Phun with fonics

I'm one of the five or six people on earth who sort of liked diagramming, although it could get boring. I liked grammar, liked spelling bees, loved the dictionary. But I can understand the whole language route too. I'll add that my reading and grammar fix plus four years of Latin didn't help me learn a language as an adult, when I would get all caught up in that stuff, eventually being sharp at grammar and not able to converse. I can see that to some extent the whole language thing, plus hearing sounds and connecting them to the whole word, could be much more intuitive. I'm a visual learner, would be the one to grab the instructions so I could even begin to process them.

Alternate, probably, to both methods, much of my enjoyment of language is in the flow of it, the musicality of the sounds, the rhythm of the words, the associations words have without even the context of the text, and then the meanings of both the words and phrases, and eventually paragraphs or stanzas. Occasionally, logic appeals to me..

So I can really get behind those places that use a mix of methods.

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Ha! I took actual purple carrots from our garden to my conference! It was a great visual aid and opened the door to a lot of things I needed to talk to the teacher about.

And I'm a lot like that too, osso - it's how words are used that give them meaning. It's like music that way. Sometimes the wrong word has the right feel and its meaning becomes apparent by the way it's used.

The reason I was so flabbergasted by the conference is because Mo can do these things at home - the things that are giving him the "slow" lable at school.

Today I suggested that we play school; Mo would be the teacher and I would be the student. I modeled some of the behavior problems that the teacher had talked to me about and he corrected me - I KNOW he knows what is expected.

I got to ask all of the questions:

What letter are we learning today?
What sound does it make?
How do you write it?
What other words start with that letter?
What number are we doing today?
What numbers come before and after?
How do you write it?
What happens if you put a 1 before it (a 4 before it, a 9 before it)?
Can you draw a picture of yourself?
Can you put that person in a car?
What color is the car?
Is there a dog in the car too?
Draw the dog!

Okay. I was a pesky student but he could do this stuff.

Why can he do it at home and not at school?

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Maybe standards have changed...it's been six years since SonofEva was learning to read. I guess that makes me a dinosaur. Confused

Whatever.

They always told me you can't actually teach a child how to read. You have to just repeat stuff over and over again, and eventually it clicks in. They will figure it out when they're ready. I still believe that.

It seems to be true about a lot more things than reading.

About what Osso wrote...I must be one of those five or six people, too. I was taught phonics and was intensely visual, too. When phonics couldn't help me decipher a word, I relied on my memory of how it looked printed on the page. That's sort of a mix of phonics & whole language, come to think of it.

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Dunno.

So hard to say from this distance, assuming I could say from close-up, either.

Maybe something to ask a (close-up) counselor?

Could just be that he doesn't test well, for whatever reason. That is, when put on the spot in some situations he won't do it, but that's separate from not being able to do it. (And is its own issue.)

Really glad that you have reached an understanding with the teacher.

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First thought, performance fear...

Well, that's actually great news, he can do all those things.

Plus, I meant to say before, I am also freaked by the idea of being SLOW at reading when five. Way rigid... and I don't see how that thinking is useful.

I can see teaching everybody in class these things...

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I have no memory of how I learned to read. I think it was a mix, but just can't remember.

I found the Ohio standards online but it's hard to get at the pertinent stuff -- click this, click that, then a PDF file -- so will just type from my standards book. (It was published in 2005 and starts with "Education in Ohio is changing... the basis of this change is new academic standards, which define what your child should know and be able to do at every grade level." Gag, barf.)

First page is "Language Arts", subheading "Phonemic Awareness, Word Recognition And Fluency." Buncha stuff, but includes:

- Hear and say sounds in a word such as saying the beginning consonant of a word.

- Be able to read one-syllable and common words by sight.

oh and this is rich, in the "Reading applications" subheading

- Know the difference between fantasy (make believe) and reality (fact).

Sozlet's in trouble there. Shocked

(She might know, but will maintain that the guy in her head who helps her in various ways, named Jones, is quite real...)

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Boomer, Does Mo talk much at school? The reason I ask is that when I was a preschool teacher, I had a student who would not speak to me, or anyone really. I assumed she was slow. when we had our first P-T conferene, I was trying to be positive. Told her mom that Christina was using the building blocks, blah blah blah. I said something like she seems to be coming along. Her mom looked at me like I was the slow one. She said, "You know Christina can read, don't you?" I was dumbfounded. The kid was actually a genius.

It seems that Mo's teacher may be jumping to some major conclusions. I'd set up another conference and find out just what she's observing that leads her to think Mo's slow. He may not be showing her all that he's capable of. It may be a trust thing.

Regarding phonics: I don't have a problem with it, but it is just one tool.

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Agreed about a tool.

Oregon's site is much cooler, can cut and paste the pertinent part:

Quote:

Phonemic Awareness:
Analyze words, recognize words, and learn to read grade-level text fluently across the subject areas.

level icon Kindergarten
bullet EL.00.RE.07 Listen to spoken sentences and recognize individual words in a sentence. (4 Resources )
bullet EL.00.RE.08 Understand that the sequence of letters in a written word represents the sequence of sounds (phonemes) in a spoken word (alphabetic principle). (5 Resources )
bullet EL.00.RE.09 Given a spoken word, produce another word that rhymes with it. (5 Resources )
bullet EL.00.RE.10 Listen to one-syllable words and tell the beginning and ending sounds. (5 Resources )
bullet EL.00.RE.11 Given oral sets like "pan, pan, pen," identify the first two as being the same and the third as different. (5 Resources )
bullet EL.00.RE.12 Given oral sets like "sat, cap, run," identify the first two as sharing a same sound. (5 Resources )
bullet EL.00.RE.13 Orally blend two to three spoken sounds into recognizable words (e.g., /a/t/=at; /c/a/t/=cat). (5 Resources )
bullet EL.00.RE.14 Orally segment single syllable spoken words into their components (e.g., cat=/c/a/t/). (5 Resources )
CCG

http://www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/real/standards/Default.aspx

Boomer, could Mo do all the phonemic stuff at home, too?

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a few years after my mother retired, the ministry of ed pullea a complete 360 and decide that the old ways really were the best, there's now a return to basics and a multi year program of standardized tests (for all subjects) to check students progress

all the best to you and mo

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I've some real life friends who were taken to be slow but were extremely smart; come to think of it, as boys.

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I didn't say a phrase until I was four, didn't begin to read until I was six.
Calculating at two and a half books a week after age ten, I've read 6,784 books, but that's a low estimate. Not that quantity matters. Just to say, don't worry your sweet self. The only thing I'd worry about - I can say this at this distance - is having him turned off to reading.

My very sharp niece reads well but is not at all an avid reader, is to date much more socially oriented. I think part of it is from her dad's rather constant promotion of learning, learning, learning, reading aloud all the labels at all the museums.. instructional past where the average person would start to run away. She can access computer information but thinks of people like all of us posting here as nerds.

I haven't tried to change her, and she does read when she visits me. But... I fret that she, again, to date, doesn't have the attraction to so much available information.

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1950s

See Dick and Jane?

See Dick and Jane run.

See Dick and Jane run with Spot.

----------

2000s

See Dick with his semi-automatic assault rifle?

See Jane run....Run Jane, Run!

See Dick on the news?

See Dicks lawyer try to claim Mario Brothers and Hot Pockets are the cause.

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Quote:

I am not embarrassed or despondant over the fact that they want to put Mo in remedial reading - I'm just freaked out by the fact that they think he's "slow".

He's not "slow" overall. He needs extra help with phonics.

Remember, Mo has a greater need to succeed than many less-colorful kids. Does he still describe kindergarten as "lame"?

I approve of that Homework assignment. Sadly, there will be some children who have no Sight Words to show--in part because they have no adult who cares.

Hold your dominion.

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boomerang wrote:

Why can he do it at home and not at school?

Is this attention seeking behavior? As in if i dont do this stuff I get attention from the teacher.

boomer you are lucky that teacher and school have offered mo "extra" assistance. At my sons school I kept questioning my sons inability to spell/read/write. They insisted that "kids learn at different rates he'll come good" and he's not bad enough to warrent extra work.
Well he never did "come good" and has trouble with any non straight forward word. (thank god for spell checkers).

One thing we found valuable was to have him write a story then pick out the incorrectly spelled words. These went on a spelling list to be practiced on a nightly basis either spoken-and-spelled or written out.
Hes also had a problem in class with actually getting things finished.

My daughter has today officially finished highschool. (a few exams to go but yeah classes finished). drama, legalstudies, english literature and Swedish as well as the mandatory math english.

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Any updates?

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Boomer, have you ever looked into Waldorf education? You and Mo would probably be a good fit. It is private, so it might be pricey.

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Normally I would be biking off to fetch my little friend right this very minute but today he started his extra class so all of my horses are on hold.

I tried my best to make it sound very fun and exciting that he got this whole extra time at school but he was very nervous. Even though I explained it was only an extra half hour he made me pack him a lunch in case he got hungry.

<sigh>

<tick tick tick>

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Boomer, are you maybe worried that, with the short day and the size of the classroom, the teacher isn't getting a good sense of Mo's abilities?

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I like the pack a lunch in case he gets hungry part. Something good there if I can't quite put my finger on it -- coping rather than escaping, predictive skills, something concrete to do to allay nervousness, maybe all of the above.

Hope it goes well...

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Quote:

I like the pack a lunch in case he gets hungry part. Something good there if I can't quite put my finger on it -- coping rather than escaping, predictive skills, something concrete to do to allay nervousness, maybe all of the above.

I like that "pack a lunch". Our Hero is not going into The Wilderness unprepared.

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Phun with fonics

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