Category Archives: Reading

Small advances in literacy

History, Mathematics, Reading, Science, , ,

Here are a couple of things we’re going to be working on that I think will be a help to Antonia’s literacy in the long-term.

Greek letters.  They’re used in a lot of mathematical and scientific contexts, they’re easy and fun to learn when you’re young, and if you don’t learn them you will one day finding yourself reading passages like: “(shape) over d (unknown symbol) (other shape) equals the ultimate answer; where (shape) is the Infinity Constant  and (other shape) is the hypotenuse of the space-time continuum”.   In other words, you will have enough problems to be going on with, without having to keep shape and other shape straight in your mind.

I found the Open University’s set of applets for learning the Greek letters to be very nice and efficient.  The one on trying to put together Greek words at the end is just a bonus for our current purposes.

Roman numerals.   These might be a mere curiosity in some cultures.  True, they often appear decoratively on clocks, but in the end, most of us go by position, rather than reading the numbers.  In France though, it’s customary to express the centuries in Roman numerals.  ‘XVIIeme siecle’ is the 17th Century and so on.  That’s a nice little addition to the already pressing need to keep straight the idea that the17th Century belongs with the 1600s.  Antonia has nearly reached the age where she will find it helpful to have instant recognition of all the numerals up to XXI.

I was surprised that I couldn’t find any nice applets for teaching kids the Roman numerals from scratch so I’m resorting to good old-fashioned flashcards.  The first 8 have the individual numerals I, V, X, L, C, D and M.  The next set have I to XXI with the range of years corresponding to the century on the back.  The last set are more individual numerals for building numbers with.

An unusually schoolish reading/spelling resource

Reading, Writing,

I can’t imagine this would be to everyone’s taste but it works for us.  Periodically, I’ve used the word lists that can be found at the bottom of this page with Antonia.  (BTW, these are part of a reading program that I never joined).  I started doing this because she’s naturally a globalising reader.  This does have limitations as well as advantages and I’ve wanted to give her phonetic skills a nudge from time to time.  I planned to do it very briefly, and soften the blow by making it into a game.  I didn’t bargain on Antonia loving to read word lists.  During the reading, she would have great fun discussing the definition of words, finding rhymes or conjugations of the same word, and putting the words in sentences.  The strangest thing though, is that doing word lists would always spur her into renewed independent reading, whereas if I had her read with me she would consider herself done for the day.

Well, she’s a bit beyond that stage, now.  Her ‘reading grade level’ of 5.6, on the test on this same page, outstrips her actual comprehension of the vocabulary.   I don’t do anything about her reading any more, I just let her read at her natural comprehension level.  But it’s recently dawned on me that her spelling level in either language is barely grade-level appropriate to be generous.  That could be a consequence of the globalising tendency also.   So I pulled out the grade 1 word list again and started working through it.  And guess what!  First, she loves doing it, and second, it’s revived her interest in writing by herself.  Yesterday, she got out a set of writing cards she was given some time ago and had polished off a couple of postcards in less than an hour.

Rambling about reading

Reading

martine-a-la-maison.jpgThe right to read trash

The readers bill of rights is pretty clear: readers have the right to read anything. I shouldn’t be surprised, should I, if my daughter’s favourite reading consists of pink trash like Winx and Martine. Of the latter, I will only say that when I asked on her behalf at the local library, I was met with a dirty look, and informed that they didn’t stock anything as old-fashioned as that. Quite right too – the collection I bought today from the local supermarket consists of edifying works such as ‘Martine does the spring cleaning’, ‘Martine the little cook’, ‘Martine takes care of baby’, … you get the picture. Never mind. I read Martine when I was little, and I still grew up to be a tomboy, then a feminist. Maybe it helps to rub our noses in this stuff when we’re young, so that we recognise stealthier approaches to sexism as we grow older?

Co-reading

This is how Antonia likes to read best: we snuggle up together and take it in turns to read aloud, one page each. So it looks like I’ll be enjoying ‘Martine, the traditional little girl’ all over again.  Mine is a very social kid, and wouldn’t read nearly as much if she didn’t have an opportunity to make it a social activity.

Invasion of privacy

After being able to read quite well for some time, Antonia’s finally crossed over to the point where she can read my emails, regular post, blog posts, other people’s blogs,  newspaper articles, or whatever I’m translating over my shoulder.  For some reason I wasn’t ready for this.  Naturally, I haven’t been able to call my body or my time my own for the last six years or more, and on the whole I coped with that quite well.  Now I’ve lost this tiny bit of private adult space as well, and I’m starting to realise just how much it meant to me.  I’m also freaking out just slightly about the content of some of the things she is reading. There will be readjustments, and it’s really a positive development of course.  The whole point of reading is to be exposed to stuff.