I'm soooooooooo happy... I've invested in about 3 or 4 sets (I bought them on separate occasions, so I've lost track of how many I have bought) of Bananagrams - basically a word game where you form words using letter tiles in a crossword form (kinda like Scrabble without the board) with other banana-relevant rules/twists. So I bought them because they have more tiles than a Scrabble set has, and there are at least 2 of every letter...
I'm using them to teach syllabication... just so the children have something to touch and move around, rather than doing it all on paper like we have been doing so far. Anything that doesn't involve writing excites the kids... so I feel this was a good investment. I also bought them at a time when Popular was having their 20% storewide discount thing... so they came cheaper than they were when they first appeared on the market. Now they seem to be everywhere!!!
My only complaint is that the letters are all capital letters... although with lower case letters, sometimes the orientation is rather confusing.
Now, I plan to use my paint pen to colour all the vowels red, the consonants blue and mark "y" in a different colour since it sometimes takes on the role of a vowel... now maybe to create some homemade long and short vowel indicators... :)
Showing posts with label syllabication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label syllabication. Show all posts
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Backblog - Catch up Posts...
Oops, sorry, I haven't been updating this blog regularly... it's been almost 10 days since the last post. Anyway...
Friday 20th February
Kasser had his lesson again... I think we moved on the the -nk sound (which is essentially 4 sounds really, because it's 'ank', 'ink', 'unk' and 'onk') and also started him on the concepts of "letter", "word", "sound", "syllable", "vowel" & "consonant"... It was quite tough going at first, because he used "letter" and "word" interchangeably... and would also confuse "letter name" and "sound" as well... So we had to go through quite a few times with various words, having him identify the number of words / letters / sounds / syllables / vowels / consonants... I played a game from the 'Go Phonics' set at the end of the lesson and he was thrilled... and at the same time he got in some much needed "th" reading...
Saturday 21st February
Stacey & Zach had their OG lessons during our "campout" at Dance School - I call it a campout because we are at Dance School from 0930 to 1600h on Saturdays... thanks to the various classes and so on.
Zach had his 4th lesson and he did OK, considering he's still very new to OG and I'm going at a blistering pace in order for him to quickly move on to syllabication and affixes. I've also had to tweek the OG lesson a little to fit his needs and to challenge his strong visual memory. He had a habit of going about things backwards... and that was highly frustrating, both for me and him... for example, I gave him the word "lute" to spell. He was supposed to listen to the word, break it up into its sounds /l/, /long u/ and /t/, and use his fingerspelling to keep track of his sounds. But somehow, he already knew in his head that it was spelled l-u-t-e, so he kept on referring to his visual memory, and ended up fingerspelling it /l/, /short u/, /t/ and /short e/! And what made it worse was that after saying those 4 sounds, he could "combine" it back into "lute"! Argh! It's an ongoing process... we are still struggling to settle into the skills of fingerspelling and sounding without relying on visual memory and learned spelling.
Stacey has moved on to Penny words... she's quite happy to have gone on... so now we're moving into spelling of rabbit, reptile and penny words... she's quite pleased with herself and the accomplishment of being able to spell longer words... LOL.
Tuesday 24th February
Only Kasser had his lesson today - so we moved on to -ck words... he's best when he's alert and ready for class... but lessons become so draggy and such a chore when he is tired. Still, the lesson went on fairly well, and we played some spelling games with the cards. We also read from a simple phonics based reader, meant for younger children.
Kasser's mom expressed concern that he is very poor with his comprehension - something that is very common with dyslexics. She was relating how his father would just go at him because he didn't know how to answer the comprehension questions, and didn't seem to get it... and whenever his father would press him to get an answer, he would panic and be even far less able to get the answer right.
It reminds me of a time when we were given a passage written by a dyslexic, completely bad handwriting, bad spelling that took a very very long time to decipher... and we had to do a comprehension based on that "passage". It really opened my eyes to what the dyslexics struggle with on a day to day basis. And I am so tempted to write a passage in gibberish, give it to his father and make him do a comprehension based on that... then he will seriously know what his son is up against on a day to day basis. Now to find myself a dyslexic who writes badly enough... then there is authenticity in the passage. Heh.
Zach and Stacey didn't have their lessons today. So much for top priority. But I'm determined not to let things slide again.... sigh.
Friday 20th February
Kasser had his lesson again... I think we moved on the the -nk sound (which is essentially 4 sounds really, because it's 'ank', 'ink', 'unk' and 'onk') and also started him on the concepts of "letter", "word", "sound", "syllable", "vowel" & "consonant"... It was quite tough going at first, because he used "letter" and "word" interchangeably... and would also confuse "letter name" and "sound" as well... So we had to go through quite a few times with various words, having him identify the number of words / letters / sounds / syllables / vowels / consonants... I played a game from the 'Go Phonics' set at the end of the lesson and he was thrilled... and at the same time he got in some much needed "th" reading...
Saturday 21st February
Stacey & Zach had their OG lessons during our "campout" at Dance School - I call it a campout because we are at Dance School from 0930 to 1600h on Saturdays... thanks to the various classes and so on.
Zach had his 4th lesson and he did OK, considering he's still very new to OG and I'm going at a blistering pace in order for him to quickly move on to syllabication and affixes. I've also had to tweek the OG lesson a little to fit his needs and to challenge his strong visual memory. He had a habit of going about things backwards... and that was highly frustrating, both for me and him... for example, I gave him the word "lute" to spell. He was supposed to listen to the word, break it up into its sounds /l/, /long u/ and /t/, and use his fingerspelling to keep track of his sounds. But somehow, he already knew in his head that it was spelled l-u-t-e, so he kept on referring to his visual memory, and ended up fingerspelling it /l/, /short u/, /t/ and /short e/! And what made it worse was that after saying those 4 sounds, he could "combine" it back into "lute"! Argh! It's an ongoing process... we are still struggling to settle into the skills of fingerspelling and sounding without relying on visual memory and learned spelling.
Stacey has moved on to Penny words... she's quite happy to have gone on... so now we're moving into spelling of rabbit, reptile and penny words... she's quite pleased with herself and the accomplishment of being able to spell longer words... LOL.
Tuesday 24th February
Only Kasser had his lesson today - so we moved on to -ck words... he's best when he's alert and ready for class... but lessons become so draggy and such a chore when he is tired. Still, the lesson went on fairly well, and we played some spelling games with the cards. We also read from a simple phonics based reader, meant for younger children.
Kasser's mom expressed concern that he is very poor with his comprehension - something that is very common with dyslexics. She was relating how his father would just go at him because he didn't know how to answer the comprehension questions, and didn't seem to get it... and whenever his father would press him to get an answer, he would panic and be even far less able to get the answer right.
It reminds me of a time when we were given a passage written by a dyslexic, completely bad handwriting, bad spelling that took a very very long time to decipher... and we had to do a comprehension based on that "passage". It really opened my eyes to what the dyslexics struggle with on a day to day basis. And I am so tempted to write a passage in gibberish, give it to his father and make him do a comprehension based on that... then he will seriously know what his son is up against on a day to day basis. Now to find myself a dyslexic who writes badly enough... then there is authenticity in the passage. Heh.
Zach and Stacey didn't have their lessons today. So much for top priority. But I'm determined not to let things slide again.... sigh.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Kasser & his Dad
Kasser was so pleased to have been "promoted" to the single line sheet on Tuesday... but I was really pleased to see that he was really making the effort to write neatly and form his letters correctly.
We also moved on to the concept of syllables... I'm trying to bump him up so that we move into bigger words... but he struggled slightly to differentiate between a word, a sound, a letter and a syllable... it's confusing for them at first... but they get it soon enough.
His father woke up towards the end when I was leaving and started again to proclaim that his son was lazy and to put him down. I feel so sad for him. It has come to a point where I cannot say even the slightest thing negative, or the father will pounce on it and denounce the son to be everything negative under the son... Kasser's demeanour changes so much in the presence of his father and the ranting that comes with it. Poor child.
I told the mom to encourage him more... and she said it was the father who would constantly be scolding them and so on... but I think the father also feels in a way that he has to make up for the wife's "mollycoddling" of the children... it's finding a balance for both parents I guess.
He's up to the -ng phonogram already... next lesson we move on to the -nk phonogram... plus I hope to introduce the concept of closed syllables to him... hopefully he understands... if so, we can run with it, and that will greatly build up his confidence.
We also moved on to the concept of syllables... I'm trying to bump him up so that we move into bigger words... but he struggled slightly to differentiate between a word, a sound, a letter and a syllable... it's confusing for them at first... but they get it soon enough.
His father woke up towards the end when I was leaving and started again to proclaim that his son was lazy and to put him down. I feel so sad for him. It has come to a point where I cannot say even the slightest thing negative, or the father will pounce on it and denounce the son to be everything negative under the son... Kasser's demeanour changes so much in the presence of his father and the ranting that comes with it. Poor child.
I told the mom to encourage him more... and she said it was the father who would constantly be scolding them and so on... but I think the father also feels in a way that he has to make up for the wife's "mollycoddling" of the children... it's finding a balance for both parents I guess.
He's up to the -ng phonogram already... next lesson we move on to the -nk phonogram... plus I hope to introduce the concept of closed syllables to him... hopefully he understands... if so, we can run with it, and that will greatly build up his confidence.
Stacey's progress
It's a fine line as usual, treading between challenging Stacey and not demoralising her... but she's getting a little complacent with the easier words and complains whenever the words are a little more complex and she's required to think... and she hates making mistakes...
So in order to motivate her to put her whining and attitude aside, I've got to entice her with games and such...
We've moved into the vowel digraphs... having just covered "oy" yesterday... and with that came the concept of positions...
We also recapped syllabication because I want her to move into Penny words on Saturday... and that will lead us into open syllables with long vowels... but she already knows long vowels, so I don't think that will be a problem.
We're also working on more spelling words based on rules... so looking at what to look out for, so that she knows when she has to apply a rule. But really, it's also building up her visual memory bank, so that she's exposed to the words many many times over so that she gets so familiar.
I had a proud mommy moment the other day when she successfully applied the FLOSS rule to her tamagotchi pet in naming it Bess... when I heard her say she wanted to name her pet /bes/, I thought that she would spell it as "Bes"... so I was pleasantly surprised to see that she had applied her floss rule successfully and had remembered to double the "s" at the end...
So in order to motivate her to put her whining and attitude aside, I've got to entice her with games and such...
We've moved into the vowel digraphs... having just covered "oy" yesterday... and with that came the concept of positions...
We also recapped syllabication because I want her to move into Penny words on Saturday... and that will lead us into open syllables with long vowels... but she already knows long vowels, so I don't think that will be a problem.
We're also working on more spelling words based on rules... so looking at what to look out for, so that she knows when she has to apply a rule. But really, it's also building up her visual memory bank, so that she's exposed to the words many many times over so that she gets so familiar.
I had a proud mommy moment the other day when she successfully applied the FLOSS rule to her tamagotchi pet in naming it Bess... when I heard her say she wanted to name her pet /bes/, I thought that she would spell it as "Bes"... so I was pleasantly surprised to see that she had applied her floss rule successfully and had remembered to double the "s" at the end...
Zach - Tuesday's lesson
We're making OG lessons a priority... just like we would be forced to if we were sending Zach for OG intervention outside.... so it takes priority over homework, in the sense that we do it even before he sets out doing homework, or we make sure we get the lesson done before he goes to bed.
Am plunging him into rules, rules and more rules... rules about syllables, rules about sounds, rules about position and so on... it's a lot for him to digest, but as Ron is always saying "bump it up!" So Tuesday's lesson we finished covering the lower level rules, and I'm bumping him up into syllabication quickly, covering closed syllables, v-c-e syllables, Rabbit words and Reptile words all in the next lesson. But I know he can.
He's quickly got the hang of fingerspelling... and like the EP said, once he gets the hang of something, he's really fast... and he has flown with fingerspelling. I try to give him words I'm pretty sure he doesn't know (and I'm right because halfway through yesterday's lesson he said, "these are nonsense words right?" and I'm like, no... these are real words! LOL!) so that he's forced to sound them and work with the rules he's learnt and just practising applying them and figuring out what to look for so that he knows when he should apply what rule... of course, it doesn't help that the English language is full of contradictions and exceptions... sigh.
But I'm looking forward to the day when his dyslexia fades into the background because all these things will become 2nd-nature. I hope that for all my students, present and future... my own kids included, of course.
Am plunging him into rules, rules and more rules... rules about syllables, rules about sounds, rules about position and so on... it's a lot for him to digest, but as Ron is always saying "bump it up!" So Tuesday's lesson we finished covering the lower level rules, and I'm bumping him up into syllabication quickly, covering closed syllables, v-c-e syllables, Rabbit words and Reptile words all in the next lesson. But I know he can.
He's quickly got the hang of fingerspelling... and like the EP said, once he gets the hang of something, he's really fast... and he has flown with fingerspelling. I try to give him words I'm pretty sure he doesn't know (and I'm right because halfway through yesterday's lesson he said, "these are nonsense words right?" and I'm like, no... these are real words! LOL!) so that he's forced to sound them and work with the rules he's learnt and just practising applying them and figuring out what to look for so that he knows when he should apply what rule... of course, it doesn't help that the English language is full of contradictions and exceptions... sigh.
But I'm looking forward to the day when his dyslexia fades into the background because all these things will become 2nd-nature. I hope that for all my students, present and future... my own kids included, of course.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Reptiles, Rabbits and Rules...
On Saturday, Stacey went through more Reptile words, Rabbit words, and learnt a new rule regarding the -ld, -nd and -st words... so no new phonogram for her.
It occurs to me that she should also be learning the rules for the c/k/ck sounds, the j/dge/ge sounds, the ch/tch sounds and so on... because she's starting to get confused about which sound to use, as her repertoire of sounds expand. So I will be looking to see where exactly it falls in the Scope and Sequence of things, and how to incorporate it all in. I also need to look into making lessons more fun... now that I am trying to follow the OG lesson plans more closely, I find myself not having enough time to do the fun things and cover everything in the lesson plans as well. So it's going to be a little give and take. Otherwise, OG lessons become such a chore.
I bought the Go Phonics set of games and readers and stuff, so I have to start incorporating all that into the lessons. Stacey is always thrilled to play games, even if she is exercising the very same skills, just that she doesn't have to write it out on a sheet of paper. *grin*
It occurs to me that she should also be learning the rules for the c/k/ck sounds, the j/dge/ge sounds, the ch/tch sounds and so on... because she's starting to get confused about which sound to use, as her repertoire of sounds expand. So I will be looking to see where exactly it falls in the Scope and Sequence of things, and how to incorporate it all in. I also need to look into making lessons more fun... now that I am trying to follow the OG lesson plans more closely, I find myself not having enough time to do the fun things and cover everything in the lesson plans as well. So it's going to be a little give and take. Otherwise, OG lessons become such a chore.
I bought the Go Phonics set of games and readers and stuff, so I have to start incorporating all that into the lessons. Stacey is always thrilled to play games, even if she is exercising the very same skills, just that she doesn't have to write it out on a sheet of paper. *grin*
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Reptile Words
Moved Stacey along in the Scope and Sequence of things... she's been stuck far too long in the basic level, in part due to our lack of time, in part due to our using most of OG sessions to tackle her Spelling tests.
I have decided that OG lessons will be strictly OG lessons. Spelling Test Preparation will just have to be on another day, at another time. Because otherwise, Stacey will never move on.
Today she moved onto Reptile Words, having done the magic-e words for the longest time. She learnt to draw a rainbow for the v-c-e vowel, as well as to swoop for bigger words so as to be able to keep track of the patterns that are in the word.
Her face lit up as she successfully dissected 3 3-syllable words, made up entirely of the vccv patterns, including reptile words. Wonderful!
I haven't moved her on to spelling the words yet. That will be my next goal. Once she's very familiar with the rabbit and reptile words, I will try spelling these words with her.
So today, she tackled a new phonogram "all", a new syllabication pattern as well as a new learned word (which admittedly she was already half familiar, so it wasn't difficult at all).
She's coming along nicely... I'm so proud of her.
Oh, and I beamed with pride when I realised that she had named her Tamagotchi pet "Bess" and had remembered to double the "s" at the end because it is a short word after a short vowel. Beautiful. And she did that without reminder or asking. I remember her saying she wanted to name her pet "bes" but somehow, I thought she'd spell it "Bes"... so when I saw that she doubled the "s", I was most pleased... : )
I have decided that OG lessons will be strictly OG lessons. Spelling Test Preparation will just have to be on another day, at another time. Because otherwise, Stacey will never move on.
Today she moved onto Reptile Words, having done the magic-e words for the longest time. She learnt to draw a rainbow for the v-c-e vowel, as well as to swoop for bigger words so as to be able to keep track of the patterns that are in the word.
Her face lit up as she successfully dissected 3 3-syllable words, made up entirely of the vccv patterns, including reptile words. Wonderful!
I haven't moved her on to spelling the words yet. That will be my next goal. Once she's very familiar with the rabbit and reptile words, I will try spelling these words with her.
So today, she tackled a new phonogram "all", a new syllabication pattern as well as a new learned word (which admittedly she was already half familiar, so it wasn't difficult at all).
She's coming along nicely... I'm so proud of her.
Oh, and I beamed with pride when I realised that she had named her Tamagotchi pet "Bess" and had remembered to double the "s" at the end because it is a short word after a short vowel. Beautiful. And she did that without reminder or asking. I remember her saying she wanted to name her pet "bes" but somehow, I thought she'd spell it "Bes"... so when I saw that she doubled the "s", I was most pleased... : )
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