The Language Experience Approach

The Language Experience Approach, yes I know it's a long name, is one of the most natural and most enjoyable ways of learning to read. You don't need anything but a stimulus item such as a picture, a book, a tennis shoe or a toy to get started. It's a way to use your child's own language to begin to learn to read and write. Below is a set of directions to get you started. Remember, this is a way to teach reading that costs no money at all and it works!


The language experience approach is a strategy that is used to develop oral, written and reading vocabulary. It is easy to use and doesn’t require any special books or materials.

Below is a condensed set of directions for using LEA:

1.     Select something to grab the child’s attention such as a picture from a magazine, poster, object, story, song, poem, or video clip that relates to the topic under study or just relates to the child’s interests.

2.   Spend time talking about the stimulus item in great depth: What is it? What does it look like? What is it used for? and any other questions appropriate to the particular item.

3.   Have the child begin to provide vocabulary words that might be of use when writing about the stimulus item. Chart these words on a piece of paper or small white board.

4.   Together begin to write a fictional story or non-fictional text about the stimulus item. Write down the sentences exactly as given by your child. Be sure to use their language in this process.

5.   After each sentence, read aloud the sentence to your child and then have him or her choral read the sentence/s with you. Next have your child then read the sentence aloud without your help. Repeat this process, adding one new sentence to your language experience story before stopping to follow the read aloud process.

6.   Once the story is complete, practice reading aloud the entire story.

7.   For the second lesson, type up and print out the story text and place it in a foldable book for each student to illustrate. Use their LEA stories as their reading text.

8.   Conduct small group or whole group vocabulary, grammar and content lessons using the LEA text.

9.   Repeat this process with a new stimulus item. It's fun, easy and creates stories based on your child's own lived experiences. It is also a great way to begin to build a home library!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aspects of Reading- What does it Take to Read Well?

Image
I must say that children are amazing little people because they often learn to read at a very young age. This is amazing because of everything that needs to be in place for them to do so. It has been determined that there are 9 aspects of reading that allow a person to read the words on the page and understand what is being said. These aspects or skills cover everything from being able to understand that we read from left to right to understanding that letters make different sounds in different words. Isn't it unbelievable that a five year old can figure all of this out? Well, let's start by looking at the two most basic aspects of reading that we need to consider when teaching someone to read. You'll note that they deal with vision, hearing and perception. I always make sure that a child has no vision or hearing difficulties prior to teaching them to read. I have found that some children needed glasses but it was not diagnosed and that was what was preventing them from
Read more

Onsets and Rimes- What are they?

In school-language, onsets and rimes make up a big part of many words. Children are taught to use onsets and rimes as they begin to learn to read and write small words. Below you'll see what they are and just how simple they are to teach. If you are home schooling your children or just supplementing their kindergarten, first, or second grade instruction, you'll find these to be quite valuable. Check it out! Onsets and Rimes Working with onsets and rimes allows children to learn to break words apart and put them back together. It also shows them how to substitute different onsets and rimes to make new words. This is a great way to teach word families and help them to see patterns within words. For example, in the word “dog”, the consonant “d” is the onset and “og” is the rime.   You can then make word tiles containing various onsets (consonants) and different rimes so that your children can learn to manipulate the sounds to form new words. Below is a list of some of the comm
Read more