a
Mommy & Me Preschooloffered through Coastline Community College.
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Jack has loved every minute
of his first school experience.Art, story time, singing, snacks, friends, toys,
field trips, fun, and homework!
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To clarify, the homework is all mine.
I've been asked to document Jack's
emergent reading and writing skills.
Since I wanted to include notes,
pictures, and video I figured the family blog would
be the easiest way to display all my findings.
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Miss Jeanette this is for you: Before attending your preschool class I had spent
very little time thinking about the literacy environment
in my home. Nor had I realized all the little steps Jack has
been taking towards reading and writing.
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This quiz you handed out to us has been very helpful.
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The Home Literacy Environment Checklist
click here if you'd like to take the quiz to evaluate your home.
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And I am happy to report that our home has
most of the necessary supportive literacy elements (33 trues).
Emergent Reading-
Jack loves books. I think that's something he's learned from me.
July of 2007 (15 months old)***
He has 100's of them.
A small sampling of Jack's books.
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I read to Jack everyday.
Quite often I find him "reading" to himself
or "reading" to Jillian.
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Jack has quite a few materials and games to
help him learn the alphabet/learn to read.
magnetic letters
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sticker letters
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flashcards
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bin of writing supplies.
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letters & cards matching game
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To date Jack can sight read 15 uppercase letters:
A,B,C,E,I,J,K,L,O,P,Q,R,S,T, and X.
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Jack can also sight read numbers 0-12 and
can point to those numbers when asked.
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Jack can sing the ABC song;
it's not a perfect rendition, but he sure
likes singing it anyway.
Recorded 5/17/09
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Here's a video showing Jack's early
reading skills. He listens as I read to him.
He asks questions when he want to
clarify parts of the story. Jack can answer
questions that I ask him as we read and
sometimes even accurately predicts what
will happen next in the story. Jack likes to point
out things he notices in the story's pictures.***
Jack's emergent reading stories-
1.Last week Jack found our Annual
Disneyland Passholder Magazine and
dug it out of the recycling bin. (I'm pretty
sure it was Mickey on the back cover that
enticed him to pick it out of the trash.)
I've found him "reading it" several times since then.
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Recently I've tried to recycle the magazine
a couple more times, but Jack keeps reminding me
that it's his and he likes reading it.
2. A couple weeks ago we caught Jack
brushing up on his Mario Kart skills in the bathroom!
Apparently he grabbed the manual before he headed
off to go potty.
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In this first picture Jack looks a little worried
that he's been caught reading on the toilet.
But by the second photo...
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He's back to business!
3. Every night we read the scriptures with Jack
Before we get started we talk about a couple
important pictures I've placed into our scriptures.
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Here is a picture of our prophet Thomas S. Monson.
Each night when I ask Jack who this man is,
Jack places his finger under Thomas S. Monson's
name and moves his finger as he says his name.
I know he learned this behavior from me, but
it also shows me that he understands how print works.
a. Jack knows that each letter goes together to form a word.
b. He know that print goes from left to right
and c. Jack knows that the words under the picture
says Thomas S. Monson.
Emergent Writing Skills-
Click on the picture for a better look at
the beginning stages of learning to write.***Right now Jack is moving from stage 2 to
stage 3 in his writing progression.
Most of his work looks like separated
scribbles (2), but I have noticed in Jack's
more recent work that he is starting to
write left to right across the page.
This sample was made on April 15th.
You can see the separated scribbles, but
if you look at the 6th line from the top
Jack did "write" across the page left to right.
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How Jack holds his pencil
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Kent thought he would do a little writing activity
with Jack to see if he could trace his name. The top
is Kent guiding Jack's hand while they trace Jack's name.
And the bottom is Jack tracing his name by himself.
Needless to say we were shocked, we had no idea Jack
had the motor skills to do this!
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Jack's birthday was last month.
And in the weeks following we've written lots
of thank you notes. I write the notes and Jack
draws the picture on the front.
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While Jack was drawing on one of his
friends notes he looked at me
and said "here's a 7" and then drew a 7.
I was floored. (I should have taken a
picture right then and there, but instead I
put it in an envelope and mailed it off.)
Later on (5/17/09) I sat Jack down and asked him to write
another 7 for me. He did, but this time it was backwards.
He also drew a 1, a triangle, a house, and a castle.
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I love that Jack is starting to tell me what
he's drawing and I get even more excited when
I can see what he's telling me about in his picture.
On 4/19/09 Jack used a highlighter to make
this picture. While he was coloring he said "Look
Mama, a fish" and sure enough, I could see a fish!
This was the first time I could recognize what he said
he was drawing right there on the paper .
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Jack's fish
Miss Jeanette, we have truly enjoyed your class.
Jack and I have learned so much.
Thank you for all you do to make our preschool
so much fun. We can't wait for the field trip next week!
Love,
Jackson, Jillian, and Jodi
THE END
