Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Kindergarten Literature List

For the most part, picture books are for The Kid to read aloud to me. The chapter books are for me to read aloud to The Kid.

Picture Books (listed from lower reading level to higher, we will read them in this order with exceptions for some seasonal titles)

Lucky Ducklings by Eva Moore
The Dot by Peter Reynolds (we will read some of his other books as well)
Two Times the Fun by Beverly Cleary (four longer stories in one book, less pictures)
Zen Shorts by Jon J Muth
George and Martha by James Marshall
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
The Lion and the Mouse by Bernadette Watts
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
Andy and the Lion by James Daugherty
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert
Story of Babar by Jean de Brunhoff
Three Little Pigs by Paul Galdone (we'll read a variety of other folk tales by Paul Galdone as well)
Anansi the Spider by Gerald McDermott
Frida by Jonah Winter
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
Three Questions by Jon J Muth
A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams
Abuela by Arthur Dorros
Chanticleer and the Fox by Barbara Cooney
The Knight and the Dragon by Tomie dePaola
Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss
Alexander and the Terribly, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
Diego by Jonah Winter
Eyes of Gray Wolf by Jonathan London
Island of the Skog by Steven Kellogg
Princess Knight by Cornelia Funke
Elizabeth Leads the Way by Tanya Lee Stone
Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting
The Girl Who Spun Gold by Virginia Hamilton
The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry
The Boy Who Loved Words by Roni Schotter
Dogteam by Gary Paulsen
True Story of Stellina by Matteo Pericoli
Woman Who Outshone the Sun by Alejandro Cruz Martinez
Koko's Kitten by Francine Patterson
Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse by Leo Lionni
I Can Hear the Sun by Patricia Polacco
Verdi by Janell Cannon
How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning by Rosalyn Schanzer
Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
Toy Brother by William Steig
Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau
Sea Chest by Toni Buzzeo
Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems
Dragonfly's Tale by Kristina Rodanas
Going Home by Eve Bunting
How the Stars Fell Into the Sky by Jerrie Oughton

Longer/Chapter Books 
Minpins by Roald Dahl
The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame
My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett (there are sequels to this)
Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
Bunnicula by Deborah Howe (there are sequels)
Stuart Little by E.B. White
Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelance (there are sequels)
The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner (there are sequels)
The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary (there are sequels)
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White
Tumtum & Nutmeg by Emily Bearn (there are sequels)

Monday, August 18, 2014

Accelerating All About Spelling

We will be finishing up level 2 of All About Spelling soon. The Kid is an early reader and a fairly good speller, but she wanted to be "taught" spelling. I chose All About Spelling because the letter tiles made it easy to adapt for a non-writer. However, we learned fairly quickly that the letter tiles are also s-l-o-w. I started having her spell the words aloud and then we moved to having her type out the words and sentences on the iPad. Sometimes we use the letter tiles for new teaching, sometimes I simply write on a whiteboard.

I discovered early on that the program starts out pretty simply. For some students, this may be a great confidence booster. For other students, this may create boredom. The Kid fell into the latter camp. We've accelerated the program in two ways.

Acceleration Option #1:
Complete only a portion of work from each lesson. We generally settled on all of the new teaching, 1/2 the main spelling words, none of the extra words, and 1-2 dictation sentences. Review was limited only to rules she had more difficulty with. We generally covered a full step in one lesson this way.

Acceleration Option #2:
Pretesting. I know that some people pretest using the full list of words for each step, but I wanted a quicker assessment. For each step, I choose 2-3 words from the main spelling lists that are great examples of the rule being taught. Pretesting 5 lessons at a time therefore has a list of 10-15 words. I do include ALL of the rule breakers that are covered in any lesson. If she gets the 2-3 words from a lesson correct, then we put a sticker on the progress chart for that lesson and we're done with it. If she gets any wrong from that lesson, we cover the lesson on another day. If a rule breaker is correct, we move on; if a rule breaker is incorrect I teach it along with any lesson coming up. We would cover a step in one lesson.

Here is an example of how Option #2 worked for us in practice:

1. Pretested steps 10-15 in Level 2. (Step 11 contained a word bank, but no new rules, so this covered five steps of new rules.)
          Pretest words: rule, June, size, rise, grapes, hoses, been, queen, deep, cold, child, her, super
2. Look over pretest. She missed grapes, hoses, been, super. These are from steps 12 and 15, plus one rule breaker. I went ahead and taught the rule breaker immediately. We marked steps 10, 11, 13, and 14 as completed on the progress chart.
3. The next week, we covered step 12. I taught the rule for pluralizing vowel-consonant-E words, then dictated three phrases and two sentences for her to spell.
4. Next lesson, we covered step 15. I covered the new teaching, dictated three phrases and two sentences.
5. Next lesson, we did a pretest for steps 16-20. Repeat as above.

Anyone else accelerated All About Spelling? How about with higher levels?