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Looking for things to do at home that will help your child succeed in school? THE CHALKBOARD, specifically designed for families, is filled with fun activities and ideas for improving reading skills. It is based on Ohio's Academic Content Standards for English and Language Arts (ELA), which are used to develop the statewide achievement tests.
Graphic organizers are introduced as comprehension tools. The use of organizers to connect reading with daily activities is the focus of this site.
In addition to emphasis on comprehension skills, the site provides some general information in the following areas: choosing books, questions to ask while reading, phonics rules, sight words, and word attack information. These are available for support purposes if your child can benefit from them.
Here's an example of one of the ELA standards and how it connects reading skills to daily activities:
Reading Applications (Literary Text)- Organizing and interpreting results through collecting data to answer questions and solve problems, show relationships and make predictions about different types of literature (e.g., fables, tales, short stories).
Reading Excerpt from The Ant and The Dove (An Aesop's Fable)
Suddenly, she heard footsteps! She scrambled under a rock so that she wouldn't get stepped on. Annie looked up and saw a boy carrying a net attached to a long pole. He stopped and looked up into the tree branches. He was watching Darla as she sang. Darla did not see the boy. He raised the net and Annie knew that Darla was in trouble. The boy was going to catch her in the net!
Annie ran toward the boy as fast as she could. Up his boot she raced and crawled under his sock. Annie bit him hard! She bit him again, and again! The boy started yelling and jumping up and down. He frightened Darla and she flew out of reach!
Graphic Organizer: Character Web
Here's a description of the character, Annie, from the above reading excerpt, set up in a graphic organizer:
Daily Activities:
How can you extend this type of reading activity to daily experiences? Have your child describe her/his best friend, or a television character, or a neighbor, in the same way. Descriptive words of a neighbor might be as follows: tells good jokes, feeds squirrels, laughs through his nose, likes old cars, etc.
Only members of the School Study Council of Ohio have access to THE CHALKBOARD. For SSCO membership information, click here.