We all know how important reading is. It’s been drummed into us since we were little. The three ‘R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic) are still just as important as ever.
But what happens when you have a child who isn’t interested in reading? Let’s face it, our boys (and many girls) would much prefer to race around the yard in their tidy whities, screaming, ‘charge!’ I’ve been teaching for nine years now, and I can tell you this, reading isn’t a natural process. It takes plenty of practise for the mind to understand the concept, and it’s important to give our boisterous boys the best start. So, how do we do that? Reading doesn’t have to be taught sitting down! Here are some effective tips that can work wonders. Read from birth Reading should be viewed as a normal, everyday practise. Read to your boys from birth! The newspaper, or back of a cereal box are fine to start with. Babies hear the different intonations in your voice. A male role model with a passion for books Get a male role-model, or someone the boy has respect for (Dad, Grandpa, a family friend) to read to him. When he sees a male reading, it shows him that it’s not only okay to read, but it can be a wonderful thing. Active learning Young boys are active and love to move. When teaching reading I use physical activities in the classroom. You can do the same at home. Alphabet: use sticks, sand, water and paint brushes on the concrete, to write the letters and say the sounds. Dramatic retell: Retell the stories through dramatization. Kids love this, especially when you’re the audience and they get the chance to make you laugh. Art or Clay Modelling: Use clay to create the characters and scenes, backdrops to retell stories. ‘When a child is immersed in a story, their imaginations are free to run wild.’ Clear Instructions Tell your boys why you are reading something, or why you’d like them to. Boys reading a recipe to you in the kitchen is a good one. They feel valued and helpful. For older children, reading questions at school is an important part of their education. Practise this with them whenever you can. Homework is a great opportunity to look at reading and comprehension skills. Add value to books Find out what your son enjoys and offer them as special gifts. Action ahead of emotion in plot If a story is emotionally charged, boys may zone out. Identifiable characters who are action-driven, are more likely to keep him engaged. Humour Who doesn’t love a good laugh? Many children love humorous books. I get why, too. Paul Jennings, Andy Griffiths, these guys are great for the Primary School child. Magazines and the internet For older, reluctant boys, look for magazines of topics they are interested in. There are a host of online magazines, just like this one. Magazines are picture books for adults, full of colour and interesting, shorter stories. Rather than push them on your older child, just mention them, and make them readily available. Planting a seed is more effective with teenagers. Good luck! Miss Hayley
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My little one had a horrible reaction to a RADOX body wash product the other day. And while people react to stuff, including things we deem healthy, the ordeal got me investigating. I needed to find out more about the ‘stuff’ that goes into the ‘stuff’ we put on ourselves, especially considering my wee one got a horrific rash all over her poor head and near her eye balls.
Revitalise, my left foot! Here’s a bit about what I found. “the mixture contains five individual perfume ingredients which can be strongly irritant and have been shown to cause a range of health problems in other animals. Amazingly, this product also contains a sunscreen – to protect the product, not the person.” Ex-squeeze me? Protect it from itself? What does this mean. I still can’t find information on why they would put sunscreen in a body wash to PROTECT IT FROM ITSELF, so if you have the answer, throw me a bone in the comments below. I dug a little deeper into the Radox and body wash ingredient lists and learned about my new little friend, Methylisothiazolinone. It could be what caused the reaction… “Methylisothiazolinone is a powerful synthetic biocide and preservative within the group of isothiazolinones, which is used in numerous personal care products and a wide range of industrial applications. It is a cytotoxin that may affect different types of cells. Its use for a wide range of personal products for humans, such as cosmetics, lotions, moisturizers, sanitary wipes, shampoos, and sunscreens, more than doubled during the first decade of the twenty-first century and is proving to be a concern because of sensitization and allergic reactions as well as cell and nerve damage.” (Resource) Really? Nerve damage, huh. The more I learn, the more I wonder: how are standards getting so low when it comes to what we put IN and ON our bodies? Who’s running this bloody fiasco? Anyway, let’s be solution orientated. After the incident, I’ve gone back to using the stuff I know is good. It’s not too hard to do. There are some great organic products on the market now, and they are easy to get your hands on. The Gaia range are great, can be found at Woolies, and although it’s expensive, it’s better than a burning eye ball. My kids are obsessed with bubble bath, and no one’s had a reaction to the Organic Care range so far. It’s not really ‘organic’ but it will do the job until I find something better. Once again, let me know in the comments if you have a good one, please. Lastly, this little escapade has finally got me doing something I’ve been wanting to do for years, and that’s looking into more natural beauty products/homemade recipes. Lately, I’ve realised that if it’s safe to eat, it’s probably better for your skin. My daily skin beauty regime still consists of a cleaner, toner, and moisturiser, just as it did before … but with a twist. My skin has never felt so soft. CLEANSER Turn on the tap, and wash your face. If you want to be clever, use purified water. Water is best for your PH levels. TONER Apple Cidar Vinegar. Yep, you heard me. Just don’t get that baby near your eyes. Gently wipe it on with some cotton wool. Then wash it of with … you guessed it … water. “Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) has amazing health benefits and you can use it to treat skin problems such as: age spots, acne, pimples as well as other skin conditions. It contains the beneficial enzymes, bacteria, pectin and trace minerals that makes ACV so good for you.” (Resource) MOISTERISER Organic Coconut Oil. You can use it on its own, or pop a bit of Vitamin E in by piercing an actual vitamin and squeezing out the oil. “Coconut oil is very good at hydrating skin. It sinks in deep, conditions, moisturizes, and softens skin. It isn’t pumped full of water or petroleum byproducts like many commercial cleansers or lotions either. Skin is kept clean by an oily substance called sebum.” (Resource) I’m going to try my hand at a few other things and start making some slow and steady changes around here. My family might end up wiping their butts with tree bark, but whatever’s best, right? The Information Age and Why Classroom Assessment Needs to Change by Hayley Clearihan June 27th, 20176/28/2017 With 90% of Australian teens accessing the internet more than once daily, it’s safe to say, the Information Age is well and truly upon us. 64% of this access occurs in educational facilities with a huge emphasis on technology in learning. Digital Technology in education is not only allowing students to be more creative with their schoolwork (some say we’ve already moved into the creative era), but they are accessing information at great speeds – ever seen someone working on three devices? I have. It’s beautiful. And terrifying. So, how are we, as teachers, keeping up … when information and creativity are driving the economy, industry, and the young people we work with?
For Example: What’s the point of writing a report nowadays? (Unless you’re assessing the efficiency of writing a report). It used to be that writing a report on a topic meant you “knew about the topic.” You would pull your brick of an Encyclopedia off a shelf, find the quarter of a page on the topic you’re looking for, and you would study it. You would ask your parents about it, take notes in class, maybe find a few books from the local library, then you would regurgitate your learning into a nice little report fitted out with pictures, graphs, and all sorts of delightful stuff. Now, students can pull a report on pretty much any topic in history (or the future if you’re into time travel), off the internet, and voila! In fact, they could probably find several. Now, once they’ve read over the report, grabbed a few more, merged them together, and shuffled some words and pictures around, what have they learned? Great bloody question! Unless a report is given to us in the form of a short written response without the use of the internet (which makes it NO LONGER A REPORT) then we have to ask ourselves what we’re really testing. 2. Ask the student how they want to be assessed “Evidence gathered over decades from around the world reveals strong achievement gains and reduced achievement score gaps when teachers implement student-involved classroom assessment practices in support of student learning in their classrooms.” Rick Stiggins & Jan Chappuis – Using Student-Involved Classroom Assessment to Close Achievement Gaps. When students are able to help drive their own assessment, they not only become more accountable, but they take ownership of their assignments. Student-involved classroom assessment has more meaning to them. And there’s no way they can misunderstand the task. Asking the students how they want to be assessed opens up creative avenues that we may not have thought of ourselves. The last thing we want to do as educators is limit our students’ creativity. Students also have a tendency to “know how much they know” – even better than we do … even better than our tests score say. A major difficulty teachers face is REALLY knowing what our students’ starting points are when we first meet them. Student-involved assessment is an efficient indicator of where students are at, purely based on the rigour and content of their ideas. 3. Expect them to push their own limits When someone is in our corner, we thrive. It’s human nature to rise up to challenges when someone expects us to do it, especially when it feels like it’s just within our reach. As educators, we have to behave like coaches sometimes. We have to have high expectations, and we have to develop equity within those expectations. When we know our students particularly well, it’s perfectly okay for us to have different expectations for different students. GASP. A good teacher knows when a student has given them a half-assed assessment piece, or when a student who has been pushing themselves all year has finally had a break-through and produced something almost at level. Assessment should not be equal. DOUBLE GASP. When progress becomes more important than anything else, students have always got somewhere to go, and failure is less scary. Personal progress should be the most heavily weighted element of assessment. Expect them to push their own limits, not someone elses’ At the end of the school day, we have to keep asking ourselves what our students are engaging with. Right now it’s the world wide web. Since our students have access to more information than an entire school of teachers could retain in ten lifetimes, right at their fingertips, it makes sense that teachers, mentors, and educators begin to let our informative, creative young people drive their assessment, and even their education, more often. As I sat down to write report cards for my grace seven class a few weeks back, I got a little emotional. I write my parents a bit of an 'open letter' on Facebook. Needless to say, they got me.
Dear Parents and Guardians of School-Aged Children, As I sit here writing report cards for my class, I’m overwhelmed with emotion. I need for you to understand something that I can’t quite put into words. Your children mean so much more to me than this piece of paper and the comments I’ve tried so carefully to write. It’s impossible for me to articulate to you the wonder of your child. I can tell you how well they are going in algebra, their reading level, whether they are ...friendly, polite, engaged, a distraction! But these things are only a tiny part of who your child is. If I could, I’d write about the joy and exhilaration on their faces when they learn something new in my classroom, or how we all cheered for them when they overcame something terrifying, like speaking in front of a room full of people, because public speaking makes them stay up late into the night worrying about it. I’d write about how they were an everyday hero and remembered to take the Prep’s lunch down to save our hardworking tuckshop lady the trip. I’d write about how they’ve had to single handily bring together friendships that were falling apart, reminded another (who they didn’t want to get into trouble) to get back on task, or how they finally, finally wrote an epic sentence with all commas in the correct place, because they’d been trying all year. All. Damn. Year. If I could, I’d express to you how much I love my job, and it’s only because of the people I get to work with – your people. Your funny, sometimes infuriating, but utterly amazing, bright, young people. So, please, take your child’s report cards with a grain of salt. You already know how wonderful they are. Love Miss Hayley |