Take away the skill of reading and not only books become a mysterious and foreign world, but reading train timetables, ordering from a menu, understanding bank statements, and any number of straightforward daily activities become virtually impossible.

If your child is struggling to read, the effects of their problem can reach into adulthood, be humiliating, and extremely limiting.

The world of a non reader is a mixed up place where only those who know the ‘secret code’ can decipher the strange symbols around them and fully participate.

A sad, lonely, and stressful place indeed.

The time to catch your child’s reading problems and support them in their quest to become a confident and capable life long reader is Primary School. Preferably before they reach Grade 3.

Your school will be monitoring your child’s progress and implementing a detailed plan to improve their reading skills and strategies. But, if you’re worried that the school is not, then an appointment with the teacher is a must to thoroughly explore your concerns and issues.

Do not put this off!

After Grade 3 it is more difficult for children to bridge the gap, learn new patterns of reading behaviour, and develop appropriate reading strategies.

Encouraging them while they’re young is vital, and there are some things you can do at home to complement and support your school’s efforts.

Here are 8 simple ways to help your child if reading is a struggle for them:

1. Make your reading time a regular activity at a specific time each day. Children love structure and will look forward to the closeness and bonding this time brings.

For some children this may be the only intimate one-on-one time they get to spend with a parent on a regular basis. Making reading together a special time for just the two of you only takes 10 or 15 minutes a day, and the rewards are tremendous. Read the rest of this entry »

Wrap yourself up in a warm, fuzzy scarf, made with your own personal style. Fleece comes in bright colors and simple prints. When you cut it, fleece doesn’t fray, so you don’t have to hem it. It’s a great fabric for kids learning to sew.
1. Lay out a length of fleece (2 yards), and cut a long, straight strip (1 foot). Or, cut two narrower strips in different colors (6 inches each), and sew together. Or, cut rectangles of color, and sew them together.

2. To add polka dots or skinnier stripes, cut out shapes from fleece. Use fabric glue to attach pieces of fleece to your scarf. (Use lots of glue, as the fleece is very absorbent.) You can also sew your patterns on. To make our polka dot scarf, we glued on the dots and then added stitches on the sewing machine for extra strength.
Decorative Add-Ons Cut out skinny strips of fleece in different colors, and add soft, fuzzy ribbon designs. Make flowers by folding and winding strips of fleece. Sew decorations to scarf.

Make a paper “fortune teller” or “cootie catcher.” Add eyes and mouth with marker. Use yarn for pony-tails.

Designed by Hannah and Ronnie, age 10.

CBS) CBS News tech analyst Larry Magid offers tips to parents on how they can ensure their children blog safely.

Most adults define their community in geographical terms: the people who live nearby. But thanks to the Internet, many teens and some preteens also live in virtual communities that have no geographical boundaries. For better or worse, the Internet has opened them up to the world.

Nowhere is this more profound than the recent trend of “spaces” or “blogging.” Short for “Web log,” a “blog” is a Web page maintained by an individual, organization or business for the purpose of communicating with others. There are millions of blogs out there and, according to researchers at Georgetown University, more than half of them are run by people between 13 and 19.

Another term, “spaces,” is used to describe services like MySpace, LiveJournal, Xanga and MSN Spaces that provide people with free tools to create their own online communities or blogs.

Kids are using these blogs for all sorts of things, ranging from describing their homework assignments to exploring their hobbies to exposing their innermost thoughts. Some kids post photos on their blogs or put up links to their favorite music or movies.

There are a lot of positive aspects to blogging. For one thing, it helps teens develop language and communications skills, and becoming an Internet publisher can greatly enhance a teenager’s sense of self-esteem. Blogs offer young people not only a sounding board for what’s on their mind, but also feedback and validation from others, who can comment on what they write using a feedback mechanism on the blog itself. Read the rest of this entry »