First, write a short paragraph on the board or overhead such as this one: Michael had fun at the school carnival with his friends.  They ate pizza and then played a lot of games.  They had their faces painted.  They ate popcorn.  Then it was time to go home.

Explain that main idea tells what the whole story is about.  Explain how the first sentence tells the main idea in this story, Michael had fun at the carnival.  Then proceed with the following sentences to show how they support the main idea.

• “Is eating pizza and playing a lot of games fun?”  “Yes.”
• “Do most kids think getting their faces painted is fun?”  “Yes.”
• “Is it fun to eat popcorn?”  “Yes.”

Now show how the supporting sentences would not be the main idea:

• “Is the main idea (the whole story) about eating pizza?”  “No, because they played games, had their faces painted, and ate popcorn, too.”
• “Is the main idea about playing games?”  “No, because they ate pizza and popcorn, and they had their faces painted, too.”
• “Is the main idea about having their faces painted?”  “No, because they played games, and they ate pizza and popcorn, too.”

• Reinforce how the main idea, the whole story, is about Michael having fun at the school carnival with his friends.  And all of these things (eating pizza, playing games, having faces painted, and eating popcorn) are ways to have fun.

Next, give the students a worksheet with no more than four short stories on it.  Make sure the stories are separated with lines so it will not cause any student to be confused.  Make sure the stories are numbered so you can easily refer to a certain story.

• Read the first story together orally with the class and also all of the choices for main idea.  Work through the process in the same way as the above story.  Have the students underline the main idea in the story with a crayon or colored marker.  Then have them mark the answer.
• Read the second story and answers orally with the class, but this time have them choose the answer by themselves.  After they have marked their answers, talk about the correct answer and why it is correct.  Allow students to change their answer, if necessary.  Make sure they underline the main idea in the story.
• Have students complete the third story independently.  Again, after they have marked their answer, talk about the correct answer and why it is correct.  Let them correct their answer.  Make sure they underline the main idea in the story.
• Complete the fourth story in the same manner as the third one.

Give students a similar worksheet in the same format and have them complete the worksheet independently.  Then you can assess how well each student understood the concept of main idea.

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• Isolating phonemes – Student can identify the individual sounds of letters.  Example: Teacher says, “What is the first sound in man?” or “What sound do you hear at the end of man?”  Student answers, “/m/” or “/n/” accordingly.
• Matching phonemes – Student identifies the words with the same beginning sound in a short list of words.   Example: Teacher says, “Listen to these words and tell me which ones begin with the same sound: ball, bell, cat, book.”  Student answers, “ball, bell, book.”
• Blending phonemes – Student listens to individual sounds and blends them together to form a word.  Example:  Teacher says, “Listen to these sounds and tell me the word, /m/-/a-/-/n/.”  Student answers, “Man.”
• Segmenting phonemes – Student hears a word and makes the individual sounds for that word.  Example:  Teacher says, “Tell me the sounds you hear in man.”  Student answers, “/m/-/a/-/n/.”
• Deleting phonemes – Teacher removes the beginning phoneme and student tells the new word.  Example:  Teacher says, “Listen to ‘grow,’ then take away the /g/ sound at the beginning.  What is the new word?”  Student answers, “Row.”
• Adding phonemes – Teacher adds a phoneme to a word.  Example:  Teacher says, ” Listen to ‘row.’   Now add /g/ to the beginning of row.  What is the new word?”  Student answers, “Grow.”

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I highly recommend the TV Program called “World World.”  Our grandson just turned two years old, and he knows his alphabet and is making sounds of the letters on his own.  He has watched World Word for the past year, and for a long time that was the only thing on TV that kept his attention.  He loved it!  And he was absorbing reading skills effortlessly.  (By the way, our daughter and s-i-l did not let him watch much TV, especially when younger.  Word World was the only show he watched.)

ABOVE, you will notice our grandson’s World World toys that you can buy at Target and other places.  These toys reinforce the skills learned on the program.

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• Hopefully, the child will have been read to on a several-times-a-week basis starting during their baby years.  If not, parents should begin now reading to their child every day.
• Help develop a love for reading in the child.  Make story time special and in a special place.  It should be fun, with books that interest the child.
• Visit the library every week during children’s story time.  While at the library, let the child choose a couple of books to check out and take home.
• Play alphabet games with the child.
• Play games of what happened  “first, next and last.”  (Ex:  First, you brush your teeth.  Next, you put on your pajamas.  Last, you go to bed.)  You can do this with any activity the child does.
• Have the child watch “Word World” on TV.  It teaches alphabet letters and words in a cute, colorful format.  Our grandson absolutely loves that program and started watching it when he was a baby.  He’s 19 months old now, and it is the only show that will keep his attention the entire time.  He already knows most of his uppercase letters.  If you’ve never watched Word World, I highly recommend it.  It’s one of the best children’s shows on television.

When reading a book to the child:

(You will have to adjust the questions according to the age of the child.)

• Talk about the picture on each page first before reading the page.
• Run your finger under words as you read them.
• Play a guessing game of “What do you think will happen next?” as you are reading the story to the child.
• Ask, “Why do you think this happened?” when appropriate.  Accept their answer as valid and never put down a child’s answer.  If they don’t know why, suggest a possibility.
• Share what you like and what you don’t like about a story.
• Ask child what they liked and what they didn’t like about the story.
• Talk about what happened first, next, and last.
• Talk about what the story is mainly about.
• Have child draw pictures about the story.

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This game was made very quickly as you can probably tell, but children don’t usually notice that.  (I try to make the games neat.)  The student decorated the game with Batman stickers.  I wrote the words on index cards.  If the word was read correctly then the student got to advance to the next space.

These easy gameboards can be decorated by the student so they take ownership of the game and enjoy playing it.   If several students will be playing the game, take a whole sheet of poster board and draw the basic path with “Start” and “End.”  Let the students decorate it.

Bottle caps make good playing pieces to move along the path.

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Copy the words on index cards and have students practice them, starting with the first 10 or 20 words.  Then add 10 or 20 more, depending on the child’s level.  The goal is to work on all 100 words.

There are 300 words in Fry’s total list.

First group of 20 words:

• the, of, and, a , to , in, is, you, that, it
• he, was, for, on, are, as, with, his, they, I

Second group of 20 words:

• at, be, this, have, from, or, one, had, by, word
• but, not, what, all, were, we, when, your, can, said

Third group of 20 words:

• there, use, an, each, which, she, do, how, their, if
• will, up, other, about, out, many, then, them, these, so

Fourth group of 20 words:

• some, her, would, make, like, him, into, time, has, look
• two, more, write, go, see, number, no, way, could, people

Fifth group of 20 words:

• my, than, first, water, been, call, who, oil, now, find
• long, down, day, did, get, come, made, may, part, over

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Simple Book:  I WANT TO TRAVEL

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PART ONE – BRAINSTORMING FROM WHAT IS VISIBLE:

The first step in teaching children how to brainstorm is for the teacher to model brainstorming, show them how you yourself brainstorm.  Take something they can see such as one of their classmates.   Think out loud and write on the board everything about that student.  For example:

• Her name is Sally.
• She’s in first grade.
• She has blonde hair.
• She has long hair.
• She’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
• She wears glasses.
• She has a big smile.
• She has a picture of a dog on her T-shirt.

Another example would be to take a book, preferably a big book so all students can see easily.   If I had the book about Goldilocks and the Three Bears, then this is what I would write on the board from what we could see in the picture on the front of the book:

• There are three bears.
• One bear is really big.
• One bear is little.
• One bear is in-between size.
• The bears are brown.
• There is a girl.
• She is little.
• She has blonde hair.
• She is wearing a dress.
• Here dress is blue and red.
• There is a house.
• It has a door and two windows.
• There are lots and lots of trees (a forest).
• There are flowers beside the house.

After you have modeled for the students, then brainstorm together with the students.  After that,  have the students practice brainstorming with a partner, then by themselves.  We will proceed in Part Two to brainstorming ideas.

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