MAKING READING WINDOWS

Now is the time for those very useful little tools that you make for ZERO cost.

How to Make Reading-Windows:

1) Find a cereal box or other lightweight scrap cardboard that can be cut up to create the windows.

2) On the final page of Dog and dog-cat, there are illustrations of correctly sized reading-windows. Use the dotted lines as a guide for cutting out cardboard windows that will fit just right around the words in the book.

For preschoolers and kindergartners only use 4-sided beginner “windows”. (Windows can be created in various ways, see the picture below for my personal favorite way.)

Here  is  a  step-by-step  illustrated  guide  for  how  to  make  your first reading-windows:

Click on each image to enlarge.

Here are some instructions for how to use your new reading-window to make more reading-windows out of cardboard. (Basically, simply follow steps 1-8) Click on the image to enlarge.

You will want to make the openings in the windows several sizes that fit the individual words, and also cut out larger windows that fit the pictures of the dog, cat, pig & cow. Save the windows in an envelope or small basket. You will use them a lot.

READING-WINDOWS: Size, etc

Each 4-sided window should be cut to exactly encompass a word in the book the beginner child is starting to read.  So the sizes of the reading-windows depend on the actual sizes of the printed words in any particular book.  The free Dog and dog-cat includes a template for the correct size windows for all the words on the odd-numbered pages.  Additional windows should be cut for fully encompassing the pictures on the even-numbered pages.  That does not have to be so exact.  My favorite method is to cut a window that is purposely too small for the picture of the cat, and then keep snipping more out of the window until it is just the right size for the whole cat and nothing but the cat. (Students enjoy watching this process.)

Note that no harm ensues if the child blocks part of the cat’s tail or front leg with the picture-window frame.

It’s not important  for the 4-sided frame for the single words on the even-numbered pages to be quite exact either, since the rule:  ONE WHOLE WORD AND NO PART OF ANY OTHER WORD IN THE READING-WINDOW  is easy to fulfill when there is no other word nearby on the page.  The rationale for designing the even-numbered pages as they are is to make it as easy as possible for the beginning reader, so that s/he can move on quite quickly to actually reading words, instead of just practicing how to position the window.

Play with and read page 4, plus one or two other even-numbered pages, for a day or two.  It is OK for the child to choose which even-numbered pages.   Remember to give stickers every few minutes.

Next, you should review page 4 quickly, and go immediately to page 5.  Talk about real and make-believe animals & establish why the dog-cat must be make-believe.   Then continue playing with your child with demonstrations, using the single sentence at the bottom of the page near the make-believe dog-cat.  Moving the reading-window very slowly and carefully, demonstrate reading one word at a time after the 4-sided reading-window is placed exactly correctly around the word.   Note that you, as well as your child, can be expected to make mistakes with these not-yet-easy techniques.  That’s OK.  If you TRY to follow these directions consistently, this will all turn out fine.  After you make a mistake, just laugh and say to the child, “Woops.  I made a mistake. Let me try to show you the right way.”  (Sometimes I give a bonus sticker to the child when I make a mistake!)
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THE 3-SIDED READING-WINDOW

The 3-sided reading-window becomes necessary after there are more than 2 lines of print immediately above one another on one page.  (Notice that this is avoided in Dog and dog-cat.)

The correct size of the 3-sided window depends on the size of the print in the book the child wants to read.  For the free Dog and dog-cat, the size will be accurate if you simply cut off the whole right-hand side of the reading-window cardboard frame.  What’s left will be a 4-sided window transformed to exactly the right-sized 3-sided reading-window for the size print in Dog and dog-cat, thus making an easy transition, first in Dog and dog-cat,  then to a book where the 3-sided window is useful because printed lines are closer together.

Save the cut off piece from the 4-sided window frame for a while, to use as a “slider” for the transition stage (usually just a few days) of “3-sided plus slider”.
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2-SIDED AND ONE-SIDED WINDOWS

On the other hand, 2-sided windows are so adaptable that you never need to measure them at all.    And a one-sided window is simply the straight edge of any piece of cardboard, or perhaps an old VOID credit card, or just the longer straight edge of a two-sided window.