We
agreed to teach Steve 3 times a week for one hour each time. We also informed
his parents that we would be able to teach him only until the end of March.
From day
one (25.1.2015) we started writing out 5 Dolch words a day and asked his mother
to make sure he knows how to spell those words on his next visit.
After
the 4th lesson on 1.2.2015, we were not satisfied with Steve’s
progress and requested his parents to send him over for additional 3 lessons
per week. We were afraid that Steve would not be able to read by the end of
March. We came to this decision as Steve would simply make out words without
attempting to sound out the words. We believe that this is a coping mechanism that he uses to ‘trick’ his teachers into believing he could read. Despite us
telling Steve not to guess words and that the words can be learned to be sounded
out he kept guessing words. As I have mentioned in another post, bad habits are
not easy to change.
By 13th
February, however, we were confident that we would be able to get him to read by
the end of March. After 13.2.2015 Steve came only 3 times a week. On the
six extra days, we decided to just read to him and he did enjoy those 6 days as
we read story books which were slightly above grade level. These books were
above grade level for reading but not above his vocabulary level. He could
understand all the words that were read to him.
By 12th
March 2015, after 26 lessons Steve could already read quite well. He has only
memorized 100 of the 220 Dolch words as of this date (no Dolch words were
introduced on the 6 extra days). By the time he finishes the remaining 120
words in the Dolch word list, we are sure he will be able to read fluently.
One of
the ways we teach him to read besides using his phonics skills and the Dolch
words is by guiding him to look for letters in a new word that he is already
familiar with. I am sure my friend Jane from the LinkedIn group will frown upon
this method as it probably is not in her ‘Science of Reading’. However, when
using this tactic I am reminded of the late Premier Deng Xiao Peng’s famous
words:
“It does not matter if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice”.
Illustrations:
1. When
we come to a new word like say; chair – we ask him if there is anything here
that he already knows and he sounds out
air. We then ask him to close the letters ch with a piece of cut-out paper.
We then
ask him to move to the left and now include the letter ‘h’ and its phoneme and
he easily says ‘hair’. Now remove the paper and say the word and he confidently
says ‘chair’.
2. Broom
– We ask him to select ‘oo’ and close the br and m. He will sound out the
phoneme for ‘oo’, then take off the paper from the right and he will say ‘oom’
move one step to the left and he easily says ‘room’ and with the next step he
reads ‘broom’.
In this
way, we have taught our students the ‘br’ sound (consonant blend) and one of the
many ‘ch’ sounds (consonant digraph) without having to teach them as a
combination. After a few such examples they will automatically learn the sounds
of such combinations.
I don’t
want to have to burden these children with learning the consonant digraphs,
consonant blends, long vowel words, short vowel words, diphthongs,
r-controlled words, schwa and whatever else there are in the English language.
He can learn these in school or on his own at a later stage.
I am
sure there are readers here who learned all the above terms much later in life.
As such why flood the minds of reluctant and struggling kids with these terms?
Note: Unfortunately
not all words in the English language can be taught in the above manner. We,
however, tell our students that this is one of the options they can use to
decode new words. Within a short period they can look at a word and do the
above exercise without the use of cut out paper or their fingers. With repeated
exposure to a word the word becomes a sight word and the child can read it
effortlessly.
The above is a Chinese saying "shí shì qiú shì". It is a historically
established expression (chengyu). Originally,
it described an attitude toward study and research. It means to be practical
and realistic.
Additional
notes: There are many combinations that the child will now easily pick up as he
has been reminded time and again that letters and even combinations of letters have more than one sound. For example, when you read out the word said
in a lesson and later the word maid he will automatically know the sound of the ‘ai’
combination. If he were to see a new word like raid, paid and laid he would read
it with no prompting required. As such there is no need to get bogged down by
teaching a child what is not required to be learned at this age. I am not sure
if in a written test the child will be asked questions like “Write down 4
consonant blends”. In this case one may need to teach a kid these terms.
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