Tag: Personalized Children’s Books

Difficulties with Reading

Posted on | by KD Novelties

What boggles the minds of parents is why or where did the reading process for their child brake down. Many experts have identified reading problems to stem from either decoding, comprehension and retention with most believing that the bulk comes from decoding problems.

Decoding ~ Websters definition is the use of phonetics to decipher print patterns and translate them into the sounds of language.

In simpler terms the process of breaking down the phonemes of a word. For instance the average decoder can separate the sounds “tuh”, “aah”, “guh” for the word “tag.”

Someone who has difficulty in this area may not be able to break down and differentiate the word “tag” on the page. If you think about it, this is the process in which we all learned how to read words; by sounding them out.

Signs that your child has a decoding problem:
* Having trouble sounding out words
* Slow reading rate (takes time to sound out words)
* Ignoring punctuation when reading
* Confusion between letters and the sound they represent
* Reading without expression

Comprehension ~ in terms of reading comprehension it measures the understanding of a passage of text.

Comprehension relies heavily on decoding. Children who have difficulties with decoding will find it difficult to understand and remember what they have read. They spend most of their time trying to decode the words that when they are finished, they are not able to grasp the understanding of the passage making it very exhausting for them.

Signs of comprehension difficulties:
* Lack of concentration during reading
* Confusion about the meaning of words or sentences
* Not able to connect ideas in a passage

Lastly Retention ~ which requires the ability to retain facts and figures in memory. Retention requires the child to have both decoding and comprehension skills. Reading to learn and to retain by memory is critical in a child’s life and throughout their schooling years. It becomes an essential task and is expected of them through the education system.

Signs of retention difficulties:
trouble remembering or summarizing what is read
* Difficulty connecting what is read to prior knowledge
* Difficulty applying content of a text to personal experiences
* Trouble remembering or summarizing what is read

HOW TO GET HELP: Contact their school for a list of reading specialists that can help your child with their difficulty. Most schools have staff that are certified and can help your child during the school day. Do this ASAP.

If you need more help deciphering the process that is breaking down you can always contact the child’s school psychologist that would be able to access the problem areas and formulate a written plan for the child and give you more guidance.

If the child is not of school age spend more time in the areas of concern and seek professional help if applicable that way they will be at the level of their classmates when entering school.

Website Owners/Bloggers: Make Money While Promoting Literacy

Posted on | by KD Novelties

Personalized Children’s Books, Music & Gifts by KD Novelties has established a new Affiliate Program ideal for website owners and bloggers.

Our affiliate program consists of placing our link or button on your website. Every order placed on our website through your referral you will earn 15% commission. That is it! You don’t need to do anything, however, the more you promote the link and/or button the more revenue you will generate. We recommend putting it on your high traffic pages such as your homepage.

Once you become an affiliate of KD Novelties you will have access to our images so you can choose which one fits your website style. You also can view reports to see how many visitors have clicked on your affiliate link and were sent to our website. You can also see how many of those visitors have actually paid for an order thus generating your commission report.

The best part of our affiliate program is that you don’t need to keep inventory or join a sales force. You just place your links and let the money come in all while promoting literacy in children. Simple Right?

If you are ready to join and for more information about our program click on the link below and we hope to welcome you to our program. Good Luck and Have Fun!

Personalized Children’s Books by KD Novelties Affiliate Program

Teach your child to READ

Posted on | by KD Novelties
I am an avid believer in teaching children to read at a very early age. As soon as your toddler starts speaking did you know that they can start reading too?! Reading is all about memorization; once the word is known to the child and when they see that word anywhere, they will be able to read and speak it. Hence, the beginning of their reading journey.

I started to teach my daughter how to read at a very early age. I am going to share how she started reading books before she even reached Kindergarten.

What we did was pick a book that was interesting to her and we focused on one page a week. I took every single word that was on that first page and put them on flash/index cards. I started with three words. I would show her one word and I would say the word out loud and asked her to repeat it. I did this for about 5 to 10 times on the first word. As soon as I saw that she was able to say the word without my help I would go on to the second word. I repeated the same process. I then revealed the first two words she just learned and repeated those for about 5 to 10 times. Once she got the first two words I then proceeded to the third word and repeated the process again. Once the third word was memorized I introduced all three words and did this for 5 to 10 times. After about half hour or so she learned three words.

If time allotted, I introduced another three words; same process, however after the fourth word was memorized, I introduced all four words together to keep her remembering the first 3 words she learned. When I got to the fifth word repeated the process and introduced all five words and so on. You get the picture. After about one hour or so she learned 6 words.

Every child is different you don’t have to repeat 5 to 10 times. You may need to repeat it more or repeat it less until they have it memorized. You can do more than 6 words a day or less. It can take 30 minutes or more again every child’s learning capability is unique, however, every child can learn to read regardless of their learning ability.

After the first days words are achieved when you resume (i.e. following day) you will need to repeat the six words or however many they learned in the first day. Make sure they have those words memorized before going on to the second day of words. If they forget it’s okay put that word into the batch for the second day and treat it as it was a new word (always do this for words they don’t remember or get wrong). Remember to repeat each word several times. Repetition is key in this method.

Make sure that the words are mixed up and not in the order in which they are read in the book. The goal is for your child to learn the words first and read the book second.

After completing all the words on the first page and the memorization is complete, they are ready to read the entire page in the book.

Can you imagine their face when they can read all by themselves? My daughter was ecstatic and she wanted to read the first page to everyone that she saw!! Which was great…talk about repetition ;)! They will probably be eager to move on to the second page but let them know they have to learn the words first to continue to read. Rewarding is excellent for such a time as this. They deserve some type of prize or recognition. Be creative you know what will make your child happiest.

When going on to the second page of the book review all the words from the first page and have them read the first page again. Again any words they have missed continue throwing them into the pile for review (you might want to mark these words and make games or talk about the word so that they will not forget it again). We all have those words that just never stood with us so please be patient!

One other nice feature of this method is also making it a vocabulary lesson. Tell them the definition of the word or if applicable show them the object that corresponds to the word (they will learn even faster doing this…object lessons are the BEST in my book).

It may take one week for them to read the first page or more. Be patient the end result is so rewarding and seeing their face light up when they can READ is a memory that will forever make an impression in your life. I’ll never forget mine!

I hope this was helpful and parents please be patient, dedicated and consistent in doing this method either every day or every other day. You might want to set aside minimum 1 hour or more daily and set a goal on the number of words you’d like to complete.

**I would love to hear your success stories either using this method or any method that has helped you teach your child to read. We would love to post it on our blog for other parents to benefit**