Melody - Informal Assessment and Lesson 1

Spent some time going through the informal Assessment with Melody recently.

She's an almost 7yo child, going into the Primary School system next year. I've known MummyB since the time Melody was born, and since Shannon is the same age as Melody, it was always easy to do a running comparison between the two, even though Shannon is a whole 10 months younger than her.

I'd always noticed, once Melody started learning her letters and sounds, that she was rather slow in it. I did make a few suggestions once in a while that perhaps MummyB might want to monitor her a little more closely since she seemed a little slow to pick up the reading... and it was only finally this year when MummyB officially asked me if I could do something for Melody. When I said I would earlier this year, the cost of the sessions put them off because both MommyB and her hubby didn't earn that much and it would be a struggle to pay for twice a week lessons, even at the reduced rate I was offering them. So they waited longer... and because it seemed that Melody was finally making a little bit of improvement, they said that they would wait and see some more.

Finally, a few weeks ago, MummyB asked me again to come and do an informal assessment for her Melody. They were very concerned since she was obviously not ready for Primary One. So I did. Given that Melody was less than a month away from turning 7, I prepared both the lower level Informal Assessment and the "normal" one (meant for school-going children) for the session... but it turned out that I didn't need it.

Melody's issues involved even telling left from right, and even getting the alphabet right. She knew most of her lower case letters, but seemed confused as to which were lower case and which were upper case. She could not produce the alphabet in its entirety from A-Z.

I had a page of CVC words that were quite simple for her to work on. They all contained only short vowel sounds, and nothing "tricky" like "th" or "sh" or anything like that. She could only read a handful, and tried to sound out the rest with little success.

According to her mom, she had been attending some phonics lessons for over a year when she was younger, but they stopped it more than a year ago when it became apparent that she was not improving. She had also seemed to pick up very dodgy vocalisations of the sounds - they all had an additional "er" attached to them... so /t/ ended up as /ter/ instead of the just the unvoiced consonant. And this so totally messes up their ability to blend. This is what makes the work so frustrating too... that I know have to un-teach an already struggling child the poor teaching that she has had, in order to get her to learn it right! Ugh!

Anyway... we also tried some spelling and with the few exceptions that she had had drilled in her already, her attempts were very shaky and often didn't pan out.

So in her first lesson, I first had to tackle her left and right issues, which I did by getting her to pick up an imaginary pencil each time. I also got her to practice different hand actions to associate the movements better with left/right.

Then I also had to deal with handwriting as well as the many reversals that she had... so we are moving quite slowly. We only managed "a", "t" and "b" in that first lesson... and even then, she was a little resistent to the learning of the cards... interestingly, she loved writing... something Stacey always hated.

I'm going to see how much of Lesson 1 she retained before really deciding on what kind of a pace I need to move at. On the one hand, she is far far behind her classmates... on the other hand, her school is the type that begins its school year with the P1 starting from the very basics of phonics and basically assuming that everyone has not been overtaught in Kindergarten. So that will be good for her in the sense that she will have more reinforcement in school... but it depends on how far ahead her classmates are. MummyB did say though that they did some testing in order to stream the children, so that will be helpful for Melody for the time being.

Big Boy...

Although Kasser is already in P2, I'm still using the tri-lined sheets to get him to write better and form his letters properly. He's got weird habits of writing from bottom up, and I'm trying to correct that. Still, since he's already 7+, it's hard to break his habits.... but break-able, they are.

I think I'm keen to break the habit of mis-forming his letters because he still gets confused as to how certain letters are written. So I figure, if he writes everything properly now, it'll become more automatic, and he will be less confused. Even now, he'll stop to ask if a certain letter begins at the head or belt line... and he's never learnt to use the tri-lines in school it seems.

That's a pet peeve I have with the kindergarten system now. They don't place emphasis on handwriting and letter formation, and allow the children to write in just plain boxes... as a result, the children grow up not knowing how to form decent letters, and their words "fly" every which way... a "j" can sit up together with a "t" instead of having its tail swing down below the line and so on. And they then get confused as to the difference between an uppercase letter and a lowercase letter, which then creates problems when they are doing editing for punctuation, because they have no idea which letters are supposed to go below the foot-line, and which letters have to stay on the foot line and so on.

In the last lesson though, I tried the main sound deck with him for the first time, and he did fine. He had only a little trouble remembering the keyword for "w"... but only because he still isn't familiar with "wagon". I'm thinking I might want to change the keyword for "w" and "i" (igloo) because he isn't familiar with those words and they don't serve the purpose of unlocking the sounds for him.

Tomorrow I'll see him again, and I'm moving on... using the main sound deck... hopefully in a few more lessons, his handwriting will have improved and he'll be more confident in forming his letters correctly... and I can move him on to the "big boy" sheets. I also hope to "bump him up" as Ron would often say... seeing as to how he is already in P2. I want to start syllabication soon... and now that he's finished all his short vowel sounds, he can start on closed syllables. But I need him to be a little more stable with his short vowel sounds first...

He was very tired during the last lesson - he said his sister woke him up earlier than he was due to be up... his sister can be quite... how shall I put it?... unthinking... and I think the mother has little control over her in the sense that the mom had already told Lindy (the sister) not to wake Kasser up, yet, she did. So I sent an SMS to their father today, in part to remind that I am going for lesson tomorrow instead of Friday, in part to ask that Lindy be reminded to let Kasser sleep so that he will be well rested for the lesson. The reply that came back? "I take care of that." LOL. I think Lindy will probably leave her brother alone tomorrow morning.

People don't realise that for Dyslexics, it is physically tiring to read and write. And I've seen it in both Zach and Stacey... so Stacey in particular has to be well rested and ready for lessons... and in order for her to do well, she has to experience success. She (and indeed Kasser too) gets discouraged too easily... so I must remember that while I'm trying to bump them up, they also need to work at their own pace....

First Paying Student - Kasser

Kasser is an almost 8yo, currently in Primary Two. A church counsellor, who had been visiting the family to provide support and advice and follow-up approached me and asked if I would take a look to see if I could help this young man.

Although his mother is a very conscientious lady, reading to him and trying her best to raise a reader, helping him in schoolwork and basically guiding him closely, he has failed to learn to read fluently and at his level.

From the little that I understood, the family had tried to get him help, asking the school for a referral to an Educational Psychologist, yet, the school was unwilling, saying that Kasser was only slow, not learning disabled. They felt that all he needed was time to catch up with his peers.

On my first visit, I found a young man, very much alert and alive, yet shy and introverted at first. His father was quick to call him lazy, lamenting that he would not try and learn independently, saying that he wouldn't learn rather than couldn't learn.

I spent about an hour with him that morning, doing an informal assessment. I found a young man who, despite phonics instructions from young, still did not know his sounds. He knew only one of the 5 short vowel sounds, and many consonants were also unfamiliar to him. Like Donny, he found some sounds difficult to produce, possibly having learnt them wrong all his life. Writing was also a slight problem... formation of letters were odd, made worse by his left-handedness. When asked to write the alphabet in only uppercase, he got confused... he showed problems with sequencing.

Blending was easy for him if the single consonant was placed in front... but too many single consonants and he got confused. This was especially so if he was unfamiliar with the word. He had no reversals though, so that was a good thing, but he had little idea how to use the "head-line", "belt-line" and "foot-line" to help him in forming his letters. Like Zach and Stacey, his "j" stood up on the footline and extended all the way to the headline, instead of starting from the beltline and extending below the footline.

We've had 3 lessons so far and he is moving nicely along. With skywriting, fingerspelling and tracing under his belt, he is quickly picking up the sounds and keywords. He still struggles with the short vowel sounds a, u and i... and often confuses them when he is in a rush to finish forming the word... but he is better able now to self-correct... a wonderful thing. He's also had the rush of being able to spell 5-letter words entirely by sounding them out... an achievement that impressed his mother. Previously, all spelling words had to be drilled, letter by letter tediously, and caused parent and child much grief.

I hope to complete the Baby Deck real soon... by the next lesson if possible, although he still has two short vowels to contend with - "o" and the dreaded "e". Singaporean children seem to have a major problem with the short vowel sounds "a" and "e", simply because in Singlish, the two sounds are rather similar, if at all different. In relaxed conversation, even when I say "pat" and "pet", they sound the same... so it's difficult for them to hear and produce the two different sounds easily.

It's only been 2 weeks since I first met him, but already, the child is blossoming with a newfound confidence in himself. So wonderful to see.

Starting with the Godson

The Godson, Donny (not his real name), is now 5+, going on 6 at the end of the year. He is currently in his 2nd year of Kindergarten.

He comes from a not so well-to-do background... parents are not superbly educated, and find managing their finances a great challenge. As a result, his education has been of a sub-standard level. From the time he was little, he was looked after by a nanny - an elderly lady who is not very educated and speaks only Chinese. He only started attending Childcare a while back, and even then his learning can be described as slow at best.

His teachers complain that the child writes badly - that is, his handwriting is atrocious and very untidy. His letter formation is also weak. He is falling behind in terms of reading and spelling... a situation made worse by the lack of intelligent conversation (as opposed to very functional interaction between caregiver and child, mostly consisting of instructions and scolding) outside of school.

So when I learnt about his situation, I volunteered to go to his house once a week, seeing as to how his home is near my in-law's place... and I've since had 2 lessons with him... the pace is slow. The child is unused to speaking good English, and so, the sounds are so unfamiliar. It takes a great deal of effort to curl his tongue around the sounds and produce a halfway decent sound.

An initial informal assessment shows a child who is unable to blend, and does not seem to have any notion of blending, despite having been in Kindergarten 1 last year. He doesn't know many of the basic sounds of the vowels and consonants. The words that he read successfully, he recognised by sight, not the results of phonemic awareness. He cannot consistently differentiate between a capital letter and a small letter (or uppercase and lowercase letter). His letter formation is awkward, and has to be re-taught.

So in the first lesson, we started on just the first 4 sounds in the OG scope and sequence, developed by Ron Y... and did another 4 in the second lesson. I also incorporated handwriting, as well as some blending and reading using the cards. To motivate and encourage practice, I got him to make his own set of sound cards... he possesses 8 so far. He picked up the keywords readily enough, although he struggled with "wagon", not having seen one in Singapore. But it's a start.

He also picked up the notion of the "headline", "belt-line" and "foot-line" readily enough, although it looked like he might have learnt some of it in school. So we plod along. Progress is slow, in part due to the only-once-a-week lessons, in part due to the fact that there is little home support.