First Grade, Reading, Set Six

We started On Yonder Mountain by Millie Howard. The chapters are divided in half, and so she reads half a chapter each day (about 5 pages) and then we talk about it. We have been able to add new words to our "vocabulary letter" almost every day. For the last three chapters of the book, K. read the first half of the chapter and I read the last half so we could finish the book in this set of weeks.

I picked up the book The Reading Corner: Ideas, Games, and Activities for Individualizing Reading by Harry W. Forgan from a "free table" at a support group meeting. It has some really neat ideas and so I am using the activities it has for teaching Comprehension Skills.

• The first thing is learning to pick out the Main Idea.
• Find the M.I. -- take index cards and write four or five sentences. One of them is the main idea and the others are supporting details (put them in random order). Read the sentences together and have your child pick out the main idea. Here is an example:
• Ann puts on boots.
• Ann is ready to go out in the rain. (main idea)
• She puts on a raincoat.
• She puts on a hat.
• Category Tic Tac Toe -- play as regular tic-tac-toe, however you must prepare the game board ahead of time. In each section write three things that go together (dress, pants, blouse) and leave space for a fourth item. Before a player puts their X or O in a space, they must tell the category (clothing) of the items and add a fourth item (skirt).

 

• Main Idea and Details Hand -- I traced my hand on a sheet of paper. We read a paragraph in the reading book -- I had picked the paragraph out ahead of time. We discussed the main idea of the paragraph and wrote in on the palm of the hand. Then I had K. tell me the details in the paragraph and write them on the fingers. The main idea was that the children formed teams and built snow forts. Some details were that Sarah was on Jonathan's team, they made snowballs, they wore mittens, etc.
• Give Me a Name -- I found nine pictures in old magazines and cut them out. Then I wrote a main idea for each picture on an index card. I laid the pictures and cards out and had K. match them up.
• This week I had two pictures and had K. come up the the title for each.