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... :)
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Updates....
It's been forever... Sep was the last entry, and things have moved on.
Kasser, my one and only non-family student, has his lessons on hold for the time being. This is because he has moved on into the morning session at school, having been promoted to Primary 3 this year. As such, his mother is still waiting for his schedules to be more firmed before embarking on finding two afternoons or evenings for me to give him lessons. The biggest problems in finding a suitable time arise from the fact that I do have to take care and help my 3 children in the afternoon when they come home from school, which is when Kasser is now free, and because I have to be home with my kids, Kasser's mom now has to bring Kasser to me instead of my going to his place (since that would mean my 3 children would be left home alone). During the holidays, when my children were home, Kasser came over to my house for several lessons. My OG classroom is now set up, and I have a place for all my resources and materials, as well as a proper setup for lessons with us facing each other on either side of a table. I can also close the door and shut out the noise of having 3 other children in the house. So I am still waiting. Waiting to see how keen they are in finding a good solution to the obstacles that currently stand in our way.
Stacey's and Zach's lessons also took a back seat towards the end of last year as well because we switched on the "preparing for exams" battlemode. They were swamped with homework and just getting all that work done and trying to ensure that they still had time to take a break and be a kid was tough... never mind making time for OG lessons twice a week. Some days, they worked till bedtime (8pm) and didn't have time to play. Sad.
Stacey and Zach did reasonably well in their exams, and I am proud of the tremendous improvements they made. Despite their difficulties, both managed to score within the Band 2 range... with Stacey making an almost 10% jump!
Kasser also had a 5% improvement in his scores, so I was thankful for that too!
This year, Zach will continue having group lessons on Comprehension with the SNO in his school during Chinese once a week. Stacey is supposed to have her OG lessons with her SNO but nothing has been arranged yet. I really must email her. I find that the support in Zach's school seems slightly better than in Stacey's... but it's probably too early to tell just yet. We are having Stacey do OG in school to see if she responds better in the mornings rather than in the evenings when she's already tired from a long day at school. Also, it is guaranteed to be more consistent, so that will probably help her as well.
Kasser, my one and only non-family student, has his lessons on hold for the time being. This is because he has moved on into the morning session at school, having been promoted to Primary 3 this year. As such, his mother is still waiting for his schedules to be more firmed before embarking on finding two afternoons or evenings for me to give him lessons. The biggest problems in finding a suitable time arise from the fact that I do have to take care and help my 3 children in the afternoon when they come home from school, which is when Kasser is now free, and because I have to be home with my kids, Kasser's mom now has to bring Kasser to me instead of my going to his place (since that would mean my 3 children would be left home alone). During the holidays, when my children were home, Kasser came over to my house for several lessons. My OG classroom is now set up, and I have a place for all my resources and materials, as well as a proper setup for lessons with us facing each other on either side of a table. I can also close the door and shut out the noise of having 3 other children in the house. So I am still waiting. Waiting to see how keen they are in finding a good solution to the obstacles that currently stand in our way.
Stacey's and Zach's lessons also took a back seat towards the end of last year as well because we switched on the "preparing for exams" battlemode. They were swamped with homework and just getting all that work done and trying to ensure that they still had time to take a break and be a kid was tough... never mind making time for OG lessons twice a week. Some days, they worked till bedtime (8pm) and didn't have time to play. Sad.
Stacey and Zach did reasonably well in their exams, and I am proud of the tremendous improvements they made. Despite their difficulties, both managed to score within the Band 2 range... with Stacey making an almost 10% jump!
Kasser also had a 5% improvement in his scores, so I was thankful for that too!
This year, Zach will continue having group lessons on Comprehension with the SNO in his school during Chinese once a week. Stacey is supposed to have her OG lessons with her SNO but nothing has been arranged yet. I really must email her. I find that the support in Zach's school seems slightly better than in Stacey's... but it's probably too early to tell just yet. We are having Stacey do OG in school to see if she responds better in the mornings rather than in the evenings when she's already tired from a long day at school. Also, it is guaranteed to be more consistent, so that will probably help her as well.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Finally, a class with Kasser!
Finally had a class with Kasser again last Friday. Brought the big kids along to his house again because they were having a holiday due to the PSLE Listening Comprehension. So my two biggies did their homework during the one hour I had with Kasser.
The OG portion of our lessons have been shortened, due to his lack of a regular English tutor now, and my discovery that he has absolutely no grammar understanding to speak of. And because his English Exams are coming up, I have to help him brush up a little so that he can make fewer mistakes with simple Subject-Verb Agreement, and do better overall, in Comprehension, Composition and the likes.
So we covered the "igh" sound again, and did Auditory Drill, Visual Drill, Reading with training for Fluency and some spelling. I also did a little on homonyms - using the "i-e" and the "igh" sounds... trying to put into context the words that he didn't know... which was most of them.
Then we moved on to SVA. Despite it being quite a few lessons now, he still doesn't get it. So I made some cards with irregular verbs for him, showing him simple present tense, simple past tense, continuous tense as well as singular and plural forms... He will have to practise sorting them at home with mom, as well as do the exercises that I had crafted for him... handwritten grammar exercises, specially to meet his needs.
I'm feeling a little discouraged with him these days - it seems that since the lessons became Free of Charge, the commitment level has dipped. Lessons are more irregular - he misses lessons more often, for more frivolous reasons... and the mom is less keen, it seems, to have me come as often as I'd like (which is only twice a week). Ah well. Next year, it will be a challenge, because he will have to have lessons in the evening, when I am busy with my own children. And because he is in the morning school, I cannot keep him too late either. So I will have to figure out how to continue to teach him, or if I should stop. We'll see.
The OG portion of our lessons have been shortened, due to his lack of a regular English tutor now, and my discovery that he has absolutely no grammar understanding to speak of. And because his English Exams are coming up, I have to help him brush up a little so that he can make fewer mistakes with simple Subject-Verb Agreement, and do better overall, in Comprehension, Composition and the likes.
So we covered the "igh" sound again, and did Auditory Drill, Visual Drill, Reading with training for Fluency and some spelling. I also did a little on homonyms - using the "i-e" and the "igh" sounds... trying to put into context the words that he didn't know... which was most of them.
Then we moved on to SVA. Despite it being quite a few lessons now, he still doesn't get it. So I made some cards with irregular verbs for him, showing him simple present tense, simple past tense, continuous tense as well as singular and plural forms... He will have to practise sorting them at home with mom, as well as do the exercises that I had crafted for him... handwritten grammar exercises, specially to meet his needs.
I'm feeling a little discouraged with him these days - it seems that since the lessons became Free of Charge, the commitment level has dipped. Lessons are more irregular - he misses lessons more often, for more frivolous reasons... and the mom is less keen, it seems, to have me come as often as I'd like (which is only twice a week). Ah well. Next year, it will be a challenge, because he will have to have lessons in the evening, when I am busy with my own children. And because he is in the morning school, I cannot keep him too late either. So I will have to figure out how to continue to teach him, or if I should stop. We'll see.
Monday, September 14, 2009
It is Official!!!
"Application for exemption from Mother Tongue - APPROVED"
Finally... we are free from the burden of Chinese... for Stacey that is... so no more Chinese exams this year and forever more! Yeah! My heart leapt with joy when I saw the official looking envelope from Stacey's school today... and when I saw the words above, I did a happy jig all the way to the kitchen to announce it to hubby... who was most amused by my dancing. Haha. But I am so glad that our battle with Chinese homework and Chinese teachers is now over!!!!
Finally... we are free from the burden of Chinese... for Stacey that is... so no more Chinese exams this year and forever more! Yeah! My heart leapt with joy when I saw the official looking envelope from Stacey's school today... and when I saw the words above, I did a happy jig all the way to the kitchen to announce it to hubby... who was most amused by my dancing. Haha. But I am so glad that our battle with Chinese homework and Chinese teachers is now over!!!!
Friday, September 11, 2009
Cancelled Kasser Class
10 minutes before I am due to leave the house for Kasser's class today, the phone rings and I find myself on the line with Kasser's mom. She reports that the child was in school earlier today for hockey and had returned at about 1pm.
At around 3pm, when he was reminded that I was coming over for class, he burst into tears and was whining about how tired he was and how he was not ready for class... so the mom called to ask if I was already on the way, and to ask me if it was OK for class to be cancelled. Sigh.
The boy's tears are just dramatics. They happened in class the other day when I was talking to mom, in his presence, about how to discipline the two children (Kasser and his sister Lindy) and get them to be more independent in studying and in most things... he burst into tears because he felt that she was being unfair, asking them to study for an hour or an hour and a half... to which I retorted that that was severely insufficient, especially since they were so poor in their studies, and needed all the practice they could get. I communicated to the mother, with just facial expressions, to ignore the boy's dramatics as he descended into loud sobbing as we spoke. We continued our conversation, completely ignoring him, and in no time at all, the sobs disappeared and he was back to normal.
So I can only shake my head and sigh that once again, Kasser has won... and lost... because in winning the battle of cancelling OG class, he has lost the opportunity to further improve and solidify his knowledge and skills. And in doing so, he also got one step further into the habit of manipulating his mother into giving in to his nonsense... which means also one step further from being the disciplined child he should be. Sigh.
At around 3pm, when he was reminded that I was coming over for class, he burst into tears and was whining about how tired he was and how he was not ready for class... so the mom called to ask if I was already on the way, and to ask me if it was OK for class to be cancelled. Sigh.
The boy's tears are just dramatics. They happened in class the other day when I was talking to mom, in his presence, about how to discipline the two children (Kasser and his sister Lindy) and get them to be more independent in studying and in most things... he burst into tears because he felt that she was being unfair, asking them to study for an hour or an hour and a half... to which I retorted that that was severely insufficient, especially since they were so poor in their studies, and needed all the practice they could get. I communicated to the mother, with just facial expressions, to ignore the boy's dramatics as he descended into loud sobbing as we spoke. We continued our conversation, completely ignoring him, and in no time at all, the sobs disappeared and he was back to normal.
So I can only shake my head and sigh that once again, Kasser has won... and lost... because in winning the battle of cancelling OG class, he has lost the opportunity to further improve and solidify his knowledge and skills. And in doing so, he also got one step further into the habit of manipulating his mother into giving in to his nonsense... which means also one step further from being the disciplined child he should be. Sigh.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Update on Stacey
Stacey's Psych report finally came out at the end of July... the EP had just had a baby, and we had just returned from a H1N1 affected country, so we postponed the meeting till end of July.
Happily, the EP recommended an exemption for Chinese... much to Stacey's and my relief... sadly, the Special Needs Officer in her school has gone on long leave, and there is apparently no replacement for the time being, so I actually had to email the school's General Office to enquire about the status of the SNO's absence, and how that would affect Stacey's application for her exemption of Chinese. Thankfully, they were able to send in the application anyway, and we are now just waiting for the official approval from MOE for her to finally drop Chinese as a school subject.
The reason I am eager to have her drop Chinese is because the school is looking to bring up their results in Chinese, and they are piling on the homework and raising the bars... unfortunately for Stacey, this leaves her drowning in the process. Homework time is made so much more frustrating because there is so much homework, and she is unable to do it... and it frustrates me even more that we are spending so much time doing homework for a subject that she will eventually drop. So we look forward to the day when we can officially say byebye to the subject.
We have reinstated OG lessons to their rightful place - taking priority over homework and all other things, on the days that it is assigned. Still, it being done at home, it still gets pushed out of the way here and there... but we are back at it with much greater regularity now.
I'm also trying to work more now on fluency and automaticity... the EP revealed that Stacey seems to have trouble truly blending sounds... she tends to rely more on visuals than on blending, trying to "see" the word in her head before "sounding" out the word she is given. So we have been told to step it up on the visual memory side of things, as well as to train her to have a keener sense of visual differences - esp in letter positions. It was suggested that we use "spot the differences" games to train her to pick up on visual differences.
So I'm trying to do that more, besides playing more games that help her to distinguish between words that sound the same but are spelt different... a challenge because she's gotten to the stage where she has quite a few different ways to spell the various long vowel sounds.
I've also taken to spurring her on by giving her a reward system - to encourage her to try her best during class and to work towards her goal - receiving "cute paper" (something that is the rage now in her school apparently) when she finally accumulates enough stamps on her reward sheet. :)
Happily, the EP recommended an exemption for Chinese... much to Stacey's and my relief... sadly, the Special Needs Officer in her school has gone on long leave, and there is apparently no replacement for the time being, so I actually had to email the school's General Office to enquire about the status of the SNO's absence, and how that would affect Stacey's application for her exemption of Chinese. Thankfully, they were able to send in the application anyway, and we are now just waiting for the official approval from MOE for her to finally drop Chinese as a school subject.
The reason I am eager to have her drop Chinese is because the school is looking to bring up their results in Chinese, and they are piling on the homework and raising the bars... unfortunately for Stacey, this leaves her drowning in the process. Homework time is made so much more frustrating because there is so much homework, and she is unable to do it... and it frustrates me even more that we are spending so much time doing homework for a subject that she will eventually drop. So we look forward to the day when we can officially say byebye to the subject.
We have reinstated OG lessons to their rightful place - taking priority over homework and all other things, on the days that it is assigned. Still, it being done at home, it still gets pushed out of the way here and there... but we are back at it with much greater regularity now.
I'm also trying to work more now on fluency and automaticity... the EP revealed that Stacey seems to have trouble truly blending sounds... she tends to rely more on visuals than on blending, trying to "see" the word in her head before "sounding" out the word she is given. So we have been told to step it up on the visual memory side of things, as well as to train her to have a keener sense of visual differences - esp in letter positions. It was suggested that we use "spot the differences" games to train her to pick up on visual differences.
So I'm trying to do that more, besides playing more games that help her to distinguish between words that sound the same but are spelt different... a challenge because she's gotten to the stage where she has quite a few different ways to spell the various long vowel sounds.
I've also taken to spurring her on by giving her a reward system - to encourage her to try her best during class and to work towards her goal - receiving "cute paper" (something that is the rage now in her school apparently) when she finally accumulates enough stamps on her reward sheet. :)
Further Updates... Kasser first...
We restarted lessons with Kasser. After a two month break (the June holidays saw us not having any lessons at all, and then we were away, followed by a period of self-quarantine due to the H1N1 outbreak and so on... then followed by another postponing of the first lesson due to my falling down and spraining my foot very badly), we finally restarted lessons in August. His mother had not been able to get a job, but I managed to convince them to let me come and give him lessons for free... so happily, I was able to continue where we left off.
As expected, he had forgotten quite a bit of his work... we had to revisit the sounds and the rules... and we had to revisit the concepts of "word", "syllable", "sound" and "letter" and so on...
But as of right now, I'm slowing lessons down a great deal now that he is doing the vowel pairs and he is getting quite confused by the many ways to spell the different long vowel sounds... to add to the problem, he has a very poor vocabulary... so not only does he have to tackle homophones and homonyms (words that sound the same and are spelt different), he has to learn the meanings of those words at the same time. And this has proven to be a very great hurdle for him. Even basic words that I expected him to know, he didn't know... and we are talking about a child who is already in the 2nd half of Primary Two!
I've also started integrating grammar and comprehension out of sheer necessity - and to my horror, he has no concept of singular/plural, subject-verb agreement and tenses... all basic stuff! So there has been a lot of work done with that as well, which also then slows down the progress of the OG lessons... sigh. But now that he no longer has 1-1 tuition for English, I feel like I have to help him in that area as well... because while the OG helps him with spelling and reading specifically, it's in a way useless because the language is, a large part, dead... since he doesn't know so many words... argh! And his sentence structures are so weird... he has no idea when to use present/past/continuous tense... never mind the perfect tense and so on! Oh dear... how am I going to help this boy?!
I only realised the depth of his problems when I had set him some basic grammar work to do... In one sentence, he had chosen a word marked for past tense as the answer, which happened to be correct. But when I asked him why it was the word marked for past tense, and not the one marked for present tense, he explained that the word marked for past tense was used for animals, while the one marked for present tense was used for people... how he got that idea, I will never know!
So lessons are going ahead at a snail's pace... while I was doing one new sound every lesson before the long break, right now, we are only managing one new sound every three lessons or so... with a whole bunch of other more "urgent" lessons weaved in, in an effort to bring up his grades for the coming end of year exams. I just hope that this will be enough.
As expected, he had forgotten quite a bit of his work... we had to revisit the sounds and the rules... and we had to revisit the concepts of "word", "syllable", "sound" and "letter" and so on...
But as of right now, I'm slowing lessons down a great deal now that he is doing the vowel pairs and he is getting quite confused by the many ways to spell the different long vowel sounds... to add to the problem, he has a very poor vocabulary... so not only does he have to tackle homophones and homonyms (words that sound the same and are spelt different), he has to learn the meanings of those words at the same time. And this has proven to be a very great hurdle for him. Even basic words that I expected him to know, he didn't know... and we are talking about a child who is already in the 2nd half of Primary Two!
I've also started integrating grammar and comprehension out of sheer necessity - and to my horror, he has no concept of singular/plural, subject-verb agreement and tenses... all basic stuff! So there has been a lot of work done with that as well, which also then slows down the progress of the OG lessons... sigh. But now that he no longer has 1-1 tuition for English, I feel like I have to help him in that area as well... because while the OG helps him with spelling and reading specifically, it's in a way useless because the language is, a large part, dead... since he doesn't know so many words... argh! And his sentence structures are so weird... he has no idea when to use present/past/continuous tense... never mind the perfect tense and so on! Oh dear... how am I going to help this boy?!
I only realised the depth of his problems when I had set him some basic grammar work to do... In one sentence, he had chosen a word marked for past tense as the answer, which happened to be correct. But when I asked him why it was the word marked for past tense, and not the one marked for present tense, he explained that the word marked for past tense was used for animals, while the one marked for present tense was used for people... how he got that idea, I will never know!
So lessons are going ahead at a snail's pace... while I was doing one new sound every lesson before the long break, right now, we are only managing one new sound every three lessons or so... with a whole bunch of other more "urgent" lessons weaved in, in an effort to bring up his grades for the coming end of year exams. I just hope that this will be enough.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Dead blog... but going to be revived...
Firstly, I must apologise, because this blog has effectively been dead for the last almost 4 months. Sorry about that.
I will now update in several nutshells about the various kids I have.
Kasser:
Kasser has stopped lessons for the time being. The economy has hit his family hard, but his dad is one of those who must pay for lessons and hesitate to accept when I offer to teach for free (until Kasser's mom finds a job). So I have not seen Kasser since the school holidays began, and I will not be seeing him for the next 2 weeks since I will be away, then on self-quarantine together with my children.
Zach and Stacey:
Lessons have been very haphazard in terms of frequency... homework got in the way most of the time, as well as a lack of discipline on my part. I have to do something about that. Next week, after we return, I am determined to set them back on track with OG.
Stacey's Psych Report:
We finally have exemption for Chinese more or less in the bag! Stacey went for a follow up session with the EP over the June Holidays, and the EP said that she would be giving her the diagnosis as well as asking for exemption for Chinese, and longer time during exams. So now, I'm waiting for the report to come out (we will only receive it after we return from our trip and after our LOA - cos the EP has a new baby and we don't want to bring any germs over...). This is a huge relief because Stacey's homework woes this semester has also been in part due to the Chinese teacher's habit of giving homework in chunks... 5-7 pages of work and writing, plus extra writing practice... and we are talking 2-3 pages worth. All due the next day. So not funny. And the task of writing is particularly difficult for Stacey, so she usually ends up in a meltdown on Chinese homework days. In fact, I took to not helping her and just asking her to treat her homework like the exams - so that her teacher would have a better idea of what she knew and did not know... otherwise, I would just end up giving her the answers and that made homework meaningless.
Exam Results:
This year, Stacey didn't have any special accomodations arranged like she did for last year in P1 (because she had a very enlightened teacher who provided her with good support. Unfortunately, we lost that teacher this year - she taught the P1s again) so she bombed her Spelling and (unseen) Dictation and brought home a score of only 66 (1/15 for S&D) when she could have scored 75 had she scored full marks for just the spelling section. Ah well. Still, she managed a 83 for Maths, which was wonderful, and of course, a fail for Chinese, which was expected.
Zach did reasonably well too - 74 for English, 70+ (can't remember now) for Maths... I think it was close to 80... then 66 for Science (where he got completely tripped up by the language and the fact that the answers had to be super precise). Without Chinese, his average score jumped up dramatically and he found himself ranked somewhere in the middle of his class, as opposed to the bottom 5 where he usually found himself in the previous years due to Chinese pulling his marks right down. So we're pleased with his work too.
I will now update in several nutshells about the various kids I have.
Kasser:
Kasser has stopped lessons for the time being. The economy has hit his family hard, but his dad is one of those who must pay for lessons and hesitate to accept when I offer to teach for free (until Kasser's mom finds a job). So I have not seen Kasser since the school holidays began, and I will not be seeing him for the next 2 weeks since I will be away, then on self-quarantine together with my children.
Zach and Stacey:
Lessons have been very haphazard in terms of frequency... homework got in the way most of the time, as well as a lack of discipline on my part. I have to do something about that. Next week, after we return, I am determined to set them back on track with OG.
Stacey's Psych Report:
We finally have exemption for Chinese more or less in the bag! Stacey went for a follow up session with the EP over the June Holidays, and the EP said that she would be giving her the diagnosis as well as asking for exemption for Chinese, and longer time during exams. So now, I'm waiting for the report to come out (we will only receive it after we return from our trip and after our LOA - cos the EP has a new baby and we don't want to bring any germs over...). This is a huge relief because Stacey's homework woes this semester has also been in part due to the Chinese teacher's habit of giving homework in chunks... 5-7 pages of work and writing, plus extra writing practice... and we are talking 2-3 pages worth. All due the next day. So not funny. And the task of writing is particularly difficult for Stacey, so she usually ends up in a meltdown on Chinese homework days. In fact, I took to not helping her and just asking her to treat her homework like the exams - so that her teacher would have a better idea of what she knew and did not know... otherwise, I would just end up giving her the answers and that made homework meaningless.
Exam Results:
This year, Stacey didn't have any special accomodations arranged like she did for last year in P1 (because she had a very enlightened teacher who provided her with good support. Unfortunately, we lost that teacher this year - she taught the P1s again) so she bombed her Spelling and (unseen) Dictation and brought home a score of only 66 (1/15 for S&D) when she could have scored 75 had she scored full marks for just the spelling section. Ah well. Still, she managed a 83 for Maths, which was wonderful, and of course, a fail for Chinese, which was expected.
Zach did reasonably well too - 74 for English, 70+ (can't remember now) for Maths... I think it was close to 80... then 66 for Science (where he got completely tripped up by the language and the fact that the answers had to be super precise). Without Chinese, his average score jumped up dramatically and he found himself ranked somewhere in the middle of his class, as opposed to the bottom 5 where he usually found himself in the previous years due to Chinese pulling his marks right down. So we're pleased with his work too.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Proud moments...
Zach came home a while back with a top score in his Topical Test 1 Composition Writing, scoring an impressive 15/20, being one of 2 top scorers in his class (the other top scorer is also the other dyslexic in the class).
This round, with the CA1s just over, he also came home with another top score, this time in his English CA Paper... an impressive 36/40... which translates to 90%! Good on him. Again, this is the top score in his mixed-ability class. He lost 3 marks in Comprehension, which is something that is expected, and he didn't know "canoeing" and "trekking", and so missed one MCQ. But overall, very good!!!
Stacey also came home with an impressive 48/50 for her latest Maths CA1!!! This was apparently also the highest in class, she said.
So I'm very proud of the two of them... they have worked really hard and done well. Good job! And all this without any accomodations to their dyslexia!
This round, with the CA1s just over, he also came home with another top score, this time in his English CA Paper... an impressive 36/40... which translates to 90%! Good on him. Again, this is the top score in his mixed-ability class. He lost 3 marks in Comprehension, which is something that is expected, and he didn't know "canoeing" and "trekking", and so missed one MCQ. But overall, very good!!!
Stacey also came home with an impressive 48/50 for her latest Maths CA1!!! This was apparently also the highest in class, she said.
So I'm very proud of the two of them... they have worked really hard and done well. Good job! And all this without any accomodations to their dyslexia!
Stacey & Zach on Spelling Rules
I've been trying to integrate more games into OG lessons... on Saturday, we did the session entirely in games, moving away from the standard OG lesson for that day. We used spelling cards and I got them to verbalise the rules whenever they made a mistake. We used sorting cards for the "tch vs. ch", "dge vs. ge" and "ck vs k" words, explaining over and over again when to use what.
Zach was a challenge because he would keep relying on his visual memory to tell himself which words were correct instead of using the rules to sort out the words.
Zach is constantly a challenge because he has such a good visual memory bank... there are so many words that he already knows, so I'm constantly trying to find words that he doesn't know so he can rely on sounding them instead of on his pre-knowledge of the spelling. argh!
Zach was a challenge because he would keep relying on his visual memory to tell himself which words were correct instead of using the rules to sort out the words.
Zach is constantly a challenge because he has such a good visual memory bank... there are so many words that he already knows, so I'm constantly trying to find words that he doesn't know so he can rely on sounding them instead of on his pre-knowledge of the spelling. argh!
Lesson 16 tomorrow...
Am seeing Kasser tomorrow for his 16th lesson. Time flies. It will be exactly 2 whole months since I started working on him, and I'm quite pleased with his progress so far...
We've moved up to the "-ed" phonogram, and tomorrow we will be embarking on the "magic-e". This in itself will be a challenge. So far, he has a tendency to try to split sounds like "-nk", "-ng" and even stuff like "tch", "ck", "wh" into their individual letters, until you remind him once more. Once he is reminded, he's fine.
Maybe I'm trying to push him too far too fast, but then again, he is already in P2, and needs to be bumped up.
I'm also trying to come up with more creative ways of getting him to revise his learned words. Without constant exposure, he does not remember them after a while, although this is to be expected.
I also hope to expose him to more passages. So far, with all the bumping up, we are still not getting in much exposure to passages and comprehension. I want to integrate more vocabulary and comprehension into lessons, but that will slow us down. He is still having regular English tuition, cos the parents seem to feel that OG will not be sufficient... but I'm worried that the English tutor will undo whatever he is taught in OG, including the building up of confidence and self-esteem. Ah well.
Hopefully, he will remember to go to bed early tonight, and be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow for class. He was tired again the last lesson, and was literally falling asleep at the desk when asked to read. He was also showing reversals in reading when tired, as well as sounding wrongly in the oddest fashion... sigh.
We've moved up to the "-ed" phonogram, and tomorrow we will be embarking on the "magic-e". This in itself will be a challenge. So far, he has a tendency to try to split sounds like "-nk", "-ng" and even stuff like "tch", "ck", "wh" into their individual letters, until you remind him once more. Once he is reminded, he's fine.
Maybe I'm trying to push him too far too fast, but then again, he is already in P2, and needs to be bumped up.
I'm also trying to come up with more creative ways of getting him to revise his learned words. Without constant exposure, he does not remember them after a while, although this is to be expected.
I also hope to expose him to more passages. So far, with all the bumping up, we are still not getting in much exposure to passages and comprehension. I want to integrate more vocabulary and comprehension into lessons, but that will slow us down. He is still having regular English tuition, cos the parents seem to feel that OG will not be sufficient... but I'm worried that the English tutor will undo whatever he is taught in OG, including the building up of confidence and self-esteem. Ah well.
Hopefully, he will remember to go to bed early tonight, and be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow for class. He was tired again the last lesson, and was literally falling asleep at the desk when asked to read. He was also showing reversals in reading when tired, as well as sounding wrongly in the oddest fashion... sigh.
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.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
My first Support Group Meeting...
Went to Zach's school TWICE today... once in the morning for a Parents Support Group for Kids with Dyslexia meeting, and once to pick him up from school because he had to stay back for Science Remedial Class today.
The Support Group meeting was interesting. The SNO gave a review of what happened last year, as well as talked about the kind of accomodations that the kids (or rather their parents) could request for in exams... I was actually quite surprised to learn that Special Accomodations in Primary School was something new... because in Secondary School, all the things that they had mentioned were more or less the norm - extra time, larger font, one sided printing for Compre papers and so on... yet, the impression that I got was that it was new to Primary Schools. Hmmm. So the stuff they were talking about were all really very familiar, esp from having babysat the Dsylexics for one of the exams one of the years - I think because I was pregnant or something, so they wanted to save me from walking up down and all around the school... so I sat in the Special Exams Room to invigilate those with extra time and what not. It was quite fun really, cos the room was "L-shaped" and the invigilator didn't have to stand up and walk around at all... just sit down. Haha.
Anyways, I digress....
Then there was some talk about "Homework Policy" which apparently is a new thing this year - something about making sure that the boys complete their homework. Honestly, I had not heard about Homework Policy until today... LOL. Maybe I did, but because life in our house already has a rule about completing today's homework today, I didn't think it was a new thing, or that it was some sort of an "initiative".... So some of the parents of the Dyslexic kids were saying that it was impossible for their kids to complete their hw (I think most of these parents are like full-time working parents, so they only have time to sit down for homework after they come home from work, which might be late) on time, and was wondering whether the teachers could be more understanding and give more leeway and what not.
Dunno. As for us, our "rule" at home has always been school homework must always be completed the day it is received... as long as you still have waking hours left, you should work hard to complete all homework. Exception to the rule - the teacher gives a great big whopping pile of hw but gives a longer deadline (eg 3 days later)... in which case, if you run out of waking hours (read 7.30pm) you get to stop and keep it for the next day. This has always been the case since they started bringing hw home from kindergarten, that you always completed your hw before you could play... so the kiddos just seem to accept it, and do not question it. Of course, while the cat's away, the mice will play... today was a classic example. Zach and Stace had 1.5hrs "free" each during the other's Chinese tuition time. I was away 'cus the youngest had chinese enrichment outside, so they stayed home with the Chinese tutor, taking turns. They are supposed to do their work during their 1.5hours but of course, the amount of work they completed in my absence was so miniscule, you just know that most of that 1.5hrs was spent daydreaming and playing a fool. Not that they couldn't because they are dyslexic. Not that they couldn't because of anything. They just didn't because they allowed themselves to be distracted.
So that made for a very frustrated mommy who came home at 6.30pm to find very little had been accomplished. In the end, Zach rushed through his school hw, and Maths Enrichment hw that is due tomorrow is not completed - not that they have time to complete it tomorrow because both come home late from school every Friday. Sigh.
And of course, with this my 2nd policy kicks in - I rescue no one (when it's a result of their own faults). They jolly well will get into trouble with their enrichment teacher for not having completed their work. Too bad. (The downside is that the enrichment teacher will not really scold them! So it's no motivation to make sure it's done.)
I digress again.
So basically the meeting was dominated by a few who had some bees in their bonnets really... I didn't say very very much because it was my first meeting, and I felt like I needed to sort of size up the people around first... LOL. But I did contribute and give suggestions, referring to what I had done with Stacey and Zach from past experience.
There was this lady who seemed very interested in signing up to get herself OG trained... the problem was that her pronunciation and mastery of the English Language in itself was somewhat lacking... and I knew that even if she did end up taking the course, she would not be able to execute it properly because the sounds would not come out right, nor would there be a full grasp of the nuances and subtleties of the language... but I didn't think I knew how to say it without sounding judgemental or condescending... so I didn't.
Still... this whole support group thing should be quite interesting. The SNOs are interesting people... should be fun to work with them in seeking to support Zach and the other SN kids...
The Support Group meeting was interesting. The SNO gave a review of what happened last year, as well as talked about the kind of accomodations that the kids (or rather their parents) could request for in exams... I was actually quite surprised to learn that Special Accomodations in Primary School was something new... because in Secondary School, all the things that they had mentioned were more or less the norm - extra time, larger font, one sided printing for Compre papers and so on... yet, the impression that I got was that it was new to Primary Schools. Hmmm. So the stuff they were talking about were all really very familiar, esp from having babysat the Dsylexics for one of the exams one of the years - I think because I was pregnant or something, so they wanted to save me from walking up down and all around the school... so I sat in the Special Exams Room to invigilate those with extra time and what not. It was quite fun really, cos the room was "L-shaped" and the invigilator didn't have to stand up and walk around at all... just sit down. Haha.
Anyways, I digress....
Then there was some talk about "Homework Policy" which apparently is a new thing this year - something about making sure that the boys complete their homework. Honestly, I had not heard about Homework Policy until today... LOL. Maybe I did, but because life in our house already has a rule about completing today's homework today, I didn't think it was a new thing, or that it was some sort of an "initiative".... So some of the parents of the Dyslexic kids were saying that it was impossible for their kids to complete their hw (I think most of these parents are like full-time working parents, so they only have time to sit down for homework after they come home from work, which might be late) on time, and was wondering whether the teachers could be more understanding and give more leeway and what not.
Dunno. As for us, our "rule" at home has always been school homework must always be completed the day it is received... as long as you still have waking hours left, you should work hard to complete all homework. Exception to the rule - the teacher gives a great big whopping pile of hw but gives a longer deadline (eg 3 days later)... in which case, if you run out of waking hours (read 7.30pm) you get to stop and keep it for the next day. This has always been the case since they started bringing hw home from kindergarten, that you always completed your hw before you could play... so the kiddos just seem to accept it, and do not question it. Of course, while the cat's away, the mice will play... today was a classic example. Zach and Stace had 1.5hrs "free" each during the other's Chinese tuition time. I was away 'cus the youngest had chinese enrichment outside, so they stayed home with the Chinese tutor, taking turns. They are supposed to do their work during their 1.5hours but of course, the amount of work they completed in my absence was so miniscule, you just know that most of that 1.5hrs was spent daydreaming and playing a fool. Not that they couldn't because they are dyslexic. Not that they couldn't because of anything. They just didn't because they allowed themselves to be distracted.
So that made for a very frustrated mommy who came home at 6.30pm to find very little had been accomplished. In the end, Zach rushed through his school hw, and Maths Enrichment hw that is due tomorrow is not completed - not that they have time to complete it tomorrow because both come home late from school every Friday. Sigh.
And of course, with this my 2nd policy kicks in - I rescue no one (when it's a result of their own faults). They jolly well will get into trouble with their enrichment teacher for not having completed their work. Too bad. (The downside is that the enrichment teacher will not really scold them! So it's no motivation to make sure it's done.)
I digress again.
So basically the meeting was dominated by a few who had some bees in their bonnets really... I didn't say very very much because it was my first meeting, and I felt like I needed to sort of size up the people around first... LOL. But I did contribute and give suggestions, referring to what I had done with Stacey and Zach from past experience.
There was this lady who seemed very interested in signing up to get herself OG trained... the problem was that her pronunciation and mastery of the English Language in itself was somewhat lacking... and I knew that even if she did end up taking the course, she would not be able to execute it properly because the sounds would not come out right, nor would there be a full grasp of the nuances and subtleties of the language... but I didn't think I knew how to say it without sounding judgemental or condescending... so I didn't.
Still... this whole support group thing should be quite interesting. The SNOs are interesting people... should be fun to work with them in seeking to support Zach and the other SN kids...
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.
Back breaking...
I spent quite a few back breaking hours today making game pieces for future OG lessons...
First I had to make a copy of the sheet of game pieces... then I highlighted them different colours just to make them look pretty, and cut them out in long strips. I put double sided tape on them, then cut them into their individual squares. Then I removed the tapes and pasted them onto 200gsm blue paper, and cut them up again into squares (now highlighted with a blue frame around) then arranged them onto hot laminate backing, and ran the two sheets through my hot laminator... then cut up the freshly laminated pieces, making sure to round the edges.
All that, just so the kids can have a slightly more fun time differentiating between dge, ge, tch, ch, c, k and so on... but I figure, since I'm doing this for at least 3 kids right now, and hopefully more in the future, this investment in time, effort and some money is well worth it... but I need to convince my aching back and shoulder muscles that this is true.... :P
First I had to make a copy of the sheet of game pieces... then I highlighted them different colours just to make them look pretty, and cut them out in long strips. I put double sided tape on them, then cut them into their individual squares. Then I removed the tapes and pasted them onto 200gsm blue paper, and cut them up again into squares (now highlighted with a blue frame around) then arranged them onto hot laminate backing, and ran the two sheets through my hot laminator... then cut up the freshly laminated pieces, making sure to round the edges.
All that, just so the kids can have a slightly more fun time differentiating between dge, ge, tch, ch, c, k and so on... but I figure, since I'm doing this for at least 3 kids right now, and hopefully more in the future, this investment in time, effort and some money is well worth it... but I need to convince my aching back and shoulder muscles that this is true.... :P
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Stopped for the "time being"...
Received an SMS from Donny's mother today... saying that the children (my two godchildren, Donny and his sister Elvy) had been sick and was on medication and it made them drowsy, so she asked to stop lessons "for the time being"....
And I just can't help but feel that she just doesn't realise how important it is for Donny to catch up. He's already in K2, and there is still so much where he is lagging far far behind in... his reading skills are sadly lacking, and he will definitely have trouble coping with being in P1 next year.
So fine, it's just as well I suppose. My own Stacey has ballet exams coming up, and she's got extra coaching classes on Sundays from next week until mid-march... so I'll stop lessons then, for the time being, and if she cancels yet another class when the ballet exams are over, I think I shall just give up.
If his mother cannot be bothered to make his lessons a priority (and these are lessons for which others would have to fork out about $600+ a month), then there's really nothing I can say. As it is, I am only seeing him once a week, which for him, is sadly insufficient because he is lagging so far behind... and she can't even commit to that one hour a week. As the godmother, there is little I can do or say other than to pray for the child, and pray that he doesn't become one of those demoralised children who struggle so much with school that in the end, they seek out bad company and find themselves in trouble both in and out of school. Sigh.
And I just can't help but feel that she just doesn't realise how important it is for Donny to catch up. He's already in K2, and there is still so much where he is lagging far far behind in... his reading skills are sadly lacking, and he will definitely have trouble coping with being in P1 next year.
So fine, it's just as well I suppose. My own Stacey has ballet exams coming up, and she's got extra coaching classes on Sundays from next week until mid-march... so I'll stop lessons then, for the time being, and if she cancels yet another class when the ballet exams are over, I think I shall just give up.
If his mother cannot be bothered to make his lessons a priority (and these are lessons for which others would have to fork out about $600+ a month), then there's really nothing I can say. As it is, I am only seeing him once a week, which for him, is sadly insufficient because he is lagging so far behind... and she can't even commit to that one hour a week. As the godmother, there is little I can do or say other than to pray for the child, and pray that he doesn't become one of those demoralised children who struggle so much with school that in the end, they seek out bad company and find themselves in trouble both in and out of school. Sigh.
Kasser is alert...
It is so important for the children to be well-rested to be ready for their OG lesson, and Kasser is the perfect example. The previous week saw a very tired Kasser struggling to blend, spell and learn... this last week, after some intervention from daddy, saw a much more alert Kasser... he'd had more sleep, and he was more ready for class.
The 2nd lesson this week went reasonably well. He was a little more tired than the first lesson, but definitely less so than during last week's lessons, so it was so much better.
I let him play with the spelling cards again, and he enjoyed it very much. This coming week, I hope to take him into reading books and playing games, and building vocabulary. We'll see. So far, we're only into ch... so the next lesson will see us venturing into the Floss rule probably... and I also want to start him on syllabication soon.
It's only been about 8 lessons so far... but I think he's come a long way. But then again, he's in P2... he really needs to move on...
The 2nd lesson this week went reasonably well. He was a little more tired than the first lesson, but definitely less so than during last week's lessons, so it was so much better.
I let him play with the spelling cards again, and he enjoyed it very much. This coming week, I hope to take him into reading books and playing games, and building vocabulary. We'll see. So far, we're only into ch... so the next lesson will see us venturing into the Floss rule probably... and I also want to start him on syllabication soon.
It's only been about 8 lessons so far... but I think he's come a long way. But then again, he's in P2... he really needs to move on...
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