Phonics Fridays: Smashing Good Time

I am slowly realizing the different styles in which my girls approach the world around them. When my oldest was two she preferred to talk about and listen to books about things that interest her, while my current 2 year old would much rather get  her whole body involved by touching or jumping or breaking the things that interest her.

So when thinking about introducing her to some letters, I initially presented them in the same way I did for my older daughter. I used books and pictures. That obviously was not for her.

Pounding the letters with a hammer which led to the smashing of some Magna Tiles...totally for her!

So we built Magna-Tile cubes, placed magnetic letters on them and she smashed the structures as I called out the letters.

She then turned the activity in to an exploration of what placements of her magnetic letters would stick the best with the magnets inside the tiles. 

Friday Phonics and Language: Alef Bet Flashcards with Vowels

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Love this set of Hebrew Letter Flash Cards we got at our local Amazing Savings Store.

You can find a similar item on Amazon.

They are big and come with an easy to turn wheel with Hebrew vowels under each letter.

Note: This set doesn't have the phonetic transliterations on the back of the cards. Made more for a Hebrew speaking teacher to help a child or adult to learn Hebrew.

It seems to make sense to teach the letters with the vowel at the same time. This way the child is already "reading" Hebrew just by joining for example the /b/ sound from the Bet with the /ee/ sound from the chereek underneath it.

The truth is we have not been that systematic with our teaching of Hebrew sounds and would love to hear from others about the order they use to teach Hebrew reading and writing.

Friday Phonics & Language: Children's Hebrew Media

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We are always looking for more ways to incorporate Hebrew into our daily lives and have searched the internet many times coming up short. Until we realized, duh, we should be searching in Hebrew.

So we got hebrew letter stickers to put on our keyboard from Ebay for like a buck and switched our computer's language to Hebrew and tada so many more hits!!

Currently out favorite find is יוטוב לילדים ( youtube for children). Here is the link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.project.ytfkids&hl=en
Its an App we downloaded and our kids can  now watch shows like Dennis the Menace in Hebrew.
Beware there are tons of ads.

Another favorite of ours is http://sefer-li.net/
It is a website with an extensive list of free downloadable Hebrew stories for kids.
If the link comes up in gibberish, you need to change the encoding of your browser by clicking on Tools, then Encoding, then Hebrew. That's how it works for Google, not sure about other browsers.

Lastly check out https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/storyly-for-ipad-your-digital/id540649061?mt=8.
It's an App that comes with 2 free Hebrew books for kids and then its $10.00 a month for unlimited access to their Hebrew children's books library. That's a little steep for my blood, but we are enjoying our 2 free stories for now.

I would greatly appreciate other suggestions as to where I can find more Hebrew media for my kids.

Phonics Friday: Sound awareness & Working Memory

Here is a great exercise that targets reading, spelling, sound awareness and working memory. It is slightly confusing to explain, so lets try a practice round:

1. You tell your child to put the letters B A T in the air.

2. Child has to write that word in the air with his finger and try to read it while holding on to the visual imagery of the letters in the air 

3. After child reads first word, tell child to erase the B and put in an R and ask "now what does that say?".

4. You keep working this way making only one change at a time.

5. You can target only first, middle, and last sounds or for a more advanced child mix it up.

Here is a short example with a model of how to correct errors as they occur:

I wasn't able to film the continuous of the chain of changes that should follow because little sister decided to hit big sis in the face which cut this exercise short. Hopefully the chaining of changes will be clearer in the video below.

To make this task target spelling, you do the same thing, but instead of giving the letters, you give the child a word to spell.

1. Tell child "spell BAT in the air"

2. Now tell child "spell RAT"--child has to physically erase the /B/ from the air and put in the /R/

Example:

The challenge is holding onto the letters in their memory long enough to then manipulate the letters to either spell or read words. This is what working memory is all about.
The length and sounds used in your exercise will vary based on the reading level your child is on.