Hello Book Bums families!
Back to school time is fast approaching, and this week in the newsletter Dr. Christy shares helpful ideas for preparing. Book Bums' handwriting workshops return this month, and we have all the details. We're also thinking about baseball, verbs, and flags. Enjoy!
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Word of the Week
flummox (flum-uks) verb/action word - to confuse or bewilder
The many signs on the highway flummoxed me, and I got off at the wrong exit.
Literary Calendar
- On August 3, 1861, the last installment of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens was published.
- Dickens' work was often serialized, meaning it was published in a newspaper one section at a time. For this reason his chapters often end on cliffhangers.
- Dickens' is credited with coining or popularizing many English words, such as our Word of the Week, flummox. Read more about his word contributions here.
From our Bookshelves
We went to a Reds game a couple of weeks ago. Until last year, we hadn’t been for quite a long time. We had such a good time that we decided to invite the family to join us for a game this year. We thought even the grandkids would enjoy it, because at the Great American Ball Park they do such a great job engaging the fans and keeping the energy high throughout the game. Plus, who doesn’t have fun when there are nachos?
I purchased The Lucky Baseball Bat, by Matt Christopher, to read with the grandkids after they’d watched the Reds game with us. This book is not just about baseball. It’s also about a boy who loses confidence in himself, navigates friendships, and learns a big lesson about luck. It’s the sort of stuff all kids need to hear, but they receive better when it’s presented in a book—and it’s not about them (even though it is).
This book was published in 1954. Its cover has been modernized, but there’s an occasional “swell” and “for Petey sakes” and the parents are referred to as “Mother and Daddy,” but it’s a good story with a great lesson, and I can’t wait to read it with my grandkids. It just might be a great pick to read with some kids (ages 6-10) that you love too.
Tips for Families
- Start your desired school routines now.
- Eat dinner together.
- Read a book together at bedtime and start going to bed when you want the kids to go to bed during the school year.
- Set expectations for morning routines with your kids. (What would help us get our school days off to a great start?)
- Have your kids spend time reading more and more throughout the upcoming days (if they are skilled readers).
- Provide fun-focused ways for your kids to engage in writing tasks every day until school starts. If they’re not forming their letters in a tidy, efficient manner, provide some instruction or consider our Book Bums handwriting workshop (information below).
- Begin reducing screen time, systematically, across the next couple of weeks.
- Talk about expectations and privileges during the school year to promote eager anticipation.
- Create spaces where book bags will go, develop routines around lunch preparations, determine expectations for when and where homework will be done, etc.
- Most important, expect great things with your kids, and let your enthusiasm be contagious. It’s going to be a fantastic year of learning!
Tips for Raising Readers and Writers
In an article published in The Reading League Journal (May, 2022), it says, “There is conflicting data as to the extent that repeated reading supports the generalization of fluency skills to new, unfamiliar passages.”
To this I said, “Amen! Maybe now teachers will stop with those dang blasted, timed, reading fluency passages.”
Nope. They’re still being used, and they go against everything I know about equipping kids to read well.
First, we don’t need beginning readers to read faster. We need them to read with accuracy.
At Book Bums, we say, “Slow and accurate beats fast and wrong—every time. We make the sounds we see. It’s a No Guess Zone.”
But kids believe that fast reading is good reading. Afterall, don’t grown-ups read more quickly than novice readers? When teachers say, “Readers sound like they’re talking” before kids are skillfully navigating our code-based language, we’re setting them up for failure.
Sometimes the muddling around with words is precisely what kids need. They need to learn to persist when words don’t come easily and to know that, knowing what they know about how words work (because they’ve received explicit, systematic phonics instruction), they can decode most any word they encounter. It may require some “flipping” of sounds (set for variability), but most every word is at least partially decodable.
Please don’t practice fluency passages with your kids. Instead, teach them to accurately decode the words, making the sounds aloud, knowing what they know about how words work.
With time and practice, words will be mapped in kids’ memories, and they will become known on sight—resulting in fluent reading. Fluency is one of the five pillars or literacy, however it is not to be emphasized before kids are equipped with the phonics skills they need to navigate the words on the page.
If your kids haven’t yet received sufficient phonics instructions, contact us at Book Bums. We can help.
Here’s a treat and craft all in one:
Paint a wooden clothespin yellow and add black stripes. Affix some tiny wiggle eyes to the top and clip a snack bag filled with Honeycomb cereal to make the wings. You can even add a stinger if you’d like.
Want some bonus bee-themed reading for yourself? Try The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.
Practical Grammar
It wasn’t until I was learning a bit of Spanish in high school that I recognized the various tenses in my first language, English.
For example, for the verb swing we’d say
I swing
You swing
He or she swings
We swing
They swing
Until I was taught the tenses for Spanish, I paid no attention to them in English—maybe because the word variations were so slight.
When I was learning to conjugate the Spanish verb ser (to be), I realized that the word variations can be significant.
Yo soy -- I am
Tú eres -- You are
Él o Ella es -- He or She is
Nosotros somos -- We are
Ellos/Ellas son -- They are
But even native English speakers struggle with some past tense words in English.
In The Lucky Baseball Bat, the author writes, “Suddenly the pitch came in. He stepped into it and lifted the bat. He swung. Crack!”
Would you have said swung or swang? Swung is correct, though it sounds a bit odd to me.
How about the past tense for the word sing?
Here’s what you need to know:
It’s . . .
I sang
You sang
S/he sang
We sang
You sang
They sang
We use the verb sung, primarily, when it’s a past participle and is following words like have and had to form perfect tenses.
I have sung.
S/he has sung.
We had sung.
The song was sung.
Saying, “We sung the song” is not the correct usage. Even though it sounds a little strange to some folk’s ears, we are to use the word sang.
News from Book Bums
We’re hosting a handwriting workshop—just like the good ol’ days! We sure miss hosting our workshops at Book Bums, and this one is already giving us all the feels! We’re so excited to meet the kids who’ve been registered for this session of handwriting transformation. I’ve already got a teacher who’d love to join as my assistant if we have a few more kids register, so please keep the recommendations coming.
Handwriting Workshop
WHEN: Monday, August 4th - Friday, August 8th
from 11:00 a.m.-12:00
WHERE: Book Bums, West Chester
PRICE: $85 per child
Email Dr. Christy at christy@bookbums.com to register a child you adore.
Tips for Teachers
- Repetition rules. It’s especially helpful if you find fun ways to repeat the content.
- Invite students to share or write all they know about a topic. Sometimes this is called a “brain dump.” When kids are asked to retrieve information, pathways for recall are strengthened.
- Writing, in response to instruction, enhances recall.
- Encourage kids to talk about what they’re learning with someone else. Verbal retrieval is important, and inviting kids to explain how they know something is true can be a powerful teaching tool.
- Remind kids to study what they want to learn by heart right before sleeping. Using cards with words/notes can be helpful.
- Note that no-stakes quizzes (written and oral) are of great benefit for learning new material. Kids can even quiz themselves to learn new content.
- Spacing out practice, even every other day, promotes the accurate retrieval of complex information.
- Inviting kids to show what they know in a variety of formats can be helpful in promoting recall.
- Provide tips for remembering. When learning the names of bones in the human skeleton, saying things like “When you move your hips like Elvis, you’re moving your pelvis,” and “Your cranium protects your brain-ium” can make learning unforgettable.
- Adding a tune can help kids to remember information. We sing, “Old MacDonald had some vowels, a, e, i, o, u. With an a-a here and an a-a there . . .” and kids generally know the vowel names and their corresponding sounds within one session.
- Use motions or movement to enhance learning. To teach about the water cycle, for example, wiggle your fingers on both hands and move them upward as you say EVAPORATION, clap your hands together and say CONDENSATION (your arms look like a rain drop), and wiggle your fingers moving downward as you say PRECIPITATION. Unforgettable.
- Find fun ways to practice and review what you’re teaching. “Simon says touch your cranium (that protects your brain-ium)” and “Simon says touch your patella (‘cause you’re a good fella).”
Wordology Workshop
- The Latin root verb means word.
- You find it in many speaking and language related words such as verbal, verbose, verbiage, verbatim, adverb, and proverbial.
- Verb is also one of those roots that is its own word in English; a verb is an action or being word in a sentence.
Just for Fun
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