Pittsburgh Black History Month: Reading; Reasoning/Problem Solving; Speech

A fun activity to celebrate black history month Pittsburgh-style is to have your child look up on the internet famous African Americans that have called Pittsburgh home.  This task is at first a reasoning/problem solving task as it requires your child to use thinking skills to navigate online search tools.

A variation on this task would be to read online biographies of people from Pittsburgh.  This will give your child practice reading items outside of the classroom.  If your child has difficulty pronouncing a word, then I recommend a phonological approach whereby you should cue her to "sound it out."  If this doesn't work, then I recommend the "whole language" approach whereby you instruct the child to recognize the word by sight.

Another variation on this task is to have your child read out loud the biographies not for the purpose of practicing reading, but for the purpose of practicing proper articulation or stuttering strategies.

To get you started with this task, here are some famous African Americans that have called Pittsburgh home:

Lena Horne

 

Image retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lena_Horne.

Mike Tomlin

 

Image retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Tomlin.

John Edgar Wideman

Image retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edgar_Wideman.

Please post below additional names of prominent African Americans from the Pittsburgh area!