SWR and Preschoolers

(And Non-Reading Beginners)

 

(Preface: I originally wrote this paper on the topic of SWR and Preschoolers only.  I have since expanded it to include Non-Reading Beginners because they must pass through these same steps but at a much faster pace than a preschooler.  “Non-reading beginners” applies to any student regardless of age who is not reading, writing, and spelling.  Many 5-7 year olds would benefit from going through the steps below.)

 

The preschool years are an opportune time to begin learning with SWR.  Many of the most successful music training methods, such as the Kodaly method and the Suzuki method capitalize on this early window of learning during the preschool years with exceptional results. 

 

The renowned Hungarian music educator, Zoltan Kodaly, was asked when he thought would be the best time to begin the music instruction of a young child.  He said,  “Nine months before they are born,” paused a moment, and said, “No, nine months before the birth of the mother.”

 

What he meant was that any lack of proper musical instruction for the mother would result in “musical holes” in her child.  Most prominently seen in children whose mothers don’t sing at home or sing out of tune.  What do you get?  Non-singing or out of tune children!

 

  We see the same thing happening with the increase in dyslexia in America due to whole language instruction.  Many parents with weak reading and spelling skills are attempting to teach their children.  This creates a “double struggle” and much frustration.  But a program like SWR can repair these broken bridges and walls.  Backtracking the mom and child together toward a firm foundation.  With SWR we can help children to truly master their “mother tongue” by giving explicit phonics instruction during the preschool years.

 

I love the preschool child’s personality.  They are so happily engaged in the simplest of activities and are generally easy to please.  They are the ones most likely to laugh at my jokes!  Any work that you do in preparing a preschooler to learn with SWR should be fun.  You should draw them into the learning process with enjoyable activities and stop when they tire. 

 

If you approach preschool teaching in this way, a 3-5 year old can most likely learn all of the first 26 phonograms and many or all of the multi-letter phonograms.  If you start with large motor writing activities they can learn to write all the letters of the alphabet correctly from the beginning.

 

 Some people think that you are pushing a preschooler in a negative way if you try to teach them these things, but I disagree.  If you do it all in a happy learning environment you are doing them a big favor.  In fact, they don't think of it as learning at all, but playing with mom.  Children love attention and why not give them a positive interaction while building an important foundation to language learning?

 

When I began as a mother, I taught my oldest son many things in his early years, but left out the specifics of early language /phonics/writing.  I thought he was so intelligent and would quickly pick this all up in kindergarten.  As you recall from my writing on How I Got Started With SWR http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/66558/ this did not happen naturally for him in kindergarten, first grade, or for some years after.

 

My oldest son and I went through years of struggle that resulted in hurt feelings and doubt for the both of us, not to mention a faulty understanding of the English language.  This difficulty could have been completely avoided by beginning explicit phonics and writing instruction in his preschool years.

 

I have started my younger set learning in early preschool and we have avoided many struggles this way, resulting in a better mother/child relationship and an easy entry to the English language.

 

When I start my younger children in learning SWR formally in Kindergarten at age five, they have already had several years of preparation and learning comes easily to them.  When children find learning easy, they are motivated and learn quicker and are not resistant to instruction. 

 

Spreading out the instruction for the 3-5 year old is a most efficient method.  Lessons can be short and sporadic, but will still reap phenomenal results.  I have seven children and am very busy, but by squeezing in a two-five minute lesson with my 3 and 4-year-old children here and there, they have learned so much and it has all been fun for them.

 

Wanda covers many of the things that you can do with a preschooler to inspire phonemic awareness on pages 20 to 22 of SWR.

 Wanda has expanded on these ideas in her work with a four year old friend and shared many of the fun games and activities with the members of SWR yahoo group in a March 7, 2005 post titled:  Non-Reading Beginners.  I have played many of these games with my now four-year old girl and she simply loves them.  (Thanks, Wanda!!)

 

In this post Wanda gives us many exercises that will build “phonemic awareness” which she calls “ear training” exercises.  Every musician knows that a well-trained ear is the foundation for becoming a good musician, and the same should be with language learning.

 

My daughter’s favorite “ear training” games are:  I am quoting from Wanda’s March 7, 2005 SWR Yahoo post below:

 

Say and Do: I sound out a word for them to guess and then do the action named.

Clap, sit, fly, run, jump, wave, bow, and eat

 

As I say each sound I hold up a finger. C-l-a-p has four separate fingers.

W-a-v-e also has four separate fingers, but I wiggle the last one because

it is silent. B-ow is three fingers but the last two are stuck together;

we think of them as one phonogram and not two separate sounds. Ea-t is

three fingers but the first two are stuck together as two letters that say

/E/.

 

It is important that fingers show a left to right progression, the direction we use to write and read. (If I am facing the student that means I need to do it "mirror" image for them so they do not see it backwards. To make it look left to right to the student, I have to move in what is to me "right to left.")

 

 

Find the toy:

 

I put some toys in a basket. We went over them to make sure she could identify them all by name. Then I would sound out the word and she would pick up the toy. The 2 year old did this as quickly as her older sister.  I thought this was especially fun. I saved it for the last thing of the third day.

 

End of quote from Wanda’s March 7, 2005 SWR Yahoo post.

 

Reading aloud to preschoolers is an important part of their preparation for language understanding.  Wanda covers the importance of this activity on pages 23-24 of SWR.  Reading aloud teaches reading procedures. Your child can watch your finger follow the words that you are reading from left to right.  It also plants the desire to learn to read, inspires future reading success and stimulates the intellect and vocabulary, and builds close family relationships. 

 

I have always made birthday tapes for the youngest children.  On each tape I would sing happy birthday, read some scripture, sing some songs, and read some of their favorite children’s stories.  Then before naptime or at bedtime they would listen to the tape.  Since learning with SWR I have continued to make these birthday tapes, but now I include a section on them with me saying the phonogram sounds.  I often have the children on my lap while I am recording and they make comments about the book we are reading and can later hear their own questions with mom’s answers, or themselves echoing the phonograms on tape before naps.

 

And of course we still read aloud live at different times during the day and before bedtime.  We start the day with a BIBLE read aloud and move into picture books for a mid day reading. We cap the evening off with a novel length book and no pictures to develop their listening ear.  Some of our favorite read alouds are missionary stories, such as Bruchko, and Genovieva, and early American historical fiction such as Little House in the Big Woods and On to Oregon!

 

 

Before finding SWR, I did not properly understand how to teach handwriting which is a most basic and essential skill for mastering the English language.  I tended to rely on the tracing method and was not careful in teaching making letters in the proper direction. 

 

But now all that has changed since Wanda Sanseri and Liz FitzGerald taught me HOW to teach handwriting with SWR (covered on pages 33-42) and Cursive First.

 

 I begin my preschooler with LARGE MOTOR writing as explained in SWR.  To teach the clock face letters I prefer a clock drawn on the base line as it gives that important orientation of a baseline for the beginner.  As recommended in SWR I start with a cursive “a,” then a “c, d, g, o, and q.”  I have the child trace with their finger over the clock while I say the dialogue. 

 

Some other fun ways to teach handwriting with a beginner are tracing letters on their back and having them guess the letter you write. You can also use fabric paint and write letters on the back of a t-shirt for your child to trace.  This is a fun visual reminder and firms up the letter placement for the trace the letter on the back game.

 

 

 My children love to write letters in a salt box, which I made from a shoe box cut down short, poured salt in, and keep the lid on when not using.  My son really liked writing in the salt-box as he could easily jostle the box and erase his mistakes quickly.

 

At some point during the handwriting instruction I draw a large house on the board and we discuss the baseline, mid-line, top-line and “main floor, attic, and basement letters.”  These terms are necessary for understanding where to place all of the 26 letters of our alphabet.  Once they understand what the main parts of the house are, I draw various letters next to the house and ask them what parts of the house this letter uses. For example, an “a” is a “main floor” letter, a “g” is a “main floor and basement” letter, an “f” is a “main floor, attic, and basement” letter all at once.

 

My preschoolers/kindergartener were also taught to write letters with large motor on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk and inside on a blackboard.

 

Another fun large motor way to write letters is using a Magna Doodle board.  My children received several for Christmas presents from grandma and I hold one board and write a letter while saying the sounds and my little girl holds her own board and writes the letter while saying the sounds.

 

I have also made sand letters for with my children using cardboard, sand, and glue.   First, I draw a letter on a piece of cardboard.  Then I go over the letter with Elmer’s Glue.  We sit next to our sand box and I let my kids sprinkle sand over the letters. After the letters dry overnight the children can sit at the school table and trace the letters with their finger in the proper direction.  Sit with your child while they do this to make sure they trace in the proper direction.  This is a fun large-motor way to trace letters without using a pencil!  It is fun and non-threatening for the young learner.

 

Along the way you will want to teach a preschooler as many phonograms as possible.  Start with the first 26 letters of the alphabet and introduce a few new phonograms per day.  My favorite way to begin teaching phonograms is to hold up a card and say the sound/sounds the letter makes and have my kids echo me.  After you have done this for several days you can introduce some games to spice up the learning a bit.

 

Here are some games I play with my children to help them learn their phonograms.  They can be used with any preschoolers and would also be good for a beginner at SWR who is ages 5-9.  Phonogram Bingo would appeal to some children up to age 12-14 (especially if you use m & m’s as markers!)

 

The first is the Stair Game. Have your son/daughter start at the top stair. Hold up a card and have him echo you on the proper sound/s. If he echoes correctly he can move down a stair. If not, he stays. When he makes it to the bottom of the stairs have a treat ready. It can be a cookie or a carrot stick. My children love to work for treats and I don't offer them all the time, but just at the beginning of learning an important concept. After he is able to echo you well on the stair game bring it up to a new and harder level. Now he must say the sounds of the phonogram correctly when you hold up a card without prompting (wait until you are sure he can do this and pick the ones you're sure he knows well) in order to hop down a stair. If you like, offer a treat at the bottom.

 

 Another game my kids like is Hop, Treasure Hunt.  Place several phonograms on the floor in a weaving fashion with room to jump over them. Have them lead to a "treasure" behind a chair or couch, etc. Have the child hop over the phonogram saying all the sounds of that phonogram (if a phonogram has 3 sounds they hop forward, backward, and forward) until they have hopped over all cards and reach the "treasure." You can have the treasure be whatever you want:  A treat, or a nickel, or a fun sticker.

 

The other game we have been playing is called: Six-Card Choose. For this game lay out six phonogram cards and you say the sound of one of the cards. Your son/daughter should choose the correct card.  Do this until you have given the sound of each card and your son has chosen the correct one. Then shuffle and set down six more cards.  I don't know why, but my five-year old son loves this game. The first two games I learned from TRHS yahoo and Six Card Choose I made up.

 

Phonogram Bingo or Tic Tac Toe is always very popular.  You can use pennies, carrot rounds, or chocolate chips or m & m’s as game markers.  When the game is over, they eat the markers!  (Don’t eat pennies, though!)   I prefer the 9-15 grid bingo game, as it is a good warm up on the phonograms that need the most work that day/week.  You, the mom/teacher, say all the sounds of the each phonogram on the card and the kids echo you and put a marker on the correct square. After the bingo game, I give a short phonogram quiz on the phonograms that were on the day’s bingo card.

 

 If your kids are a bit shaky on the phonograms for the quiz you can set the bingo card in their view to prompt them.  (This phonogram quiz applies to older learners ages 5 and up-generally, although my nearly 4-year-old daughter has participated in many phonogram quizzes, as she likes to do what her brothers do.)  After a few days, do the same phonogram quiz without the bingo card!  This is a fun way to start our day of SWR learning!  You can purchase a ready made set of cards or make you own cards at this web site: 

 

 http://teachers.teach-nology.com/web_tools/materials/bingo/

 

There is a trend in education today to devalue the preschool years.  Many educators say:  “They just need to play at this age and be comfortable with their peers.”  Parents who try to teach their child something meaningful are seen as pushy and overachieving.  Yes, there are some bad examples of this type of parent who tries to produce a little genius to satisfy their pride.  We are not talking about this type of learning with prideful goals here.  We are talking about laying down the foundation of language in love while having fun with our preschoolers.  Don’t neglect these important years!  Have fun with your preschooler while leaving a legacy of language so that they can successfully read The Good Book.

 

 

 

Britta McColl        

Morning Star Learning

 

Postscript:

 

 Since writing this paper I have passed through many exciting stages with my children who I started teaching with SWR while they were yet preschoolers.

 

 My fifth son was about three years old when he started learning some of the phonograms and occasionally forming the clock letters of a, c, d, g, o, and q using large motor movements (not with pencil and paper).  Most of his early learning from between the ages of three and five was through joining in on group phonogram games such as the Stair Game and Phonogram Bingo while I was focusing on teaching his big brothers.  I rarely singled him out for a lesson except five minutes here and there of forming a clock letter with large motor movement or a six card choose game.  Even so, before he was five he had mastered all of the 26 letters of the alphabet –could say all the sounds each letter made—and knew many of the multi letter phonograms.

 

I have five boys and at young ages they have all seemed somewhat allergic to pencils.  My last two children are girls and I see a big difference in boys and girls in the area of language learning--and writing.  Yes, yes, of course, there will always be that boy that loves to hold a pencil and write, but from my personal experience and hearing from others--that is not the norm.

 

If you want to read more on this topic go my post:

Does SWR Work for Wiggly Willys?

http://homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/64551/

 

 I was very nervous about teaching my five year old son to write with cursive and had planned it would take very long for him to learn this style of writing. I didn’t want to push him and make him hate learning.  I had side-line plans and was thinking of giving it up many times, but Wanda encouraged me step by step.  Even though this little boy was a young 5 when I started teaching him cursive, by following Wanda Sanseri’s and Liz FitzGerald’s (Cursive First) suggestions he learned it rather effortlessly in only about two months.

 

 I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised.  Below is a sample of his 

handwriting at age 5 ½ writing on Blank Top Writing Paper

.

 

 

 

 He was writing sentences using words from spelling list D in the WISE Guide.  To read more and/or purchase this Blank Top Writing Paper go to www.morningstarlearning.com  and click on the SWR category.  (Now if cursive writing puts you off, you don't have to teach that style of writing to teach your kids with SWR.  All of Wanda's instructions in the SWR book are for both printing/manuscript and cursive.  You, the parent, choose the style of writing you want to teach.)

 

This bouncy little boy is now 6 ½ years old and spells very well and is beginning to read. Last week told me he was tired of the “little kid” books I was having him read.  He said he wanted to read an ancient history book like his big brothers read!   I said, “OK tomorrow I’ll help you pick out a history book to read.”  (Most of his brothers are reading on the topic of American History this year, but he thinks it is ancient history because some of the books they read are out of print books www.alibris.com that look very old—yellow pages, torn a bit.) 

 

So the next morning I offered him a few different books and he landed on Benjamin Franklin from the Childhood of Famous American series.  (~4th grade reading level.)  He read about five pages. I kept offering to read a few paragraphs and give him a break he said, “No, I will read.”   I kept saying, “Well, now you need a break!” And he'd say, “No, one more page!”  Sweet!  I helped him with a lot of words, but he was also able to read many words completely on his own including:  WONDERFUL and COUNTRIES.  He is at list J-3 in the WISE Guide at this writing.

 

He did not seem tired and was very proud!  So was I!  He has since read 4 more pages of his Benjamin Franklin book and has no fear of words!

 

*******************************************************************

 

And now, about my 6^th child who is a little girl.  She is now 4 ½ years-old and I have taught her with SWR since she was 2 years old.  All her learning has been in short 5 minute snatches of little games where she learned the phonogram sounds and how to write cursive using large motor.  (The instructions for this are in SWR and expanded on in Cursive First.)  I have also played many of the ear training games with her that are listed in the paper above on SWR and Preschool.  She is now well known for accurately breaking apart words in common speech by the individual phonograms.  She’ll say, “Let’s go up s-t-ai-r-s mom and read a b-oo-k.”  This is just a fun little thing for her, and shows she understands these small “bites” of speech!

 

 This little girl does not think she has been working while learning the “bites” of speech (phonograms) but it has all been a fun game to her.   She has also learned so much from just sitting next to her big brothers and watching me do dictation with them.  This has probably been the biggest part of her learning with SWR.

 

I was not planning to give her a learning log this fall, but she would sit next to her 6 year old brother and write what he was writing on loose paper everyday while begging for her own log to write in.  I kept saying,  ”No, you’re too young!  Wait until you’re five!” 

 

Then I thought about it and realized, this little girl can write any word her brother writes and even tested at 2.2 grade level her first try on the Spelling Diagnostic Test.  (I was giving the Spelling Diagnostic Test to her big brothers last August and she kept begging for a paper just like theirs to write on.  In order to keep some peace, I gave her the paper. I ignored her for the rest of the test but did see her writing and sounding out words as she wrote.  After we were all done I looked over to what she had been writing.  It was all the words I had given her brothers for their Spelling Diagnostic Test.  Some were spelled wrong, of course, but many were spelled correctly including:  last, spent, stamp, and born to give the score of 2.2 grade level.)  Now really, why can’t she have a learning log!?!?!?  I finally gave her one and she comes to most of her brother's spelling lessons.   I don’t require her to come for spelling and she only comes when she wants to. 

 

Below is a picture of my 4 ½ year old daughter’s Primary Learning Log.   The words are from section I-3 in the WISE Guide.  Her penmanship is not perfect, but I think it is quite good for her age.  She is still working on her lower case /o/ and I remind her to keep the tail high for that letter.  She composed the first sentence completely on her own.  I looked over and it was done:  “The doll sang a song.”  For the next sentence:  “I cleaned the stove.”  I helped her through the words “cleaned” and “stove.”

 

 

 At this writing she can spell words up to J-2 in the Wise guide (words like: block, outside, and ship) and she is also reading from books like Go Dog Go quite easily.  As for writing, she has been much more aggressive about learning to write than her big brothers were.  She often “pushes her way” into a spelling lesson and loves to write in cursive.  Some of this may be because she is a girl, and some may be because of all the watching she has done of big brothers learning to write.  There are some great advantages to being a younger child in a family!

 

I do not believe in pushing young children to learn.  I am only including this story about my little girl so that you can see how SWR can be both fun for kids and teach in an orderly way so that a very young child can learn and understand.  But again, in the under five-age range, I go at the child’s pace.  No pushing.  Only do SWR when it is FUN for the child.  And for me, when I have the time!!

 

 When my kids are between 5 and 6 they become school children and need to learn to come to regular lessons.  At this time they complete an SWR lesson everyday.  This is along the lines of teaching your child to wash the dishes and make their beds. They are learning the discipline of completing a task even if it is not fun at the moment. A child who has been well prepared in the preschool years will find coming to regular SWR lessons much easier than a child who starts school at age 5 "cold turkey."

 

Thanks for listening and thanks again, Wanda, for helping us find this type of success and pleasure with words!

 

Truly,

 

Britta McColl R

Morning Star Learning

Mom to 7 exuberant children

Endorsed SWR trainer

 

To purchase a complete line of SWR materials go to www.morningstarlearning.com

 

Here is a great link to another homeschool moms experience with SWR:

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/mistresninos/46555/

  

What Is Spell to Write and Read?

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/66553/

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