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At Rolph Literacy Academy at Fundamental Learning Center in Kansas, we teach our students — who have dyslexia or other reading difficulties — to read. Through the years, we have learned some tricks to engage kids who are not natural bookworms to look forward to story time.

We recommend parents and caregivers help readers select books that have subject matter coinciding with a child’s interests. Research also shows reading aloud to children helps build comprehension skills, develop positive feelings about books, increase their vocabulary and more. We love using Learning Resources Color Cubes to help children comprehend text.

Here are five ideas Fundamental Learning Center uses to aid comprehension using Learning Resources Color Cubes:

1. Before you begin reading, assign each character a different color represented by the Color Cubes. Each time you are introduced to one of the characters as you are reading, have your child pick up the appropriate-colored block. This helps your child understand the players in your story.
2. Before you begin reading, pull out 3-5 vocabulary words from the text. Go over them with your child before you begin. Each time your child encounters one of the vocabulary words as you are reading, have him or her add a block to a vocabulary tower he builds.
3. When you are reading with your young reader and encounter a multi-syllabic word, have your child pull down a color cube for each syllable, moving left to right. Segmenting words into syllables helps emerging readers understand how words are built. This can also be done while segmenting sentences into single words.
4. If you are reading a non-fiction book, assign one colored block to stand for main idea, and one block color to represent supporting details. As you read, come up with main ideas and supporting details for the subject matter, using the blocks to help you keep track.
5. Write the following words, one on each block: who, what, where, when and why. After you are finished reading the book with your child, use the cubes to ask him or her each question as it pertains to the plot of the story. Who was this story about? What happened? Where did it take place? Etc.

 As you can see, Learning Resources Color Cubes can help emerging readers engage with the words in books. For more specific training on how to assist your emerging reader, visit funlearn.org and check out our curriculum and training to assist emerging readers, “The Sound Case.”

How often do you find your child lost in their only little world of imaginative play? In our house, it’s a daily occurrence – and since school has started again this Fall, I often find the girls playing school. Pretend play is not only a critical part of early child development, it can also help you learn more about your child and their current school experiences.

4 Things You and Your Child Can Learn Playing School

Have you ever been struggling with a project at work, and you come home and think through it while you go through the motions of your day, maybe even in your dreams? Our kids are no different! While you may ask them how school was and get little more than a word or two response, left to their own imaginative play devices, they may reveal far more about their day.

So the next time they want to play school, you should not only encourage it, but listen up.

You Learn 95% of What We Teach to Others  

Ever heard the saying “We Learn . . . 10% of what we read,  20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see, 50% of what we see and hear, 70% of what we discuss, 80% of what we experience, and 95% of what we teach others.

”It originated from William Glasser, a famous American psychiatrist, who pioneered work in choice therapy and its applications in education. What it means for playing school? If your child can come home and pretend to teach what they’ve learned to their stuffed animals and dolls, they are more likely to master the material.

Last week, my daughter’s preschool class was beginning a year-long alphabet study by reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. John Archambault. She was playing school, and asked me to write the repetitive refrain from the story on her pretend play school board – she’s a pre-reader, but after I wrote it, she used the pointer to point and read each word on the board!

So instead of doing more math worksheets, or practicing sight words on paper, ask them to teach addition to their favorite play things.

Gain Insight into What’s Happening at School 

How many times have your picked up your child from school with a glum face? You ask, “How was school today?” and get met with a single word response if you’re lucky. You can push the question, but you know it often leads them to shut down even more.

If you back off, and let them play freely when you get home, you can often learn exactly what’s going on at school without even asking. Whether they are playing school, or re-enacting dialogue with princesses or stuffed animals, you might just hear what’s bothering them. Or if nothing is bothering them, you can often discover what they are learning about, who they are playing with, who’s being reprimanded by the teacher, and more.

I recommend letting them play as independently as possible, and revisiting what you learn with them when you have quiet 1-on-1 time. I find the best time to really get them talking is just before bed, after stories, when you are tucking your child in for the night.

Role Playing Develops Social and Emotional Skills 

When your child is playing school (or engaged in any form of pretend or imaginative play), you will often hear them replaying dialogue they observe in the world around them. Maybe they are re-enacting scenes from their favorite show, or replaying what happened at school that day.

Practicing the exchange of dialogue and re-enacting events are an amazing way to help your child develop social and emotional skills they will use for the rest of their life. Role playing during imaginative play is also a great tool for you as a parent to help guide your child when they are struggling with feelings, or even after they have behaved inappropriately.

If they have had an argument with a sibling or a friend at school, or even with you, when they are calmer, you can recreate the situation and offer up words, phrases and alternative actions they can use the next time the situation arises.

Discover Your Child’s Passions

Want to find out what your child is really into? Leave them to their own imaginative devices. When they are playing school, see what lessons they choose to teach. Are they reading books to their stuffed animals? What books do they gravitate towards?

When they are playing school, do they re-teach science experiments or math lessons? The areas they choose to explore voluntarily are likely the subjects they enjoy most. Be sure to encourage those passions… but also take note of the areas they often avoid. This may be an indication of subject areas they struggle with, and may need your help to develop in those areas.

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So the next time you happen upon your kids ‘playing school’, be sure to sit back, let them play and catch the conversation. Not only are they having fun, they are cementing their learning while offering you valuable insights into the part of their day you don’t often get to see firsthand.Grab your own self-storing Pretend & Play School set here. For more great play ideas for kids, check out my Imaginative Play and Kids Activities boards on Pinterest.

It’s almost fall! You’re probably spending a little less time swimming, climbing, and playing outside and a little more time relaxing indoors – the perfect place for fall craft projects with your preschooler! Luckily, fall is ripe with inspiration for preschool crafts, like the three we’ve chosen below. So pour some cider, have a seat, and let’s get crafty!

Turning Leaf Scratchers

With less sun and shorter days, autumn weather suppresses chlorophyll production in many leaves, allowing their beautiful orange, red, and yellow colors to shine through. Demonstrate this process with a fun leaf scratcher!

1. Cut a large leaf shape out of a piece of card stock or other sturdy paper. You can find lots of printable templates online, if you need one.
2. Have your kids cover the leaf in red, yellow, or orange crayon (or all three), making sure to leave a thick layer of color over the entire leaf.
3. Next, have the kids cover their leaves in a layer of green crayon.
4. Using a penny (keep a careful eye on very small children), scratch off the layer of green to reveal the beautiful fall colors beneath.

Click for a simple explanation about why leaves change color in the fall!

Fall Foil Trees

Continue the foliage fun with a painting project depicting all the beautiful colors of leaves in the fall.

1. Let your kids scrunch three pieces of tinfoil into loose balls.
2. Squeeze blobs of orange, yellow, and red paint on three, separate paper plates.
3. Instruct your kids to dip their foil into one color of paint paint, then press onto a sheet of paper several times to make their “leaves”.
4. Repeat, printing the foil in different colors on top of the original colors and in different places on the paper.
5. When your foil prints are dry, use brown paint to fingerpaint a trunk and branches into your fall forest.

Don’t forget to print some fall foil leaves at the bottom of your page – as chlorophyll production decreases, the stems of leaves weaken, and the leaves fall from the trees!

Paper Plate Spider Webs

Fall trees aren’t just full of leaves – they’re also full of spiders! Garden spiders are most active in the fall so you’re likely to see more of their elaborate, beautiful webs in the trees in autumn, too. Join the fun and spin your own spider webs out of a paper plate!

1. Cut the center out of a paper plate.
2. Let your kids color the outer edge of the plate with beautiful fall colors like red, orange, and yellow.
3. Using a single hole puncher, punch 12-14 holes around the edge of the hole.
4. Tape one end of a length of yarn to the back of the paper plate and wrap tape tightly around the other to form a ‘needle’.
5. Demonstrate how to weave the yarn back and forth through the holes to create the web, then hand the plate over to your child.
6. Once, the web is spun, remove the pin from the end of the yarn and tape that end to the back of the plate, too.

Add a pipe cleaner spider for the perfect fall finishing touch – cut four black pipe cleaners in half and twist to create an eight-legged creepy crawly!

Fall is chock full of fun craft ideas and it’s so easy to slip just a bit of learning into the fun!