Littles Love Learning Podcast

Reading is one of the most important skills your child will learn. But reading is HARD for many kids! Our brains aren't wired to read, so it requires perseverance, grit, and determination to master this complex skill. When teaching your child to read, make sure you're also helping your child develop a positive mindset about the process. One way to do this is by using positive affirmations. Keep li...

***This podcast episode was originally a video where I show an example of how to correctly write the lowercase letters a, c, d, g, o, and q (what I like to call 2 o'clock letters). To watch the original video, click here . Handwriting is a crucial skill to focus on in preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten. It is MUCH easier to teach this skill at home than for a teacher to teach this skill to a class...

When you're teaching your child to read, don't forget to also teach them how to spell. Reading and spelling go hand in hand, and BOTH are required for your child to have a strong literacy foundation. Dictation is a strategy you can use to see how well your child is remembering their phonics concepts and high-frequency words (sometimes called "sight words") as well as evaluate how well they're doin...

Reading is one of the most important skills your child will learn. If they are not taught correctly from the start, it will cause a lot of struggles later on, which will require intervention to correct. I always say that prevention is MUCH better than intervention. So let's teach your child correctly from Day 1! Keep listening to learn what you should teach your child after they're able to read 2...

One of the most important steps when teaching your child to read is teaching them how to segment and blend sounds in words. This starts with LOTS of oral segmenting and blending (phonemic awareness), and then we introduce how to segment and blend when reading printed words. But sometimes, our child might get stuck reading printed words by saying each sound before saying the whole word, and we want...

One of the most important steps when teaching your child to read is teaching them how to segment and blend the sounds in words. This starts with LOTS of oral segmenting and blending (phonemic awareness), and then we introduce how to segment and blend when reading printed words. Keep listening to learn how to teach your child to tap out the sounds words in two different ways. This will help your pr...

Reading is one of the most important skills your child will learn. If you're a parent who wants to teach your child to read at home, you might think you need a lot of supplies or a fancy curriculum. But that just isn't true! Keep listening for my recommendations for the top 5 tools you need to teach your child to read correctly. These are simple, inexpensive tools that will effectively teach your...

In order to become strong readers and spellers, kids need to be explicitly taught phonics skills in a systematic way to prepare them for the complexities of the English language. Usually teachers are given a phonics scope and sequence that goes along with the program they're asked to teach. But what if you're a teacher who has NOT been given a phonics program? Or what if you're a parent at home an...

Reading is one of the most important skills your child will learn. If they are not taught correctly from the start, it will cause a lot of struggles later on, which will require intervention to correct. I always say that prevention is MUCH better than intervention. So let's teach your child correctly from Day 1! Keep listening to learn more about 6 important areas of reading development and how yo...

As parents and teachers 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. But do you know how to give your child praise and feedback when teaching them to read? This episode includes what you need to know to incorporate "Behavior-Specific Praise" and "Corr...

Learning to read involves DECODING (reading the words on the page) and LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION (understanding what the words mean). The Simple View of Reading states: DECODING x LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION = READING COMPREHENSION. You can learn more about the Simple View of Reading in this video . One of the best ways to improve your child's language comprehension skills is by reading out loud to them e...

As early childhood educators & parents, it's SO important that we're introducing the alphabet correctly to our little ones right from the beginning. That includes teaching them how to CLEARLY say each sound in English (there are about 44 sounds represented by 26 letters). This episode will demonstrate how to clearly say the sounds we introduce to preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students: sh...

Do you know what to do when your child asks you the question, "How do you spell...?" As a teacher and literacy specialist, I see many parents quick to jump in and tell their child how to spell a certain word. But instead of giving them the answer right away, let me offer you another suggestion for how to answer that question. Keep listening to learn more about how to answer the question "How do yo...

Do you know what the summer slide is? Do you know how to avoid it for your little one in preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten? As a teacher and a mom, I work hard to make sure my students and my own kids at home avoid the dreaded summer slide! Keep listening for 6 tips you can implement this summer to avoid the summer slide and keep your little one making progress with learning to read and write. Rea...

If you have a preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten little one, I bet your child's teacher would LOVE for you to know these 3 things. As a teacher and a mom, these are the things I share with my students' families AND that I work on with my own kids at home. Keep listening to find out what they are! >>> Would you rather watch this information as a video? Click here ! >>> Check out mo...

***This podcast episode was originally a video where I show an example of how to correctly write each number. To watch the original video, click here . Handwriting is a crucial skill to focus on in preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten. Our goal as early childhood educators and parents is to teach our little ones the correct pencil strokes to write letters AND numbers fluently. This will help writing...

***This podcast episode was originally a video where I show an example of how to correctly write each lowercase letter of the English alphabet. To watch the original video, click here . Handwriting is a crucial skill to focus on in preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten. Our goal as early childhood educators and parents is to teach our little ones the correct pencil strokes to write each letter fluent...

***This podcast episode was originally a video where I show an example of how to correctly write each uppercase letter of the English alphabet. To watch the original video, click here . Handwriting is a crucial skill to focus on in preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten. Our goal as early childhood educators and parents is to teach our little ones the correct pencil strokes to write each letter fluent...

Poetry is an amazing tool to use with preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten littles to help them develop a variety of literacy skills. Keep listening for 5 reasons you should be using poetry with your students in your classroom or with your own kids at home. I've also included some suggestions for adding poetry into your lessons as well as a sample poem for January! *Get my Poem of the Month Pack her...

As parents and teachers of preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten littles, we need to understand the typical progression of scissor skills & the timeline of development in order to help our kids use scissors safely and effectively. Keep listening to learn all about scissor skills, including tips for practicing scissor skills and fun activity ideas you can try today! *Looking for the tools I mentio...

As parents & teachers of preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten littles, we need to understand the typical progression of writing development in order to help our kids become strong writers. Journal writing seems to be a popular activity to foster writing development in early childhood classroom, but how can we make sure it's actually effective & meaningful? Keep listening to learn about best...

As parents & teachers of preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten littles, we need to understand the typical progression of pre-writing & writing development in order to help our kids become strong writers. Keep listening to learn about typical pre-writing line development as well as the 4 Phases of Writing Development according to research. *Looking for the handwriting blog post? Click here . *...

As a preschool / pre-k teacher and literacy specialist, I see many parents and teachers VERY focused on having kids memorize "sight words" in order to help with reading. But research tells us that memorizing words as whole words is ineffective and NOT helpful to our kids. Instead, we want to pull apart the sounds in words and map those sounds onto letters, which is called phoneme-grapheme mapping....

When teaching little ones to read in preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten, there are two types of books you'll come across that are marketed for beginning readers: Decodable Books and Leveled Books. There are advocates for both types of books, but which ones are truly going to teach our kids to read according to the Science of Reading? Keep listening to learn more about each type of book and why one...

In order to become strong readers and spellers, kids need to learn to blend and segment sounds within a word. One of the BEST activities to work on these skills is word chaining. Word chains are effective because they promote orthographic mapping, phonemic awareness, and a deeper understanding of the alphabetic principle. They are ideal for our preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students who are l...