This activity will boost your child’s reading in five seconds.
One of the most exciting things about reading is the exclamation mark.
The other day, I was reading a book to a couple of kids in a kindergarten class. When I got to a sentence with an exclamation mark, I stopped and pointed it out.
I told them that whenever they see one, they’re to say the sentence in a really excited voice.
We practiced the sentence in a normal voice, and an excited voice. They caught on right away.
Now when they’re reading aloud, the sentences with exclamation marks (and there are a lot of them in children’s books) are going to sound really exciting! And so they should.
This is a really fun thing to teach your child, and it will boost her out-loud reading from monotone to interesting in about five seconds. And that will make reading more exciting for her.
I love the exclamation mark.
I always have.
(Actually, this entry reminded me of that old Victor Borge Phonetic Punctuation routine!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane; in fact, I’m off to YouTube to view Phonetic Punctuation!)
It’s a classic!
Here’s a link to the famous Victor Borge routine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4qii8S3gw
And here’s one with Victor Borge and Dean Martin, singing his famous phonetic punctuation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7L02tCNi0I
If you can’t watch the whole thing, skip to about 4 minutes when it really gets going.
-Joyce.
Thanks for the link to the Victor & Dean routine!