Littles Love Learning Podcast

☀️ Join my email community here ! Today's interview is with Amy Herzog from Spark Joy with Amy. ​ Amy is a credentialed elementary teacher and creative tutor extraordinaire! She has worked professionally with students in Santa Barbara County for 30 years, including a range of children from infants & toddlers with their parents, preschoolers, kindergarteners & 1st graders. She also has over...

"Erin, how do I know when my child is ready to start learning to read?" This is a common question I've heard from preschool and kindergarten parents. They worry about rushing their kids into reading, but they also know how important it is to work on reading skills at a young age. So how do you know when your child is ready? Instead of looking at your child as being "ready" or "not ready," I invite...

☀️ Join my email community here ! Today's interview is with Dr. Calli Studebaker, OTR/L from Confident Kids Therapy. ​ Calli earned her Doctorate in Occupational Therapy from Kettering Medical College and has worked as a home health therapist doing early intervention as well as in a private pediatric outpatient setting. She has experience working with children of various ages, diagnoses, and abili...

☀️ Join my email community here: https://littleslovelearning.com/subsc... What's the deal with nonsense words? If you've never heard this term before, nonsense words are words kids are asked to read and spell that aren't real words, but they follow the same phonics pattern that kids have already been taught. For example, if a child has learned all of their letter sounds and is working on CVC words...

☀️ Join my email community here ! Today's interview is with Karla Carlson from Reading Noodle. Karla is a mother of 3, a former 1st grade teacher with a Masters Degree in Education, and an entrepreneur. She believes parents have the power to make a significant impact on their child's reading success and is eager to share her knowledge and passion for reading with you! Listen in as Karla and I disc...

☀️ Join my email community here Do you know the difference between voiced and unvoiced sounds? If you're teaching your child to read and spell based on the Science of Reading, you need to understand this difference and why it matters in the first place! Keep listening to learn all about voiced and unvoiced sounds so you can teach them to your preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten child. >>> W...

☀️ Join my email community here ! When you learned to read, you were probably taught the vowels are "A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y" But did you know that Y acts as a vowel WAY more often than it acts as a consonant?! It's true! Keep listening to learn all about the 4 sounds of letter Y: Consonant sound /y/ (yellow) Long vowel /i/ (my) Long vowel /e/ (candy) Short vowel /i/ (myth) I also created a...

☀️ Join my email community here ! Do you know how to properly teach the pronunciation of -es at the end of plural nouns and verbs? If you're teaching your child to read based on the Science of Reading, you need to understand this important phonics rule! This rule is perfect for beginning readers and spellers (kindergarten and first grade) because it will help them read and spell more words correct...

☀️ Join my email community here . Do you know how to properly teach the digraph NG and the blend NK? If you're teaching your child to read based on the Science of Reading, you need to understand how to read & spell these sounds, including: -ang, -ing, -ong, -ung, -ank, -ink, -onk, -unk Sometimes called "glued sounds" or "welded sounds," these sounds are important to teach your child so they ca...

Do you know the difference between digraphs and blends? Digraphs are when 2 letters represent 1 sound, such as CH representing the /ch/ sound in the word "chip." Blends are when 2 or more consonants are next to each other and each retain their own sounds, such as in the word "skim" (S & K are each retaining their own sound.) There are two very tricky blends for kids to learn to read and spell:...

If you're teaching your child to read at home, you might think you need fancy supplies or specialized materials like teachers have in their classrooms...but that's not true at all! All you need to teach your child is a plan, a whiteboard, and a marker. Keep listening for 5 ways you can use a whiteboard to teach your preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten little one to read at home. If you'd rather watc...

☀️ FREE End-of-the-Year Kindergarten Goals When teaching little ones to read in preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten, you need to give them plenty of time and opportunities to practice reading words that follow the phonics skills they've already learned. This means you can't hand them any children's book and ask them to read it...you need to be VERY careful to choose books that only have words they...

☀️ Grab my FREE Animal Alphabet here ! Handwriting is a crucial skill to focus on in preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten. It's MUCH easier to teach this skill at home than for a teacher to teach this skill to a class of 20+ students. Our goal as parents should be to teach our kids the correct pencil strokes to write each letter fluently. This will help writing become more automatic as well as ensur...

☀️ Join my email community here ! As parents of young children, we know how important it is to work on reading skills in preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten. But we also want to make learning to read FUN and JOYFUL for our kids. The best way to accomplish both of these goals is by incorporating LOTS of senses into your reading instruction at home! Keep listening for 3 easy-to-implement ideas to inc...

☀️ Download the FREE Blending Cards here ! As parents of young children, we know how important it is to work on literacy skills with our kids. We want to teach them according to the Science of Reading so they grow into strong readers and spellers. In order to do this, we need to consistently review past skills and work on reading a little bit every day, and one of the easiest ways to do this is wi...

► Click here to download FREE End of the Year Literacy Goals for Kindergarten As parents & teachers of preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten littles, it's crucial that we understand how children learn to read and spell words if we want to teach them correctly and effectively based on the Science of Reading. The 4 Part Processing Model (based on Seidenberg & McClelland, 1989) was adapted by Dr...

As parents & teachers of preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten littles, we spend SO much time helping our children learn to read...but are we forgetting about making sure they can write, too? Not only do we want students to write and spell words with phonics patterns they've learned, but we also want to make sure they can READ their own writing back to us! Keep listening for an example of a 5 yea...

One of the biggest challenges children face when learning to read is being afraid to make mistakes. Many preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students are scared to take risks when it comes to reading and spelling, and it slows down their academic progress. As parents, we want to encourage children to have a growth mindset, and one of the ways we can do that is by modeling mistakes and how we think...

Has this ever happened to you... You think your child should know how to read a simple 2 letter word, but when you ask them, they get it wrong. Why does this happen? Children learn to read words in a very specific order. As parents of kindergarteners, we need to understand this order so we know which words our children should be able to read independently (and which words have more advanced phonic...

Do you know the difference between letter names and letter sounds? While this may seem like an easy question, I see parents & children making this mistake time and time again. The first sound in Arctic is not "A" The first sound in Orange is not "O" The first sound in Chicago is not "C" In today's episode, I'm sharing with you: The difference between letter names and sounds The 44 phonemes use...

Kindergarten is such a HUGE milestone! As parents of kindergarteners, we know how important it is to work on reading skills with our children at home, since this is the year many of them will learn to read independently. I know you want your child to grow into a strong reader and speller this year, but do you actually know what they're expected to learn in reading? Do you know what they should be...

As parents of young children, we know how important it is to work on reading skills with our children at home. We want to teach our kids according to the Science of Reading so they grow into strong readers and spellers, and one of the ways we do this is by focusing on phonological & phonemic awareness. Today's episode shares 3 fun and easy games you can play in the car to work on phonological...

Do you want to help your child fall in love with reading? Then you need to make it fun and memorable for them! Today's episode shares all about my FREE Story of the Month pack, which includes one story suggestion per month PLUS a snack, a craft, and a free printable activity that goes along with the story. Keep listening to see how you can make memories with your child this year AND teach them to...

As parents of young children, we know how important it is to teach our children to read correctly. But how can we tell if a child is reading a word, or if they've simply memorized the word? Today's episode shares 3 things to try so you can determine if your child can actually decode words using their phonics skills OR if they've simply memorized the words. This is great for your pre-k, kindergarte...

As a parent of a kindergarten or first grade student, have you been told your child's reading level in a parent-teacher conference or on their report card? Your child's teacher might have said, "Your child is reading at a Level D" or "Your child is reading at a Level J." But do you know what those levels mean or why they're problematic? Today's episode shares the problem with reading levels and wh...