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Tools that Help Online Learners

July 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Benq laptop

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Education is important, but not everyone is able to go away to college to learn. This could be because they can’t afford the costs of living away from home. Or it could be because they can’t afford to quit their job and so they need something that is flexible. Whatever the reason, there are now ways for students to attend college online. Here are some tools needed by these online learners:

Computers

The first thing that is needed is a computer. Many students choose to purchase laptops because they are portable, allowing the student to take them to work, the library, and home. They’ve also become very affordable in the past few years, making it easy for students to purchase them. It’s standard now for laptops to come with Wi-Fi, allowing students to connect anywhere where there’s a hotspot. This makes doing homework very convenient.

E-Readers

With so many programs now available online, including getting a master degree at EarnMyDegree.com, textbooks are also becoming virtual. This is a great advantage to the students because it allows them to carry their “books” without breaking their backs. It also allows them to search for keywords, making studying for tests easier.

Going to college has never been easier. It used to be that students had to rearrange their whole schedules in order to attend classes. Now students just have to go online, which makes getting a degree very convenient, whether for a bachelor’s degree or beyond.

 

Filed Under: Education, Online Learning, Reading Tagged With: , ,

Best Books for Reluctant Readers

June 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Cover of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" 

Cover of Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Children and young adults don’t always love reading; many prefer video games or television to picking up a book. If you’re a parent of a reluctant reader, take strides to encourage them to develop an interest in reading. Recommend books for them that are ideal for reluctant readers; these books have accessible, engaging storylines and are written for readers who aren’t yet comfortable with reading difficult books. Here are a few books that are good for reluctant readers.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

This beloved series by Jeff Kinney follows the middle school student Greg Heffley as he details the difficulties of being a scrawny pre-teen. When his best friend Rowley joins the popular crowd, he must take great strides to keep his friend. Comic illustrations are included throughout the book and will help keep kids entertained.

Frindle

Frindle, by Andrew Clements and Brian Selznick, features the mischievous ten-year-old Nick Allen, who routinely aggravates his fifth-grade language arts teacher, Mrs. Granger. He must write a report on how new entries are added to the dictionary, and, while writing it, he decides to coin a new word: frindle, his new word for pen. Soon everyone in the school is using the word, and the word’s popularity sweeps the nation.

Wintergirls

Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is for young adult reluctant readers. It features intense emotions and vivid language and covers a topic that is relevant to teen girls. Wintergirls is the story of Lia and Cassie, who had been best friends since grade school. Each of the girls has an eating disorder, and, after Cassie commits suicide, Lia’s guilt and her need to be thin become nearly unbearable.

 

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Monitoring Middel School Readers

May 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

 

Sherwood Githens Middle School in Durham, Nort... 


 

Educators sometimes complain about the difficulty in getting middle school children interested in reading and writing. Kids around the age of 11 and 12 years old may do just enough to get by and finish homework. This is not however sufficient interest and no where near the optimum goal of having these kids entertained by reading and writing. If you are a parent or educator who is looking to get a  child more interested in reading. Here are a few places you can start.

First, identify reading material that is of interest to the child. If your child is into cars, find them fiction based on driving cars, biographies or autobiographies of famous racing personalities, or car and driver magazine. The fact is it just does not work to hand a kid a literary classic and expect them to get interested in reading. Instead, ease them into the heavy material by getting them hooked on reading with something they enjoy.

Second, if you know a child who is very uninterested in reading and rejects the notion out of hand, it would be good to get their reading ability tested. There are a number of issues that make reading difficult to some individuals and rather than let anyone know what they are dealing with, they simply internalize the problem. Naturally, they have no interest in reading as they don’t want to draw attention to the problem. This is where you can step in and help.

Middle school is a great time to explore reading and for kids to begin to develop his or her own stories. Encourage your little reader today.

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Book Clubs for Children

May 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Whether you are trying to put together a children’s book club or helping your child do it, forming a book club is a great way to motivate children to read and talk about books. If your child is looking for another way to get involved in reading, suggest forming a book club. Allow them to make the decision to form the club but offer to help them.

With a book club, you need a book to read and you need children to come. First, encourage your child to invite his or her friends. Talk to their parents about the opportunity. When you have several children interested, you should have your child call a meeting and pick a book.

Pick a book that will be easy for everyone in the group to read and understand. Book clubs do more than just read they also discuss the material. Talk to your location librarians for book recommendations. Check out canada 411 to find libraries and bookstores in your neighborhood. The librarians will be able to suggest several books for the book club members.

Help your child put together a calendar or schedule for the book club. You will first need to know what book you will be reading, how many pages you will be reading and how often you will be meeting.

The book club can do more than just sit around and discuss what they read. They can also get involved in the reading. Depending on the book being read, there are many activities available online to use. Play-acting is also a fun way to understand the reading and enjoy the book.

 

Filed Under: Education, Reading Tagged With: , ,

Reading Education

February 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It is vital for students to learn how to read as soon as possible. It is this function that is the most important out of all of the educational goals. In order for children to begin reading they need to have a good foundation for symbol recognition. This means that children need to understand what the letter “a” looks like, and sounds like. These skills are usually taught at the preschool level, or at home. Children that have not been taught these skills prior to entering Kindergarten have a 60 percent chance of failure in that grade. Reading is the key fundamental to all education, as all education is based on presenting material in written format for comprehension. Students must be able to take instructions and they must be able to apply those instructions for their assignments. If a student is unable to read, he or she will be destined for failure in school.

The basic approaches for teaching reading to young students is by starting with the basics. This includes teaching letters and sounds. After the letters and sounds have been mastered, teachers are able to put letters together and begin to form sounds. This is when students can have word recognition with words like “mom” or “dad” or “cat.” These are basic words that students learn to read that follow consistent rules and guidelines. This is also a good way to approach short sounds and long sounds. The next step is to begin to integrate blends, followed by sight words and silent vowel rules. It will take a child up until the third grade to master the key blends that they are taught, and by then they should be working on expanding their vocabulary and not just basic reading skills. Teachers have been provided a prescribed method on how to teach reading, and each student should be able to follow the basic routine without any stress.

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Improve Your Reading Skills

January 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A good reader is one that can concentrate and understand their reading. You can become a faster reader through practice and it will help you become a more efficient reader, but how do you become a better reader?

When you read, find a quite spot. You may enjoy reading because it takes your mind off other things. Go somewhere where you won’t be distracted by other things. Try to relax so that your stress doesn’t distract you either. It will be much easier to concentrate if you aren’t being distracted.

Read about subjects you enjoy. It is difficult to concentrate when you’re reading about boring subjects. Everyone has different preferences. Try to find a book or magazine article that interests you. The more it interests you, the easier it will be to concentrate.

Sometimes you are required to read about subjects you don’t enjoy such as for school or work. It is easier to concentrate on these subjects while you’re doing something you enjoy. Try picking something that it is easy to read while doing. You may enjoy Doritos chips, so you may try eating them while you read. You may enjoy crocheting, which can be an easy task while reading. Find something you can do to help you concentrate while reading about a boring subject.

Read often. The more you read, the better you’ll become. Reading often is just practice. The more you practice something, the better you’ll get at it. Reading is like exercising your brain; the more you read, the stronger your brain becomes, and the better reader you’ll be.

There is so much you can do to become a better reader. It really isn’t difficult if you want to become a better reader. Find a book or article that interests you and read it. The more it interests you, the better, because you can more easily concentrate. Try reading things you don’t think will interest you; you might be surprised.

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Becoming a Better Reader

January 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

What can you do to improve your reading? Not everyone reads fast, but that doesn’t mean that you’re a bad reader. A good reader can simply be someone that understands what they’re reading. Reading fast is just a plus, but if you can read fast and understand what you’re reading, it will make you that much of a better reader.

You can improve your reading by improving your vocabulary. The more vocabulary you know, the more content on a page you will understand. You can improve your vocabulary in many ways. When you hear a word for the first time, make a note of it and look it up when you have the chance. If you don’t know how to pronounce a word, dictionaries will help you. When you look up a word in the dictionary, it should have the pronunciation after the word.

Read with other people. If you are not so good at sounding out words, you can try reading with someone that is a good reader, such as a family member, so they can help you. You can simply read magazine articles together, and it will help both of you become better readers.

Read things that interests you. If you don’t like what you’re reading you won’t be interested in reading at all. Choose books that teach you about something you enjoy or have a story line you like. Read magazines about subjects that interests you. If all you can find is a Seventeen magazine lying around, try looking for another magazine, or go online to look up something you enjoy. The world is full of a variety of writings; there should be plenty that interest you.

Read often! The more you read, the better you’ll be at it. It’s like playing a sport; the more you practice, the better you get. Reading often is simply just practice, and it can be anything, books, magazines, signs, you name it.

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Help Your Child Read

January 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Helping your child learn to read can become a challenge. There is a lot of time and work that goes into helping your child learn to read. There are many things you can do to help your child become a better reader.
Start reading to your child when they’re young. Get them interested in reading by reading to them. Make the time you spend together reading enjoyable and try to read books that they will enjoy. Let your child pick the book they want you to read so that they will be interested in the story. When they begin to get older, try picking more advanced books to read to them.
Teach your children that there is a difference between pictures and words. Try pointing to the words when you read and try having them read to you. This will teach them that we read left to right. Teach them that words are made of letters and that each word is separated by a space.
If they are young, try reading most of the page, then pausing and asking them what the next word is. If they can’t get it, try sounding it out to them. This will help them recognize what sounds match with each letter.
After they get a bit older, have them start reading to you. Help them out a little bit when they struggle, but avoid reading for them. When your child is in school and learning in a classroom, don’t stop reading with them. Keep them interested in reading by continuing to read with them.
There are many other things you can do to help your child read. Don’t stop reading with your child. Make sure your child stays interested in reading. Try reading to them at bedtime instead of during a time where other things might distract them. If you start them out young it will help them to become great readers later in life.

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Improve Vocabulary

January 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Many young people in the world today don’t have the best vocabulary. If you really want to improve your vocabulary and sound smart around your friends, there are many things you can do every day to expand your vocabulary. It’s not like you have to read the dictionary everyday, but a little here and there will improve your vocabulary dramatically.

If you want to improve your vocabulary you should read more. Read books, magazines, and newspapers. The more you read, the more you will learn new words. If you already read often, there’s a lot more you can do to expand your vocabulary.

Try to find a new word everyday, either one you’ve heard of but don’t know the meaning, or one you’ve never heard before. Read the word and learn the meaning, then try to use it in a sentence once that day.

Keep a list of words you don’t know. If someone uses a word you’ve never heard or are uncertain of the meaning, make sure you look up the word so you know it the next time someone says it. Maybe that word can be your word of the day the next day.

Play word games. These games will help to expand your vocabulary, and if you’re already working on it, you can trick people when they don’t know a certain word and you do.

Study Latin prefixes and suffixes. If you know these, you will be able to make inferences about certain words. For example, you will know the difference between micro and macro and that micro means small and macro means large. This way, you will learn to use the prefixes and suffixes along with base words to know the meaning of the entire word.

There are many things you can do to improve your vocabulary. You don’t have to read the entire dictionary to learn a million words. You can easily expand your vocabulary a little at a time.

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Improve Your Vocabulary Skills

January 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If you happen to be one of the unfortunate ones who was not taught a wide vocabulary in your youth and have a desire to learn and grow in your language skills to simply gain a better understanding of the English language or to improve your writing skills, reading comprehension, or speaking skills it can be accomplished easily. There are several steps you can take to improve your vocabulary and your overall language skills. Of course the first and foremost step would be to have a desire to learn. It is much more difficult to learn something new if you do not truly have a desire to learn it.

Make a commitment that you will work at gaining a better understanding of the English language and that you will work at increasing your vocabulary on a daily basis. There are many books, websites, and other resources available to aid you in your goal to achieve a more in-depth vocabulary. Once you have chosen the method that will work best for you, it is time to start learning.

One method of improving your comprehension while increasing your vocabulary is to keep a dictionary handy while reading a book. When you come across a word that you have either never heard before or don’t quite understand, look it up. Yes, this takes longer and might even get frustrating at times, but it will invariably help you to improve your vocabulary and your overall reading comprehension as well. Rather than just looking words up take the extra step and write them down including the definition. Once you have done this, study these words until you truly understand them and can retain them. Now that you have some new words in your vocabulary start using them in your daily life. At first it may be a struggle but it may surprise you how quickly and naturally these new words become part of your normal vocabulary.

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