Bits of Books--Growing a Reader from Birth by Diane McGuinness

Lately, I've been reading books like nobody's business--just the ones I pick up from the Parents shelf in our library. I thought since I was reading them, I might as well let you all know what I'm learning about so you don't have to read them! :)

The book I'm working on now is Growing a Reader from Birth by Diane McGuinness. I am about half way done and wanted to share some interesting tidbits.

Children learn to speak in two different ways. The first way is word by word, like building a house brick by brick. They learn each part of speech separately and then learn how to put them together. Other children learn to speak by "frozen phrases," kind of like building a house with modules already put together. The first child will painstakingly say "Daddy bye bye" after much practice with both of the words, while the second will rattle off, "Daddy go bye bye in car," without much thought. The single word learners almost seem to be late bloomers, but studies show that vocabulary evens out later for both types.

Studies show that there is a higher percentage among girls of "frozen phrase" learners, so this may account for the reason that girls seem to learn language much more quickly than boys.

My two boys represent each of the learning styles. John Paul seemed to be a "late bloomer," putting each word together slowly and not speaking in full sentences until well past the age of two. Joey was a "frozen phrase" learner. When he looked at me at 17 months and said "Do it again!" I nearly fell off my chair! He learned words in strings, and was able to separate them if necessary, but had no trouble saying them as a group. I was constantly shocked at his development, and now it all makes sense!

At (nearly) four, John Paul is very adept at most types of speech, but it is clear that sometimes he struggles with some stringing together. ("Joey is being mad to me.") However, his vocabulary is very extensive and I don't worry about his future ability to read or comprehend. Joey is very adept at grammar for his age. ("I want John Paul to go away from me.") However, it is clear that much of his comprehension is still at a two year old level. He has had a leg up on communication, which has resulted in less stress for our family, which is great.

It was so interesting to read this, being the 'word nerd' that I am! I hope you learned something about your little chatterbox from this post! More to come...

Animal Matching and the Swine Flu

I got inspired to make another themed flannel board...because these are easy, I think they will be my main "creative" way to teach. I have been kicking around different ideas for pre-reading activities for John Paul, and I'm working on some word recognition with this activity. I remove all the names of the animals, and he puts them back. He did really well, but mixed up 'bear' and 'boy' a couple of times because of the beginning sounds. But that's a good mistake--it means he's really thinking! This activity didn't hold his attention the way I thought it would...but he was having one of those days anyway. We're cooped up at home because of a little swine flu scare out there, so I think he's a bit stir crazy! I also kept pigs out of the matching game because I'm a bit bitter about the swine flu myself.... ;)

Joey didn't like this activity, and because the two of them were in fine form, they fought about who would take off and put on the labels. John Paul usually wins those little spats--I can't wait until Joey is verbal enough to take him on!

So tonight we opted to watch a movie together--The Tale of Despereaux or something like that. It was cute and it really kept John Paul's attention because he's into knights and soldiers and all of that boy stuff. Except usually he wants to be the "bad soldier"...but that's another story all together. And it's late. Good night!