An article from the Los Angeles Times reported that preschoolers, ages 3 – 5, who took a midday nap of an average of a little longer than an hour performed better on memory tasks that day and the next day than did kids who didn’t nap. Scientists reporting recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also, found that the non-nappers couldn’t make up the deficit with nighttime sleep.

“We offer scientific evidence that the midday naps for preschoolers support the academic goals of early education,” said researcher Rebecca Spencer of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Researchers concluded, “Although curriculum demands for preschool classrooms are increasing, the benefit of sleep on learning warrants preservation of the nap opportunity.”

This ties into the connections between the multiple readings scripted in Practickle. An evening story time is popular as part of the bedtime routine in many homes. However, this research leads to the idea that storytime could, also, be enjoyed in the afternoon. After a nap, share one of the readings with your child. The benefit of the nap on the memory will not only be on that particular day, but will extend into the next day. As you look for activities that will be perfect for the late afternoon time, think of Practickle!

• In the first 2,000 days of life there is an explosion of growth in your brain that stays with you for the rest of your life.
• You learn more from 0 to 5 years of age than in any other five year period in your life.
• By the age of 5, 92% of the brain’s growth is complete
• A social connection during learning (such as you reading to your child) increases the child’s learning more than learning passively through simply viewing.

As Minnesota Public Radio said: “We are currently in the midst of a revolution in our understanding of development of the early brain”. To learn more, listen to just a few minutes of the presentation given by brain scientists from the University of Washington given this summer at the Aspen Ideas Festival

Teaching kids how to hear, identify and manipulate sounds of the alphabet is an important first step in reading readiness.

So, when you’re in the car assume the role of the teacher and resident brain expert.

Play a rhyming game:

“I say bat. You say _________.”

“I say bed. You say _________.”

Your child will fill in with a rhyming word. Add rhythm and clapping if you want to really turn up the volume.  AND you are not driving the car:)

Clap. Clap.         “I say bad. You say _______.”

Other Variations:

~Your child gives the first word. You give the rhyming reply.

~Keep the same rhyming pattern going for as long as you can: bat, hat, rat, mat………..

~Add more actions: two claps and two train whistle sounds.

Clap. Clap. Whistle. Whistle.   “I cay she. You say ______________.”

As an ACTIVITY OPTION, I frequently construct very simple graphic organizers to help your young reader get a basic understanding of how to organize information.

A graphic organizer is a visual aid helping the reader to see the relationships between pieces of information. These visual arrangements help the reader and listener to comprehend and retain more information because the brain doesn’t have to process so much text to understand the information. As the title of this entry says, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Graphic organizers help the brain focus on what’s important. There is a lot of thinking involved when deciding what information to place in the graphic organizer. Our target audience (three – seven-year olds) can benefit from early practice with graphic organizers as they learn how to use them and understand them.

Check out Practickle’s board on Graphic Organizers: www.pinterest.com/practickle . You will see examples of very simple graphic organizers that your listener can complete after the reading of any book. Some of these your child can complete, after a discussion with you about the graphic organizer. Some will require you to write your child’s ideas in the appropriate spaces.

Using Graphic Organizers is a Reading Comprehension Best Practice. There is research dating from the 80’s supporting the use of simple graphic organizers to help strengthen comprehension whatever the age of the reader.

Save these Practickle graphic organizers. They will serve as unique memories of the times that you have spent reading the Practickle way!

As the school year begins, the few hours before bedtime become even busier for families with children in preschool or school. My granddaughter has started a preschool program that requires “homework.” Izzie’s school wants her reading each evening. The next day the students talk about what they read. This reading assignment is perfect for the family that uses Practickle! Nothing extra has to be squeezed into the evening routine. Practickle’s emphasis on deep understanding of a text will reinforce the benefit of the repeated readings to your child as your child feels comfortable sharing a familiar story.  Through the four quality picture books, literature and informational texts, selected each month your reader has the choice of sharing one of the new books or a past favorite. Regardless of the book chosen the repeated readings that focus on comprehension will give your child the level of retention and recall that will make this school sharing time eagerly anticipated by your young reader. I’m sure your child’s teacher will notice the retelling skill, the comprehension of the story elements, and the vocabulary that your child uses when sharing a story that has been read the Practickle way!

At Practickle, we believe that everyone wants to make the time spent reading with children as beneficial for future learning as possible. As a grandparent, I love having a way to help my granddaughter build that skills that I know will make her school experiences, both now and in the future, fun and successful.

Two of Practickle’s objectives are beautifully brought to life in Laura Vaccaro Seeger’s award winning book, green:

• opening your child’s imagination to the high quality art in picture books
• creating images that expand your child’s imagination

As she creates images that broaden the concept of green into both natural and humorous shades, your listener and you will turn pages back and forth, point out details, talk about her ideas, and laugh at her wacky word play.

Even though the text in the book is sparse. The complexity of each page will slow you down as you study the two-page spreads and talk about how the cut-outs hidden in the paintings connect the current page to the previous page.

Press Here, a July selection, focuses on the primary colors.  Toward the end of Press Here, primary colors start to blend, creating new colors. green is a perfect extension of the blending, as you introduce the shades of a color.

Below are some activities that develop Practickle’s objectives:

• Watch the two-minute trailer on amazon.com that accompanies the book information about green. The musical accompaniment adds another dimension of art to the book. It’s a marvelous sensory experience.
• Have your child pick a color of the rainbow. Then, create shades of that color with whatever medium you choose. Give names to the shades. Talk about which shade is your favorite.
• Go to http://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/games/mix_and_paint/mix_and_paint.html

This is a wonderful mix and paint page that allows the young artist to play with mixing and blending the primary colors into various shades.

• Pick a rainbow color. Instead of creating shades of a color take pictures with a camera or an iPad. Name the colors.

On Ms. Seeger’s website, she tells that in fifth grade she stated in an essay that she knew she was born to make picture books. Who knows when the idea first came to her?

See what this book and these activities spark in your child!

…ask them if it is “Standards-based”. Sounds a bit intimidating, doesn’t it. “Standards-based” means that your child’s pre-kindergarten experience will build a foundation in both decoding (phonics) and comprehension that will guarantee success in any kindergarten classroom.

The “standards” are a group of grade-level expectations for students in grades K – 12. Most of the states have adopted the national standards or have state standards that are very close to the national.

I worked with a group of pre-K and K teachers in a Minnesota public school system yesterday. We laid out the steps that teach young three to six year- olds how to use evidence from the text to support their answers to basic who, what, when, where, why and how questions. The teachers structured a detailed plan that starts with very easy, direct, literal questions with answers easy to find in both the text and the illustrations. By the end of Kindergarten, these “experienced” students will identify evidence from the text and illustrations that supports the building of inferences to answer questions about the literature and informational text they are reading. It was very exciting to see these teachers eager to get started using the plan with students.

As I facilitated the development of the learning objectives, I thought, “The next time that I work with these teachers, I’ll show them the Practickle website. The standards-based comprehension activities are already build for them. Practickle’s First Reading is about making inferences from the information in the illustrations. The Second Reading is full of questions that rely on finding evidence in the text.

Give your child’s teacher a gift of a Practickle subscription. It truly is “standard-based”! Save the teacher time, and guarantee the quality of your child’s reading experiences.

Think about how many times you read and reread a recipe. Why do you play and replay a song that touches you? How many times have written and rewritten an importand personal letter or paper?

Promoting the repeated connections with a quality or important piece of literature or informational text develops a deeper level of comprehension of the text. Each time we return to the piece, either as the reader or the writer, we make more connections and “get more out of it.”

In Practickle, we focus on high-quality texts that make repeated readings worthwhile. In an article in Reading Today (June/July 2013) Timothy Shanahan (University of Illinois and Past President of the International Reading Association) stresses that “the second and third readings have authentic and unique purposes.” Each reading in Practickle has a different focus for the brain.

The repeated readings build a mental process that encourages thinking in our beginning readers. “The knowledge, motivation, and confidence gained are positive benefits that can be transferred to other reading experiences.” (Elizabeth Dobler, Reading Today, June/July 2013)

As the school year begins, the few hours before bedtime become even busier for families with children in preschool or school. My granddaughter has started a preschool program that requires “homework.” Izzie’s school wants her reading each evening. The next day the students talk about what they read. This reading assignment is perfect for the family that uses Practickle! Nothing extra has to be squeezed into the evening routine. Practickle’s emphasis on deep understanding of the text through repeated readings to your child builds in your child confidence to share a familiar story with her classmates.  Through the four quality picture books, literature and informational texts, selected each month your reader has the choice of sharing one of the new books or a past favorite. Regardless of the book chosen the repeated readings that focus on comprehension will give your child the level of retention and recall that will make this school sharing time eagerly anticipated by your young reader. I’m sure your child’s teacher will notice the retelling skill, the comprehension of the story elements, and the vocabulary that your child uses when sharing a story that has been read the Practickle way!

If your child wishes to choose a book that hasn’t been a Practickle selection or is assigned by the teacher, all you have to do is apply the Practickle approach through repeated readings. Each reading has a different focus (illustrations, text and vocabulary, and analysis). Apply this structure of repeated readings to any book. Using this structured approach will increase comprehension of any text.

At Practickle, we believe that everyone wants to make the time spent reading with children as beneficial for future learning as possible. As a grandparent, I love having a way to help my granddaughter build that skills that I know will make her school experiences, both now and in the future, fun and successful.

With over 90% of the brain’s capabilities developing before formal schooling starts, let’s make sure that we’re providing the best literacy experiences we can for our youngest readers by sharing books of the highest quality.

Eric Carle’s many books provide that quality from the beauty of his illustrations to the structure of his texts. Mr. Carle has been involved in writing and illustrating over seventy books (http://www.eric-carle.com/ECbooks.html#anchor034). From illustrating the perennial favorite Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? (1967) to writing and illustrating another classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969) Mr. Carle’s books continue to fill the shelves of both book stores and libraries.

Check out the sturdy board book versions of his books for our youngest readers as they learn how to turn pages and focus on vibrant illustrations. Great baby gifts!

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts looks like it would be a marvelous experience for the entire family. Check out the museum’s website (http://www.eric-carle.com/museum.html).

Mr. Carle quotes a letter from a father about his most recent book, Friends:

The father said to his child, “This is a picture book for children. His child said, “No, it’s an art book for children.”