Multi-Modes & Layers, for More Engaged Players

So, here's another one of the shortest blog posts ever.  Documenting this journey so those who track with me for the long haul can follow my progression.  But no wordy post today...just musing.

So, I attended the Vital Smarts Influencer training the other month, and as the video below will explain, one of their big things is using multiple sources of influence to attack a challenge.  This morning I was watching something about Orton Gillingham--a training I also have received--and their big thing is using multiple modalities to help learners understand language. Multiple paths. Multiple modalities at once. Multiple sources of influence.  It's starting to make sense...much of what we have been doing has given too much credit to one source or the other at any given time. Our best hope is to martial many sources into one effort for max effect.  Ok, I get it! To be continued...

Adventures in Academic Language (Part 2)

Well, here we are! My 3-year-old said the other night, "I like summarizing now, Mommy!" It worked! I slipped in that academic language on her in a context of fun, and now she gets it! Summarized a book quite nicely for me the other night.  This stuff is easier than I thought--if we're intentional and embed it in fun...
#thatisall #shortestpostever  :-)

Love & light,

Adventures in Academic Language (Part 1)

Friends, I have stumbled upon a GREAT way to teach important academic and testing language to pre-schoolers so that they will be cumulatively comfortable with and sufficiently exposed to it by the time their high-stakes testing shenanigans begin! Here it is: weave the terms into regular, everyday life in normal and fun ways.
Sooo, I confess there is quite a bit of Claire Huxtable in me--this "let the re-cord show" kind of precise, lawyer-like way in parenting. At times, it is sheer hilarity! :-) But this past summer I realized that I could use it to my advantage in teaching my youngsters the importance of letting their actions match their words. I realized that using the word "evidence" was a PERFECT way to both get them used to that term and give myself a springboard for using it in lots of ways down the road. "It's not that I'm saying you're not telling the truth," I'd tell them. "But the EVIDENCE makes me think..." Here's an example of how I used it.

Sonny (just ate dinner and claimed he was beyond full): Asks for a snack

Me: You CAN'T be hungry, because that's not what hungry people do! HUNGRY people don't get rid of their food, and then ask for more! The EVIDENCE does not show that you're really hungry!" Totally natural way to introduce the term, and a principle to boot!

Tonight I just discovered a different example. My 3-year-old finds it hilarious when, instead of re-reading a book they love, I give a super-boiled down version. With very few words, I hit the first page, middle section and "the end." She cracks UP!! Tonight it hit me: What if I just put a label to that? So tonight, I said innocently, "What?! I just gave you a nice SUMMARY!" Of course, she went on to show me the right way to read it and to urge me to follow suit...and I did...or at least Daddy did. But the exciting thing was, I learned something new about the beauty and ease of introducing academic language. I will keep chronicling this process as I learn more and more revelations unfold... #tobecontinued