ELA & Social Studies Articles - Page 8

Does your early learner seem to have sharp language and thinking skills that far outpace their age? With such advanced skills, you might be wondering to yourself exactly when do kids learn to read? If so, you might have a gifted reader on your hands! Even if you suspect your child is gifted, it’s important to keep these young minds engaged and stimulated to foster a healthy love for reading and learning. This article will help you identify whether your child is a gifted reader, and what strategies to use to enrich your child’s reading and language skills!

On your last road trip, did your family use a map? If you’re like most families today, chances are you used an app like Google Maps. With today’s high-tech GPS technology, it’s tempting to think that kids no longer need to learn how to read a map. But that couldn’t be further from the truth! Because kids develop important spatial reasoning skills while learning to read maps, map skills for elementary kids is just as important as ever. This article shares all you need to know about map skills, including 5 fun activities and games to share with your child! 

If your kids are like most people, they probably find sitting and labeling a map quite a tedious activity. Let’s be honest: memorizing states and capitals can be downright boring for kids! But what if learning geography doesn’t have to be boring? In fact, a USA geography game for kids should be upbeat and engaging, encouraging kids to learn even more about the country and our culture. 

As parents, it’s easy to get lost in the daily routine, helping kids with homework and pushing them to achieve their potential every day. But learning all the math and science available won’t make kids productive and contributing members of society. That’s why it’s critically important to instill within our kids a sense of civics and community. This article takes a look at teaching citizenship to elementary students, and will give you 6 great ideas to use with your child. 

If you’ve ever sat down with your child to practice writing, you probably already know what a daunting task it is to teach any kid how to write! Factor out the tears and frustration by using multisensory writing activities to introduce your little writer to proper letter formation. This article discusses multisensory learning and will give you 10 new ways to practice effective handwriting skills with your preschooler!

Once there was a sweet little girl. She was very pretty, and everyone loved her. She lived with her mother. Her mother gave her a lot of presents all the time. Once she made a little red riding hood from a piece of velvet. It was a very pretty hood and the little girl looked very pretty when she wore it. She loved the hood so much that she wore it all the time and did not wear anything else. As she always wore the red riding hood she was given the name of Little Red Riding Hood.

Like any other developmental milestone, kids have to be ready to begin learning to read. Just like you wouldn’t want to wean your child before he or she is ready to start solid foods, you wouldn’t want to introduce reading if your child is unable to recognize the letters of the alphabet. Though it might be tricky to recognize the signs of reading readiness, we should look for definite cues that kids are ready to begin reading. 

If you think about the people in your life you probably know someone who calls themselves a “bad speller”. While everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, some people grow up accepting the notion that they just can’t spell or write well. Even so, you probably also know that spelling and writing properly are ingredients for a successful career and professional life. Luckily, your child doesn’t have to grow up believing they are bad at spelling.

Even though it seems like it should be easy, learning to read can become a source of frustration for both kids and parents alike. Sometimes we expect kids to go from sight words to reading fluency without much trouble in between, when in fact there are multiple mistakes and errors kids commonly make.

Think about the last article, blog post, or book you read. Did you ask yourself questions while you read? Like most skilled readers and critical thinkers, you probably were continuously asking questions, even if you didn’t realize it. Asking questions helps us to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate a piece of text, and challenges us to expand our thinking.