"Reading Rocket"- helping kids learn to read

Reading Rocket is a comprehensive and daily updated web site that includes reading news headlines, research-based articles, tips for parents and educators, video interviews with top children's book authors, a monthly e-newsletter, national and local resources, an online store, and much more.

"Reading Rocket" is a national multimedia project that offers research-based and best-practice information on teaching kids to read and helping those who struggle. It is an educational service of public television station WETA in Washington, D.C.

The National Institutes of Health estimates that one in five children has serious difficulties learning to read. These children are potentially among the most troubled kids in society. With early identification and a lot of help, however, children who struggle to read can flourish; without it they are at risk for failure in school and in life.

ReadingRockets.org

Since 1965, the federal government has invested more than $100 million to find out why so many children have problems learning to read and what can be done. Thanks to that research, we now know how to identify children at risk and how to help them before they fail. Reading Rockets' mission is to take that research-based and best-practice information and make it available to as many people as possible through the power and reach of television and the Internet.

Mission:
Reading Rockets aims to inform and inspire parents, teachers, childcare providers, administrators, and others who touch the life of a child by providing accurate, accessible information on how to teach kids to read and help those who struggle.

- The project is guided by an advisory panel made up of leading researchers and experts in the field of reading. They produce and distribute research-based PBS television programs, online services, and professional development opportunities, which are available at no cost.

* Teachers page gives you information that's research-based on how to teach reading effectively.
- Strategies to Help Kids Who Struggle

Sign up for free newsletters to receive news and information about key issues in reading, learning disabilities, and other areas of learning.

* Free print guides created for parents, teachers, and others who want to improve the reading achievement of children. You're welcome to download and print these guides for your own use.
Link: Reading Guides

- Download link of the guides: Guides from Reading Rockets
- These are many of our favorite guides, published by organizations devoted to reading and literacy issues: Guides from Other Organizations

Eleven tips: parents can encourage the children to become good readers!

Teachers and parents both can play an important role in making the child a good reader.
Research has shown that enjoying books with a child for even a few minutes a day can make a measurable difference in the acquisition of basic reading skills, and that everyday activities – such as a trip to the grocery store – can be turned into enjoyable learning experiences.

These are 11 tips for parents can encourage the children to become good readers:

1- Create appreciation of the written word
Find time to read aloud with your child every day. Typically, parents play an important role in developing this skill by reading to children and showing how important reading is to their daily life. Lap time with picture books and stories can strongly motivate your child to enjoy reading. Try to make these books available for your children to explore and enjoy on their own as well.

2- Develop awareness of printed language
Teach about books. When reading aloud to your child, let your child open the book and turn the pages. Point to the words as you read. Draw attention to repeated phrases, inviting your child to join in each time they occur.

Point out letters and words that you run across in daily life. Make an obvious effort to read aloud traffic signs, billboards, notices, labels on packages, maps, and phone numbers. Make outings a way to encourage reading by showing your child how printed words relate to daily living.

3- Learn the alphabet
Play alphabet games. Sing the alphabet song to help your child learn letters as you play with alphabet books, blocks, and magnetic letters. Recite letters as you go up and down stairs or give pushes on a swing. A-B-C, dot-to-dot and letter-play workbooks, games, and puzzles are available at most toy stores. Many engaging computer games are designed for teaching children letters. Make sure these toys are available even when you are unable to play along.

Watch Sesame Street with your child. Show the child how to sing along, answer the riddles, and engage actively in its fun.

Make writing materials available to your child and encourage their use. Help your child learn to write his/her name and other important words or phrases. Gradually, help the child learn to write more and more letters. At first, most children find it easier to write uppercase letters.

4- Understand the relation of letters and words
Teach your child to spell a few special words, such as his/her name, stop, or exit. Challenge the child to read these words every place they are seen. Draw attention to these and other frequently occurring words as you read books with your child. Challenge the child to read these words as they arise or to search them out on a page. Play word-building games with letter tiles or magnetic letters. Have the child build strings of letters for you to read.

Understand that language is made of words, syllables, and phonemes
Sing songs and read rhyming books. Sing the alphabet with your child, and teach your child songs that emphasize rhyme and alliteration, such as "Willaby Wallaby Woo" and "Down By the Sea." Emphasize the sounds as you sing. Play rhyming games and clap out names. Jumble the wording or word order of familiar poems and challenge your child to detect the error. Talk like a robot, syllable by syllable.

5- Play word games. Challenge your child to play with words. For example, ask your child to think of words that rhyme with bat or begin with /m/. What would be left if you took the /k/ sound out of cat? What would you have if you put these sounds together: /p/ and ickle; /m/ and ilk; and /s/, /a/, and /t/. Which of these words starts with a different sound – bag, candy, bike? Do boat and baby start with the same sound?

6- Learn letter sounds
Sound out letters. Point out other words that begin with the same letter as your child's name, drawing attention to the similarities of the beginning sound. Use alphabet books, computer games, or car games such as, "I'm thinking of something that starts with /b/" to engage the child in alliterative and letter-sound play. If you have a book that lends itself to alliteration and rhyme, such as a Dr. Seuss book, sound out rhyming words as you read or challenge the child to do so for you. Play word games that connect sounds with syllables and words. For example: If this spells cat, how do you spell hat?

7- Sound out new words
Point out new words. As you encounter them, say the sound while touching each letter in a new word. For example, say "s-u-n" and then blend sounds to create the word. In practicing new words, use predictable words with common sounds and spellings, like fun or sat instead of night or saw.

If you encounter words with unknown meanings or with complex spellings, encourage your child to try to sound out the words. However, if too many words require this kind of attention and effort, it is best to find an easier book.

Play spelling games with your child. After your child begins pronouncing words, encourage spelling by saying each sound in the words and then writing the letter that goes with the sound.

Encourage your child to spell. After your child has learned to pronounce words, have the child say each sound.

Independent writing. Encourage your child to use inventive or independent spelling. At this stage, the child will tend to omit letters and confuse letter names with letter sounds, producing such spellings as LFNT for elephant, BN for bean, and FARE for fairy. Use correction wisely. What you should be most concerned about is the child's sensitivity to the sounds that need to be represented.

8- Identify words in print accurately and easily
Help your children to read easy, enjoyable stories as often as possible. It is likely that your child will enjoy reading more and learn more from reading if you sit together, taking turns reading and encouraging discussion. In the beginning, invite the child to read well-chosen words. Gradually, as the child becomes able, take turns with sentences, speakers, paragraphs, and pages. At the end of each section or story, revisit those words that caused trouble. Rereading the entire story over several days, and again weeks later, is a powerful way to reinforce this learning.

9- Know spelling patterns
Now it becomes useful to point out the similarities between words such as will, fill, and hill or light, night, and sight. This is also the time to help your child learn the correct spelling of the words he/she writes.

10- Learn to read reflectively
Pause for discussions as you read. As you read stories to and with your child, stop frequently to discuss their language, content, and relevance to real life and other knowledge. Pause to explore the meanings of new words, using them in other sentences and contrasting what they mean with words that have similar meanings. Make an effort to revisit new words and concepts later, when the book has been put aside.

When reading stories, pause to discuss the various characters, problems, events in the story, and invite your child to think about how the problems might be solved or to wonder about what might happen next. When resuming a story, ask your child to review what has happened so far, drawing attention to looming mysteries and unresolved conflicts. In reading expository text, invite the child to marvel at the creatures or events described and to wonder about details or connections not mentioned by the text.

11-Above all: read, read, and re-read.

These tips for parents from top researchers for children with learning disabilities.
By: Ed Kame'enui, Marilyn J. Adams, and G. Reid Lyon
Link: Tips for Parents from Top Researchers

Poor eating habits and how to change it?

Both parents and teachers teach their kids about healthy eating and spread the words about it. I have adviced many parents in this regard to check if their children are getting proper healthy diet. Because poor eating habits can effect the performance of your child at school.

Healthy food means "Eating a variety of foods, which could provide your child, essential nutrients such as protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamins, and minerals to well-nourish her/him. Naturally poor eating healthy habits would result in weak immune system, which increases the chances of sickness.

What are the poor eating habits?

Poor eating habits include:

- Eating a very limited variety of foods.
- Refusing to eat entire groups of foods such as vegetables.
- Eating too many foods of poor nutritional quality such as soft drinks, chips, and doughnuts.
- Overeating due to being served large portions or due to a parent saying "clean your plate" or "finish it all up.

What causes poor eating habits?
Poor eating habits can develop in otherwise healthy children for several reasons. Infants are born liking sweet tastes. But if babies are going to learn to eat a wide variety of basic foods, they need to learn to like other tastes, because many nutritious foods don't taste sweet.

Available food choices: If candy and soft drinks are always available, most children will choose these foods rather than a more nutritious snack. But forbidding these choices can make your child want them even more. You can include some less-nutritious foods as part of your child's meals so that he or she learns to enjoy them along with other foods. Although in the division of responsibility it is your child's job to decide how much of a food he or she will eat at a meal, it is okay to limit dessert to one serving. It is your responsibility as a parent to decide what foods are offered as well as when and where meals and snacks are offered. Try to keep a variety of nutritious and appealing food choices available.

Healthy and kid-friendly snack ideas include:

- String cheese.
- Whole-wheat crackers and peanut butter.
- Air-popped or low-fat microwave popcorn.
- Frozen juice bars made with 100% real fruit.
- Fruit and dried fruit.
- Baby carrots with hummus or bean dip.
- Low-fat yogurt with fresh fruit.

The need for personal choice.
Power struggles between a parent and child can affect eating behavior. If children are pressured to eat a certain food, they are more likely to refuse to eat that food, even if it is something they usually would enjoy. Remember, your responsibility is to provide a variety of nutritious foods. Your child's job is to decide what and how much he or she will eat from the choices you offer.
Emotion. A child's sadness, anxiety, or family crisis can cause undereating or overeating. If you think your child's emotions are affecting his or her eating, focus on resolving the problem that is causing the emotions instead of focusing on the eating behavior.

If your child is healthy and eating a nutritious and varied diet, yet eats very little, he or she may simply need less food energy (calories) than other children. Similarly, some children need more daily calories than others the same age or size, and they eat more than you might expect. Every child has different calorie needs.

In rare cases, a child may eat more or less than usual because of a medical condition that affects his or her appetite. If your child has a medical condition that affects how he or she eats, talk with your child's doctor about how you can help your child get the right amount of nutrition.

What are the risks of eating poorly?
A child with poor eating habits is going to be poorly nourished. That is, he or she won't be getting the amounts of nutrients needed for healthy growth and development. This can lead to being underweight or overweight. Poorly nourished children tend to have weaker immune systems, which increases their chances of illness. Poor eating habits can increase a child's risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, or diabetes later in life.

Source: Healthy eating for children

To read more about the topic:

* Factors that influence children's food choices
* Changing Your Family's Eating Habits

Related article from "A learner's diary":

* Healthy eating for your child

"Tox Town"- educating us about environment health concerns

"Tux Town"is an interactive guide to commonly encountered toxic substances, your health, and the environment. It helps users explore a Port, Town, City, Farm, to identify common environmental hazards.

Information on chemical and environmental concerns is from the TOXNET and MedlinePlus resources of the National Library of Medicine

Tox Town is designed to give you information on:

- everyday locations where you might find toxic chemicals
- non-technical descriptions of chemicals
- links to selected, authoritative chemical information on the Internet
- how the environment can impact human health
- Internet resources on environmental health topics

Tox Town uses color, graphics, sounds and animation to add interest to learning about connections between chemicals, the environment, and the public's health. Tox Town's target audience is students above elementary-school level, educators, and the general public.

For Teachers:

* Environmental Health Education

Tox Town and other National Library of Medicine resources can help with student-friendly information on human health and the environment, plus pollution and toxic chemicals.
Students can learn about their school's indoor air quality and environment, toxic chemicals in homes and communities, and the impact of the environment on the quality of drinking water or outdoor air.

Raising Environmental Health Awareness

Print and photocopy one or more of the location scenes on the clip artpage and pass to students.
Ask students to circle the places on the scene where they might encounter environmental health concerns and give examples of what they think they might find. List specific risks that those problem areas might pose, for example the river might be polluted, the school chem lab might store toxic chemicals or trucks may be spewing exhaust.
Then give the students time to explore Tox Town. Students can compare the concerns circled on paper with those they find illustrated in Tox Town.

Ask students to choose one environmental health concern from the scene and write 2-3 paragraphs about the possible effects of that concern on people's health.

-For higher level thinking, students can predict what risks might exist in their own community (that match the scene) and where. Students could also check local government resources, newspapers, and environmental groups to learn about and verify local concerns.

- Classroom Activities and Discussion Questions

Kids would love to search this health and food related site

This site is health related, but it is so colourful and interactive that kids would love to browse it.

Kids home page is from FDA (U.S Food and Drug Adminitration) and have food safety and other health related stuff for kids.

* Link to other kids sites
* parents corner provides a lot of helping health related posts/links.

*News page would be informative for parents and kids.

For example: A news about "Apple Cider Safety"
Apple cider is a fun and delicious drink. It tastes almost like apple juice, but a little stronger and the color is a little darker. You can buy it mostly in the fall at the store and when you go to the pumpkin patch and fall fairs.

But some apple cider may not be safe to drink, especially for kids. If it hasn’t been pasteurized (a type of heating) or treated in another way to kill germs, it might make you sick. Be sure to ask your parents or teachers before drinking any apple cider to be sure it’s safe

* Another page from FDA: For Kids, Teens, & Educators

- An Activity Book for You to Color: Food Safety at Home, School and When Eating Out

* At another site, read about 10 of the best and worst foods for children: 10 of the Worst/best Children's Foods

"Teaching Expertise"- A learning site for teachers and parents

This is one of the sites which is a good source of learning for parents and teachers. I could find a lot of articles on various topics about learning as a teacher, which are equally beneficial as a parent.

Teaching Expertise is an information and learning website for teachers and other education professionals. It's a place to come for free education articles and bulletins, advice and guidance, knowledge sharing and ideas.


There's a huge searchable library plus our full catalogue of books and newsletters. A lot of material on Teaching Expertise is also useful for parents and researchers.

Mission: To provide teachers with the best place to learn from each other and develop professionally and personally.

Site was launched in November 2006.

* Section Teaching and learning covers everything from curriculum development to classroom conflict.

* Managing behaviour positively can go a long way to reducing the stress levels of staff and pupils alike. The articles in this section explore the challenges involved in providing the optimum climate for learning, both for encouraging positive behaviour and reducing negative behaviour.
- Behaviour

* Every Child Matters is highlighting achievement and enjoyment for all. In schools, teachers are overcoming barriers in the classroom, and learning more about meeting individual needs. The articles here will inform, update and stimulate your work with pupils with SEN
- Special Educational Needs
some sample articles are:
- Activities to develop gross motor skills
- Activities to develop social communication skills
- New resource for teaching synthetic phonics
- Gifted and talented children are not always easy to spot, as parents, teachers and educational psychologists have different criteria for making judgements. Once identified, these pupils need support to achieve their full potential. Teacher expectation, expertise on the part of educators and effective management of provision are all contributing factors. Find out more about gifted and talented provision, by browsing the articles in this section.
- Gifted & Talented

* School leadership and management teams need to be honest and boldy introspective, to examine their own practices and ask themselves if they are really doing all they can to create the conditions in which highly effective work can take place at all levels, at all times. These articles span the wide range of leadership skills and management functions which enable the school to achieve a 'high-performance culture'.
- Leadership and Management

* CPD (continuing professional development) plays a key role in enhancing teachers' success as educators. The transmission of a thirst for knowledge – so central to what teachers do in the classroom – cannot prevail without regular professional learning, to keep teaching as vibrant and effective as possible. This section contains a wide range of articles relating to CPD – for both teaching and non-teaching staff.
- CPD – Continuing Professional Development

* Safeguarding and child protection training is now required for all staff who work with children. The Every Child Matters national framework includes, "The duty to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people". In this section you will find articles to inform and update you on this vitally important issue.
- Child Protection
* These articles, taken from recent issues of our Optimus newsletters, will prove invaluable for anyone with a professional or personal interest in Early Years.
- Early Years
- Helping young children understand the importance of a healthy lifestyle
- The importance of healthy eating for young children
- Encouraging communication, curiosity and creativity

As a Parents:
** These articles for parents will provide you with a wide range of information about issues in your child's school. There are also many specific topic areas for you to explore, including behaviour, achievement, special educational needs and more.
- Parents

As a teacher:
** Find fresh inspiration and practical ideas for Classroom Teachers in our education articles. Read professional updates, broaden your knowledge and discover transferable good practice in our case studies.
- Classroom Teacher
- Motivating every learner

Healthy eating for your child

Eating habits play a big role in providing nutrition to your child, which helps them to stay healthy and fit. But what is a healthy menu and how we can help develop healthy habit among our children?

"Kaiser Permanente.org" is a non-profit organization providing health guidelines. It suggests "healthy eating" in these words:

As a parent:
Your job is to offer nutritious food choices at meals and snack times. You decide the what, where, and when of eating.
and
Your child's job is to choose how much he or she will eat of the foods you serve. Your child decides how much or even whether to eat.

Healthy eating means eating a variety of foods so that your child gets the nutrients (such as protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamins, and minerals) he or she needs for normal growth. If your child regularly eats a wide variety of basic foods, he or she will be well-nourished.

How much food is good for my child?
From birth until about 2 or 3 years old, children have an "internal hunger gauge" that signals how much food they need at a given time. Babies cry to let us know they're hungry. When they're full, they stop eating. Children continue this pattern as they grow—they eat as much or as little as their bodies need. But after the age of 2 or 3, this internal hunger gauge is also affected by other things. It is important to get your child to pay attention to the natural signs of hunger from his or her body.

It may worry you to see your child eat very little at a meal. Children tend to eat the same number of calories every day if they are allowed to eat in response to their internal hunger gauge. The pattern of calorie intake is different from day to day. One day a child may eat a big breakfast, a big lunch, and hardly any dinner. The next day this same child may eat very little at breakfast but may eat a lot at lunch and dinner. Don't expect your child to eat the same amount of food at every meal and snack each day.

How can I help my child eat well and be healthy?
Many parents worry that their child is either eating too much or too little. Perhaps your child only wants to eat one type of food—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, for instance. One way to help your child eat well and help you worry less is to know what your job is and what your child’s job is when it comes to eating. Some food experts call this the division of responsibility.1 If your child only wants to eat one type of food, he or she is doing the parent's job of deciding what food choices are. In the division of responsibility, it is the parent's job to decide what foods are offered.

How can you help to develop healthy eating habits?

You can help support your child's healthy eating habits and physical activity level by:

Eating together as a family as often as possible. Keep family meals pleasant and positive. Avoid making comments about the amount or type of food your child eats. Pressure to eat actually reduces children's acceptance of new or different foods.
Making healthy food choices for your family's meals. Children notice the choices you make and follow your example.
Setting limits on your child's daily television and computer time. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a limit of 1 to 2 hours of screen time a day.2 Sit down with your child and plan out how he or she will use this time allowance.
Making physical activity a part of your family's daily life. Some ways to do this include walking your child to and from school, and teaching your child how to skip, hop, dance, play catch, jump rope, and ride a bike.

Taking a walk after dinner.
Taking your child to all recommended well-child checkups. You can use this time to discuss your child's growth rate, activity level, and eating habits with a doctor.

Source link: Healthy eating for children

To read more: Helping Your Child to Eat Well

* More resources and links page for health

Mutual benefits for both advertisers and bloggers at "Smorty"

Blogs are becoming an attraction for advertisers, as "blog advertising" has become the first choice for them. People are attacked by ads everywhere, so normal or banner advertising doesn't produce the results, advertisers expect. Blog provide a good way of advertising, as people tend to read blog and blog posts with interest.

Same way bloggers get some money for their efforts. And as I have noticed your blog also get links from search engines, as you write/review about related topics at your blog.

"Smorty" is one of the sites which provide get paid to blog opportunities for bloggers.
Rules to register are as follows:

- Your blog should be approved first to get the opportunites.
- Your blog must be indexed by Google and Yahoo
- It should be older than 3 months
- It should have minimum histroy to 2 posts per week.
- The lowest rate per review is $6.00
- You are paid (in case of your review is approved)after one week via paypal.
Check the faq section to know more about it.