BUG CAR!!!

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The flooding of the streets around Boston with new VW bugs, the whole Bug Car!!!! game has cropped up again. Now, my niece kept yelling BUGCAR!, but half the time I saw none. It dawnded on me that she was calling a different type of car (consistently) bug car as well as the new VW bugs. I told her that that other type of car wasn't a bug car. She continued and said, "Mom says it is a bug car." I continued to explain why it wasn't. She persisted and then I met my sister and the whole gang in the North End last weekend where it came up again. Sis told me I was being a pain-in-the-a$$ by 'obsessing that the other car wasn't a bug car. I insisted that it was not, indeed, a bug car, but an entirely different car. It is plain and simple: the 'other' is NOT a bug car.

Anyway, it brings up an interesting point (probably among many others) about when to correct and when not to correct a child.

For example: we are being trained to let children 'pretend spell' phonetically without correction, except for, at some point, correction to the selected 'core words'. And then, eventually, we start correcting all of the mispelled words. We want kids to learn via their own paths of interest, but we want to guide them along the path of knowledge to a lesson we want them to learn.

So. Am I being a P-i-t-A? Does it matter at all that I want her to make the distinction? I guess it doesn't matter about bug cars......

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There seem to be a couple of different points there. One is about establishing rules for a game, and then keeping the rules. It's not that she can't distinguish between the two kinds of cars, it's that she WANTS to include the other kind of car.

I think that's a different category than when kids can't yet make that kind of distinction, or don't have the ability to implement your correction.

(We've been through the same thing with "Slugbug," as we call it. Sozlet thought that P.T. Cruisers should be included, too. I said no, they aren't Slugbugs. She came around soon enough. It's a game, with rules. You can make a NEW game with NEW rules if you want to, of course.)

Anyway, a big part of teaching is finding that line -- when correction is helpful and not futile. Never correct and they won't learn -- over-correct and you'll frustrate them (and they won't learn).

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Mmmmm.... I guess I didn't know the rules - or even than any rules had been established. It was really funny when my niece's camp friend said, "that's not a Bug Car!" I looked at Silvi, she looked at me and neither of us said anything.

Silvi has been writing words, phonetically, for quite a while. I read them phonetically, I get the story. But, there are word-inventions that I simply can not make out and she gets frustrated when I can't. At the sticky-points, I have been telling her that if she really wants people to understand what she is writing, she has to write the words the way everyone else knows them.

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This is the game I played when I was a kid, and, thanks to the new bugs, we're playing again:

http://www.msu.edu/~steinbr1/vw/slugbug.htm

I dunno, I think I might say something like, "Well that's not really a Bug Car -- only VW Bugs [a little explanation] are Bug Cars. We can change the rules to include some other cars if you want to, though."

With the writing, I think I'd probably do about what it sounds like you're doing. Go ahead and praise the positives, like, "Wow, I love this story! The part where the princess figures out how to get out of the castle was really good. Thanks for helping me out with the parts I couldn't read. You're getting better and better at writing in a way that I don't even need your help to figure it out, I can see just by reading it -- that's so cool! I'm sure [teacher name] will help you figure this stuff out as soon as school starts [etc.]"

As in, there is plenty to praise in the fact that she's writing phonetically, that's cool, you can go ahead and praise that while still honestly getting in there what she needs to work on -- with the implicit expectation that she'll get there, of course.

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The BugGame is something she plays with her family, so I'd think they have dibs on the rules.

How is Silvi's reading? Does she notice that what she sees is not the same as what she writes?

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ehBeth wrote:

The BugGame is something she plays with her family, so I'd think they have dibs on the rules.

That's a good point. Sounds like they already changed the rules, which is their perogative.

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Bethie - I did cease to dissent because she had a different set of rules with her mom. The issue is that I didn't KNOW she had a set of rules with her mom, so Silvi knows what I think already. So it's become this eye contact game. eh, not a big deal.

Soz, some day I might be that Mrs Somebody [teacher name].

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You WILL.

What sort of timeline are you looking at?

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Oh, you'll be Mrs Somebody all right.

No dooot abooot it.

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Oh and if you're asking how you'd help her figure it out if you were the teacher, lots of things. Give 'em lots to read, have them make up stories and then caption them (with proper spelling and grammar) yourself at the bottom of blank pieces of paper and have them illustrate their stories and make them into little books, pounce on each success, "Hey, you figured out that "zoo" is spelled "z-o-o", great job!!", praise creative failures, "you'd certainly think that "enough" would be spelled "enuf", wouldn't you, good guess", and on and on 'til they've got it.

Reading a lot and feeling free to express oneself -- in whatever way works -- seem to be leading indicators in writing literacy.

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er, make that Ms. Somebody. The Mrs. bit has NO timeline to speak of.

The Ms. Somebody will be in action in less than 2 years.

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sozobe wrote:

Oh and if you're asking how you'd help her figure it out if you were the teacher, lots of things. Give 'em lots to read, have them make up stories and then caption them (with proper spelling and grammar) yourself at the bottom of blank pieces of paper and have them illustrate their stories and make them into little books, pounce on each success, "Hey, you figured out that "zoo" is spelled "z-o-o", great job!!", praise creative failures, "you'd certainly think that "enough" would be spelled "enuf", wouldn't you, good guess", and on and on 'til they've got it.

Reading a lot and feeling free to express oneself -- in whatever way works -- seem to be leading indicators in writing literacy.

Having learned a second language and bits of a third and fourth, I know a lot about the problems with English. I do take that "good guess, but english is sometimes tricky" approach. She is writing more than she is reading. I'm still at the point where I'm trying to get her to read more, the writing she is confident enough at for some tinkering.

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Sounds like you're doing all the right things, and that you should just keep doing 'em.

Oooh one more thing, modeling. I remember that as being huge when I was studying this. Go ahead and read in front of her if you want her to read. Go ahead and write. Etc. Both as a concept ("someone I respect is doing this, hmm I wanna do it too") and as instruction ("oh, look how she spelled 'enough'"), it's really helpful.

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Modeling is still huge..... I don't do enough of it!

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ok.... while modeling, should I ever (at any time) pretend I have to sound out a word? Or do I just explain/point to why I spoke out a word the way I did?

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Hmm. I think with modeling you don't want to overdo it -- you could make teachable moments out of the whole shebang, but then it kind of loses its value as modeling (as distinct from an outright lesson).

I think you'd just kind of do what comes naturally -- answer questions if asked, but otherwise pretty much do what you'd do even if she wasn't there.

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Sounds good....

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BUG CAR!!!

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