Caribbean Academy for Reading Intervention and Development

  Creating fun, interactive and budget-friendly educational resources for your home or classroom can be a task! Sourcing material, dedicating the time and effort to plan and execute one’s ideas can all make this seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be! You can create amazing educational resources on a budget using everyday items like paper or bristol board and stationery. Here’s a step-by-step guide to create reading flashcards for your student or child.  What are Flashcards?  A study or memorization tool, flashcards have information on one or both sides. Students of all ages can learn effectively and efficiently by using flashcards. They might be simple or come in many colours. When studying, some students choose to use different coloured flashcards for various themes or subject areas.  Why Flashcards?  Students who learn best visually, tactilely, or kinesthetically may find flashcards to be particularly helpful. Putting information on flashcards a...

  Decoding, which entails segmenting and merging sounds together, is an essential skill for learning to read. In order to correctly recognise written words and decode their meaning, it takes both knowledge of letter-sound correlations and the capacity to use that knowledge. Strong decoding abilities enable a student to read both known and unknown words with ease as they learn the sound-letter connection.  It requires practice to become excellent at decoding! With the activities mentioned below and by providing reinforcement along the way as the student's reading confidence grows,  your child's phonics and decoding skills can improve. Here are some easy and affordable strategies to improve your child's decoding skills: Bottle Cap Art  This activity can be done using simple things found around the home - bottle caps! ‘ Items needed for this activity:  bottle caps   markers  drawing pad   pencil  crayons/colour pencils  Using the ...

  Benefits of Decodable Texts  We’ve discussed what decodable texts are so I’m sure your next question is, ‘’What are the benefits of decodable texts?’’  Understanding the benefits of using decodable texts not only increases your knowledge but also encourages you to employ them in your child’s/student’s reading journey. Do not forget that the goal of the decodable text is to provide kids with lots of experience using particular phonological patterns. The freshly taught phonics pattern should be extensively stressed, and the previously taught phonics patterns should be reviewed frequently throughout the texts. When we first present a certain phonic skill, we do so at the most fundamental and isolated level possible.  As we progress, we introduce words that follow the pattern, then phrases, sentences, and finally continuous text employing this phonics talent. This scaffolding procedure is completed by the use of carefully selected decodable text. We encourage their wri...