(this is for educ 155)

Lisa Myers
11/18/10

Materials Review

1. Puppets

The Head Start Discovery Garden had posts of puppets; dozens of animals to choose from. This would be a great way for students to interact with each other and build their language skills while using their imagination.
The most obvious use of language in a setting like this is pragmatic awareness. When children role-play, they use pragmatic knowledge to act. They may pretend to be different characters, whose tone, wording, and personality may change depending on what they are playing. This is also a chance to learn to share, take turns and be respectful of each other.
Another way children can improve their language skills with puppets is phonetically. It is great that these puppets are all animals, because animals all (usually) make sounds. They can practice different sounds of the English language by imitating the sounds of animals. Example: -Ch sound: “chirp chirp”, “s” sound for the “sssssss” sound that a snake makes, etc.
This activity would be great for a wide age range. In preschool, it would help children with the more phonetic aspects. In kindergarten, more of a pragmatic observation would be made. Older children could use the puppets to act out scenes that they have written.


2. Doctor’s chart kit



This kit came with laminated note cards, laminated “clip boards” and dry erase markers. Children are encouraged to read the words on the chart to rewrite them onto the Doctor’s Chart. The cards are organized into categories, such as doctor tools, parts of the body, and symptoms.
This activity could be used in many ways to promote language learning. It touches all aspects of language: oral, reading, written and listening. For younger kids, it is a great tool to practice copying letters down, and learning how to spell simple words. It is very helpful for young children who are beginning to read because each word has a picture next to it, and the print is big and easy to read. They can also use roll playing to practice using the words and pretend to be a doctor, which would encourage pragmatic knowledge. For older children, these cards could even be used as a word sort using concepts. The ring connecting the laminated cards can be taken out, the cards could be jumbled, and kids could sort them by category. For kids 2nd grade to 5th grade, this activity is great for semantic and pragmatic knowledge as well as building reading skills.

















3. Instant Learning Center (Shapes)





The instant learning center by Lakeshore is a great way for young children to improve their language skills. The focus of this set is for children to match shapes to every day objects. With the right modeling, this could be a great language-learning tool. There is also a write and wipe assessment board that kids can write on as they are matching their shapes to the object on the board.
This game is most appropriate for preschool children. The use of shapes and every day objects promotes semantic knowledge because they are encouraged to identify the objects that they choose with the right modeling as well as the write and wipe assessment board. Also, in this game, children take turns, which promotes part of the pragmatic knowledge. This could also be used as a phonemic lesson if the focus were on the beginning sounds of each item. For example, a teacher could ask the students to put the “s” square onto an object that starts with the “s” sound.














4. Match a Sound





This activity helps students practice matching words that rhyme, or sound the same. (A good phonetic tool). This is a great activity that is a smaller version of a word sort that is very hands-on for the student to manipulate. It is hard to read in the picture, but under each object, the words “eight, plate, and skate” are written on a rectangular note card. There are several note cards like this one, with different words written on it. In the box are objects to match the word.
To use this in the classroom, I would start with the way it was intended to use; to match the objects to the words written and say the rhyming words out loud. But as the students became more familiar with the activity, I would take the words away, and let them work in pairs. I would have one student pick one object, such as “plate”, and let the other student find the other two that rhymed with it. I think that this activity would be best for students k-2.




5. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom



The book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is an excellent book for preschoolers learning the alphabet. It is also practical to help them practice recognizing and making rhyming words. The book goes through rhymes with each letter of the alphabet, and forms a story of all of the letters climbing up the tree.
This book can help preschool children in many ways. First, it helps their reading skills and knowledge of the alphabet because they are introduced to it repeatedly. It can help their phonetic awareness greatly because of the rhymes and the rhythmic text. Also, this book can help their syntactic awareness because of the repetition. By the end of the book, a child should be able to chant parts of the rhymes along with the reader. Because of the big print and simple words, it is a great way for preschoolers to get started on their sight word knowledge.