Author: hoophugs313

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What is phonemic awareness?

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, recognize, and identify the individual sounds that make up a spoken word. You can start working on your child’s phonemic awareness before he or she starts reading or even knows the alphabet.

Activity #1: Segmenting Sounds

1. Say the word.
2. Next, say the individual sounds in the word. Hold up a finger for each sound.

Here is a video demonstrating this strategy: Counting Phonemes in Words

Activity #2: Isolating Sounds

1. Say a word. Ex: cat
2. Ask questions like, “What sound did I make first,” or “What sound is at the beginning of the word?” You can also ask about middle and ending sounds

Activity #3: Blending Sounds

1. Say the 3 sounds in “cat.”
2. Ask your child what word you just made. If this is tricky for the child, you can demonstrate how to put the sounds together as a word. I’ve also had good luck asking kids to “sing” the sounds in order to blend them.

Activity #4: Manipulating Sounds

1. Say the word cat.
2. Ask your child, “If I take away the /c/ sound and trade it for the /b/ sound, what new word would I make?”

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Matching Sounds and Letters

The ability to match a sound to the correct letter is crucial for accurate spelling and accurate decoding.You may notice that your child has a harder time matching vowel sounds to the correct letter than they do matching consonant sounds to the correct letter. This is very common. My theory is that consonants are easier because, for most consonants, we say the sound the letter makes when we say the actual name of the letter. Vowels, on the other hand, not only sound very similar to each other but also have multiple sounds and multiple spelling patterns.

Sound boxes and vowel sorts are my two favorite activities for matching sounds to letters. If you are unfamiliar with sound boxes you can learn about them here: How to Improve Spelling-Sound Box Strategy for Beginning and Struggling Spellers – The Vowel Coach

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Vowel Sorts

Vowel sorts help kids zero in on vowel sounds and make informed choices when spelling. We want kids to think about questions like:

• Which vowel do I hear?
• Is the vowel making its long sound, short sound, bossy R sound, or something else?
• If the vowel is long, do I need to choose a long vowel spelling pattern?

If you need extra resources for working on those tricky vowels, you can check out my vowel sorting packet here: https://thevowelcoach.com/product/vowel-sorting-activities/

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Reading vs. Spelling

I like to tell my students that reading is looking at the letters and saying the sounds, but spelling is listening to the sounds and writing down the letters that make those sounds. Reading and spelling are literacy partners, and it is important to spend time working on both.

Check out my pre-reading unit here: https://thevowelcoach.com/product/pre-reading-skills/https://thevowelcoach.com/product/pre-reading-skills/

Here are two podcast episodes with tips on how to talk to your kids about I.C.E.:

Care and Feeding:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/getting-real-about-ice-in-your-neighborhood/id774383607?i=1000747074079

What Fresh Hell Parenting Podcast:

https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/how-do-we-talk-about-whats-happening-in-minnesota-with-erin-cox

Every child deserves an academic environment that supports his or her needs. Identifying and addressing potential issues early is in your child’s best interest.

Let’s say your kid’s teacher suggests an IEP. Are you the type of parents who feels relieved that a teacher is picking up on potential issues and getting the support ball rolling, or are you the type of parent that feels anxious, angry, or flat out insulted? Both reactions stem from the same place: a sense of love and protection for your child.

Whatever your initial reaction is, I beg you consider an IEP as gift to your child’s future. The word “Individualized” in the program title is key. This is not a one size fits all situation. The ultimate goal is to provide your child support in the least restrictive learning environment.

By the way, parents can request an IEP from the school even if the teacher has not. If you have concerns about your child’s academic or behavioral development, please talk to to your child’s teacher early in the school year. Continue to advocate for your child. The first month or two of school is usually exceedingly overwhelming for everyone, so if you haven’t heard anything by mid October, ask again.

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Understanding the IEP Process:

I highly recommend that parents visit Understood.org to learn more about what an IEP is. Here is a helpful link: https://www.understood.org/en/articles/what-is-an-iep

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Podcasts:

1. Understood Explains

In addition to the website, Understood.org has an excellent podcast called Understood Explains. Season 3 explores the IEP process and has a lot of useful information for parents. Here is the link:

https://www.understood.org/en/podcasts/understood-explains-ieps

2. Opportunity Gap

Another podcast from Understood.org I’d like to recommend is called “Opportunity Gap.” Here you will find episodes about a variety of childhood topics including learning disabilities, ADHD, anxiety, reading skills and more. It also includes the Understood Explains IEP episodes.

https://www.understood.org/en/podcasts/the-opportunity-gap

3. Tilt Parenting

This podcast is for people who parent and care for neurodivergent kids.

https://tiltparenting.com/podcast-about-children-with-learning-disabilities

Magic E Song:

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a-e Song:

a-e Story:

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e-e Song:

I do not have an e-e story.

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i-e Song:

i-e Story:

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o-e Song:

o-e Story:

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u-e Song

u-e Story

As a child in the 80’s I received what I now consider to be very surface level math instruction. I learned the rules. I followed the rules. The rules worked. The end.

With this surface level training, I managed to successfully earn a high school diploma and a college degree without ever having to think about why I carried a one when I was adding or why a 2 became a 12 when I borrowed. I did not enjoy math or think it was fun, but I survived.

I became a parent in 2003. Throughout the aughts and 2010’s parents like me were losing their minds over “new math.” It’s not that math itself changed. The answer to 10+10 will always be 20. It was how math was being taught that went through an evolution. Instead of kids being expected to learn and execute the rules, they were expected to understand why the rules were the rules in the first place. They were also learning to break numbers apart and put them back together in ways mom and dad had never seen before. A common parental chorus was, “We had one way and it worked. Why fix something that isn’t broken?”

I’ve come to believe it was broken, but I’ll save that discussion for another day.

Fast Forward to 2025, and parents who missed out on “new math” as a child are still banging their heads on the table. If you are one of those parents, let me share with you a few things you need to know to make homework time a little easier.

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Standard Form

The normal way we see and write numbers is called standard form. 8, 27, and 593 are examples of numbers in standard form.

Expanded Form

Expanded form tells us the value of the individual digits in the number.

Let’s put the number 241 in a place value chart.

One way to visualize the value of each digit in the number 241 is to fill out ten frames.

When we write a number in expanded form, we show the value of each digit, and we put a plus sign between each digit.

Standard Form: 241

Expanded Form: 200+40+1

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Different ways to Represent 241

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Regrouping

The largest number that can go in any given place value column is 9. We can have 9 ones, but as soon as we get to ten, we now have one ten and zero ones. This is why we “regroup.”

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Base 10

When we regroup, we are trading 10 units of a given place value for one bundle of the next higher place value.

• ten singles= one bundle of ten

• ten bundles of ten= one bundle of 100

• ten bundles of 100= one bundle of 1000.

This is why we refer to our numbers as being part of a “base 10 system.”

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Regrouping/Carrying the 1

65+9=?

Problem: 596+9

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Subtraction

Example: 563-7

Borrowing

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I hope this information is helpful. I’ll be back with more math help in the future!

It would be great if all children moved seamlessly from the learning to read phase of life to the reading to learn phase of life, but the truth is that being able to accurately and fluently decode words on a page does not automatically result in comprehending the information being read.

I like to compare comprehension skills to the roots of a tree. Just as a tree needs many roots growing in different directions to support the trunk and keep it tethered to the soil, our kids need many skills to support their needs as a developing reader.

The good news is that you can help your child build reading comprehension skills long before he or she is able to read independently.

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Tip #1: Engage your child in lots of conversations

Conversations are key to building reading comprehension skills. Discussions about the characters, settings, themes, and problems and solutions in stories, television shows, podcasts, movies, songs, and normal every day experiences will contribute to your child’s future reading comprehension. Similarly, every conversation your child participates in where he or she is learning about a new topic, is exposed to new vocabulary, gets to share an opinion, and has the opportunity to ask and answer questions helps build reading comprehension.

These conversations build vocabulary and language skills and help kids learn the common structure of narrative story telling and information sharing. Conversations also build a child’s prior knowledge which will make connecting future reading assignments to prior life experiences much easier.

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Tip #2: Ask for Evidence (This is might be the most important tip I can share with you!)

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Conversation starters:

Google AI has some great suggestions for the types of discussions you can have with your child about characters and setting. Remember, books, tv shows, movies, songs, games, daily life events, and grandpa’s tall tales about walking barefoot uphill in two feet of snow to get to school all count!

Characters:

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Setting:

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How to Write a Summary for a Fictional Story

Informational texts also tend to follow a generic recipe. Many schools teach kids the “Hamburger Model” for writing an essay. Most informational texts kids will read in school follow this same model.

Here is a basic burger:

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Free and Low Cost Resources

You Tube