. A process that is only achieved when the reader learns as a child to correctly decipher the signs. That is why it is the teacher's task to deliver the student in his/her infancy varied, attractive, meaningful and pleasant materials. And, of course, encourage them to deepen, to imagine, to fantasize and to relate what they read with what they know, that is helping them make connections. Making connections with their reality will active their background knowledge to build the new contents. This idea is called "scaffolding", we´ve posted an article about this. By reading and its daily practice, children will have the ability to be immerse naturally, easily and without trauma, into ever more complex texts. And more importantly, to take advantage of them and enjoy them in depth.

3. Getting familiar with known meanings. 
We can affirm that reading is learned by reading, that is, with practice.
Reading is a process that feedbacks; the more reading, the better the reader gets more familiar with the new meanings to those he/she already knew. This creates the possibility of interpreting with greater clarity, ease, depth and enjoyment of the new readings.

4. Taking some new element. 
Reading has a great virtue from the point of view of information. Reading gives to readers new ideas and knowledge that become part of them: each text gives us the opportunity of integrating to our cultural background new knowledge and new possibilities to analyze aspects of life that begins to know through what is read.

5. Developing creativity.
During the first years of life, for children it is fundamental  the contact with nature, with peers, etc... But there is no greater stimulus for the development of our creativity than reading. That puts the human being in contact with a thousand and some realities that would otherwise be impossible to meet at such a young age. Reading, in addition, allows us to unlimitedly develop imagination and fantasy, fundamental ideas of all creativity.