Thank you for sharing.  I'll watch it with my five year old later today. 

We've been working on something called precision reading - it's basically repeated readings of the same passage, each time reading farther and with greater accuracy - ending with a few comprehension questions. Today, for some reason, he didn't want to read a different passage aloud (he reads aloud daily...not just during the precision training time), so I allowed him to read silently, I was reading it silently myself and watching him as his eyes moved through the paragraphs and columns.  He was reading slightly slower than my speed, but has made excellent improvement from when we started this experiment.

https://www.educents.com/national-deals/deal/musical-phonics-sets#.UiDsCL4o6Uk

Sale ends Sept 4th I believe.

My sister is a chef so I had wanted to do something with my son as I remember growing up and her sniffing EVERYTHING before she ate it.  However, the closest we got to this was letting my son have at it with my spice cabinet.  We had a tall skinny cabinet that he could open and close as he desired.  The caps were screwed on tightly and there was no way he could have opened them on his own (toddler).  He could smell them by sniffing the caps and we'd say "This one is cinnamon.  Smell the cinnamon." etc.  He fell in love with cumin though and that spice jar went everywhere with him - in his crib at naptime, in the bathtub (yes. In the bathtub) and in the car on trips to town.  It was the funniest thing...his love of cumin.  I frankly, don't know if it did anything at all, but it sure gave us a lot of smiles...and weird looks in town.

and I want to be as amazing of a parent as his are! 

This has NOTHING to do with what we usually talk about here on BrillKids, but I see so much value in this youtube video.  Watch it yourself, then with your child - interesting and illuminating discussions will be had following.  As my five year old son sat on my lap watching the screen I cried a bit, cuddled him a bit, and prayed A LOT.  One of my many prayers is that he will grow up into a strong, determined young man who won't let anything stand in his way.  Young Mister Ritchie Parker can share wisdom with us all...

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/pIAP04cc6qc&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/pIAP04cc6qc&rel=1</a>

Hi Dreamyalp,

If you look to the top of your screen you'll see the Facebook symbol slightly off center.  To the left of that is a "search" button.  Open that up, type "Tweedlewink" and you'll see a lot of threads on this product.  I'm sure that will help you in your research.

Kizudo

Wow!  That's a fabulous price! 

Nadia, I wish I could but I just tried it and was able to download.  It worked fine for me.  If I had a techie bone in my body I might have a suggestion, but I don't.  Maybe there's another person reading this thread that has an idea.

Korrale4kg - thanks for the link  

I just hauled out an old Reading A-Z book:  "Spiders" level L    On page two it has a correlation chart.  So this Reading A-Z book was leveled at an L, but it says that it correlates to Fountas & Pinnell Level K, Reading Recovery Level 18, and DRA 20.  

In my experience, most brick & mortar schools in North America use the Fountas & Pinnell system, Reading Recovery or the DRA.  My brain has to translate everything into Fountas & Pinnell levels, so I'm thankful that they have this printed out in each book

Once you use one of the testing passages as a benchmark assessment, you should not use it again.  Repeated reading of the passage doesn't give you a clear reading on the ability of a child to decipher new text - which is what you want to see when you're benchmarking.  So, if you get a low reading and your child isn't quite ready for that level, save one of the fluency passages to use as an evaluation tool for later...when you think there's been enough improvement to evaluate again.

I've got to say, though, my son LOVES the precision reading that we do.  The fluency passages are interesting, but he LOVES charting his results and seeing the improvement.  With fluency practice, we gain skills in reading quickly, with comprehension, and with expression.  It's working very well for us.  I hope it also brings smiles to your home!

http://teachers.cmsfq.edu.ec/elementary/Tchaikovsky/CLASS%20NOTES/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=http%3a%2f%2fteachers%2ecmsfq%2eedu%2eec%2felementary%2fTchaikovsky%2fCLASS%20NOTES%2fTUTOR%2fBENCHMARKS&FolderCTID=0x0120004E4C725D1D984042AA38BDF24B85B277

Sorry about that ridiculously long link...not sure what that's about... 

Anyway, I wanted to share this with you because (nosy mommy that I am) I've been testing (shhhh) my son on his reading level.  We used this program when I taught kindergarten in a private school.  The Reading A-Z leveling is one letter higher than the Fountas & Pinnell leveling (Fountas & Pinnell created the most common benchmarking program in US & CDN schools).  I was thrilled to have access to them because all of my resources had to be left in the classroom when I left...school paper, ink, etc...sigh.  Anyway, I've been using this link to print off and benchmark my child.  Once I determine which level he's at, I use the Fluency printouts in a daily (almost) precision reading time. 

Precision reading is basically when a child is given one minute to read a passage - the amount of words and mistakes are recorded and graphed.  The passage is read up to 10 times or until it is read perfectly within that minute.  We read each passage two times/day, and I move to the next passage after he reads the current passage 100% correctly two times and answers comprehension questions that I make up. (That's just my spin on the process)  If I remember correctly (I printed my stuff out a few weeks ago) this link offers three different fluency stories (two parts to each story) - so, in our house, that means we have 6 different passages for each reading level.  If he reads the fluency passages easily, I'll check his reading level and bump him up a level before finishing all six passages.

My son is 5 now and still doesn't know that I'm testing.  It's just something that we do as a homeschooling family - he just thinks it one of his activities and is totally fine with it - there is no pressure or acknowledgement that there is an evaluation being done.  I will say, however, by testing him I now have a much better idea of what he is capable of. ..and it inspires me to keep literacy as the major component to our school day.

Amazing!  Thanks for sharing!  And I totally teared up when that woman got to hug her kids 

Our change table butted its foot end up against a bookshelf.  This bookshelf had a nail hammered into the side from who knows what or when.  On a whim, I used the nail to hang a whiteboard from.  This was one of the best things I could do for diaper time!  Just like the map in the bathroom, it was seen several times a day.  I would write words or draw shapes on it and my son got repeated exposure to concepts we had been looking at in LR or other early learning programs.  I'd recommend a whiteboard - after the clean diaper is on, put little socks over your baby's hands and let him/her wipe off the shapes - at first it would be just exploring the "now it's there, now it's not" idea and then later in his/her development say "Where's the square? Can you wipe it off?"  As a reward for not squirming on the change table and with your close supervision, you could even let him/her draw his/her own lines and squiggles.

You're right.  That stinks.  Let us know if you figured something out.  It might help someone else to not make the same mistake.

http://www.appfridayparty.com/

I only discovered this a few months ago and was thinking that it might be possible that some of you haven't seen this yet. 

If you go to this link, every Friday you'll get a link to that Friday's sales.  Some of them are really big, some are average, but I like it because it introduces me to new apps at good prices.  Today (April 5, 2013) there is a sale on a DoReMi app that looks interesting...and a Kid's Vocab - Mindsnack app that introduces higher level vocabulary...   Sometimes there are great sales, sometimes I buy, sometimes I don't... anyway, something to bookmark and check on every Friday.

http://www.appfridayparty.com/

Today ("AppFriday") there is a sale on the app DoReMi 1-2-3. (follow today's link - it is the last one on the list).  It looks like it could be fun.  I'm installing it as I type   We shall see.