Oh what to do…..
Well today we did a little bit of school work, but not much. Bunny has been super tierd lately and I really don’t know why. Last night she was in bed by 7:15 (yes that early) and she didn’t get up until about 7:15. That 12 hours! I really don’t know why she should be tired by 10 am. I hope its just a growing thing, not something bad!
Anyway, we started our day working on some green sounds today and really just wasn’t clicking at all! Even sounds that i know I have presented to her three or four times, she still doesn’t get. I’m not sure if that is just a sign that she isn’t ready or if I’m doing something wrong. I really think that I am missing something, but I cant figure it out. Bunny has picked things up in a really different order then most Montessori albums suggest. I wanted to use the Dwyer System, but that seemed too tricky for her. It was almost too big of steps So I used a few of the regular PGB things, but that was too much work to keep trying to put stuff together (I don’t have that many objects!). So I’m not really sure what to do. Not to mention, I’m not sure what to do when Bunny looks at a word, sees something that looks like a double letter sound, but then it makes a different sounds then what she think it makes! Then she get confused and I’m not sure what to tell her! You see for me reading seems like the holy grail of schooling. If you cant read well and don’t love doing it, then life will be harder for you. Anyway, I guess I am looking for any hints or helpful ideas from you other moms out there who have taught a child to read all ready! What do you recommend? Any ideas would be great!
February 2, 2012 @ 3:10 am
“Bunny has picked things up in a really different order then most Montessori albums suggest.” I think that statement could be key. Following the child is crucial to success in Montessori, so trust your instincts and observations above how the albums say it should be. My oldest children love reading and learned to read in a Montessori school, but they were slower to pick up on it than some of the other children were. I worried and had I been teaching them I would have pushed them before they were ready. Luckily they had a teacher who respected and trusted the process and their own windows of readiness.
Looking at the above picture I might also suggest having only 4 phonograms out at one time, she may be overwhelmed.
All the best!
February 2, 2012 @ 2:51 pm
Thanks Coedith! I think that you are right. I am pushing a bit too much. She really has done well with her CVC words an I was hoping that it would just flow, but its not. Time seems like the thing I am not giving her!
I do ususally just give a few, but I was see what she rememebered. I think you are right, it was too much!
February 2, 2012 @ 8:10 am
Right. First of all I would say don’t panic. One of the advantages of homeschooling is that you can ignore the spurious ages that govornments and school systems say children should be reading or doing anything else. In Europe they concentrate on speaking well and learning the sounds but not the letters until the age of 7. Maybe Bunny is just not on the same timetable?
Secondly, I would suggest that you observe Bunny and see what she does know. Does she understand that each letter has a name, a phonic sound/s and they can be combined to make new sounds depending on the combination? If she does not understand any of those concepts then you need to go back to those pieces of work.
Not Montessori, but is synthetic phonics, which is what the Montessori system is – google Letters and Sounds and read it up. It is the phonics system that we use in the UK and it is sound.
Next, bear in mind that Montessori got it wrong about how children learn to read, particularly English which is only 40% phonic. The latest research is showing that children do not learn by putting together the “building blocks” of phonemes but by recognising known phonemes in known words. Therefore, it is important that children know what it is that they are reading before they attmept. In practice, this means that, depending on the child the teacher needs to make sure that the child recognises every word in the book in isolation, or can decode it using secure phonemic knowledge before attempting to read a sentence.
When I have an insecure reader I often read them the book first, talking about the pictures, what is happening and asking questions about what the child understands before the child reads me the book. We point out tricky words and have the matching card on the table in front of us to refer back to. We work out the tricky words or identify them as sight words and therefore don’t break it down, just say it (which is not to say that the word is a non-decodable word but just that sight words need to be recognised and said and not broken down). Only then do we read the book. If a child cannot read a word then I supply it because reading is not just about decoding, it is also about comprehension and enjoyment. My rule for a reading book is that the child should be able to read 95% of the words on each page. By that I mean look and say the word, without sounding it out. If she is sounding out more than that then the book is too hard.
I find the phrase and sentence strips are a great stepping stone between words and books and the child gets the point that books carry meaning! I could send you a file of these if you like?
Finally, I would only introduce one/two diagraphs at a time. Use a three period lesson to introduce it/them. Bear in mind that one three period lesson does not have to take place all in one lesson. Only move on when youare sure that the child has taking in each period.If therefore you are on the show me stage (period 2) and she isn’t consistantly showing you correctly, or if you want to give it another day and come back to it the next day and see if it has stuck before moving on the the “what is this?” stage then that is your call. I often do that.
Oh, and one last finally – little and often is vital. If you introduce a phoneme but then don’t have a school day for three days then even if Bunny did get it she will have lost it again by the time you go back into the school room. Five minutes a day is better than half an hour twice a week.
Let me know if I can help you any more!
February 2, 2012 @ 2:59 pm
Anna, That is really helpful. I think that yesterday I was panicing alot! 🙂 I guess it happens sometimes. She is good at decoding, and she is writing phonetic words all the time. So, most of the time sounding out isnt a problem. She also has some readers (They are the Miss Rhonda Readers written by a Montessori Teacher, so they are a good one for decodable words). She can read almost all of these, but sometimes she stuggles. Stentence strips would be helpful. I would love your file if you dont mind sending it. I think too that you have agood point with doing a bit a day. Maybe we will do it right after a meal since sometimes we arent in our school room (if they are on the table, no one can get away!). I guess we will back up a bit, and work more consistently. Thanks so much for your advice!
February 2, 2012 @ 2:36 pm
Ditto what Annicles said.
This will be too long for one comment..I’ll split it.
Also I want to say that learning the double sandpaper letters shouldn’t technically be more difficult than learning the singles. It’s the same process. What you may be noticing is the difference all of the reinforcement she gets from the “rest of the world” is having on her retention of the singles…TV, toys, etc., Although, I think its possible that waiting to introduce the doubles (rather than mixing them among the singles) might make the child process them differently, and perhaps more slowly. I also think that the one thing that does make the doubles more difficult are that so many of the sounds only occur in the middle of words. How sure are you of her word analysis abilities? The Dwyer steps are not big if all of the sound game steps are taken in order. But, if they get through some reading and movable alphabet work without being able to isolate a “middle sound” well, they could get stuck. In the activity pictured, did the objects she was matching have the target sounds in a consistent place in the word? I start them with sound sorts between two sandpaper letters, then three, then four, etc., As you increase the number, the level of difficulty obviously goes up. I also make sure that they know “where” in the word the sound will be. We will sort beginning sounds, middle sounds, or ending sounds. With the full complement of double-letters I think it is nearly impossible to be consistent with that so I am guessing that some of the objects had the sound at the beginning, some at the end, some in the middle. That increases the difficulty as well. So, the activity pictured would be about as difficult as you could humanly make that activity.
Another thing, remember that in the Dwyer pamphlet that the object boxes, puzzle words, and readers are all parallel exercises…not sequential. She states, “At this stage it is very helpful to have also little books containing only words which the children are able to read. We are hoping to be able to produce such books and I am very grateful to those who have already sent in suitable stories and we should be grateful to have many more. Wherever possible the little booklets should be illustrated. It is very simple for the directresses to make books for their own groups.”
February 2, 2012 @ 3:28 pm
Thanks so much for your comments! I think you are so right about retaining the the sounds. Everything teaches the main 26 sounds, but nothing teaches blends. I never thought about it that way.
She does well playing all the different eye spy game and she also writes words really well too by listening to the sounds. So I know that we got that down at least. I dont think that the Dwyer steps are too big either, but Bunny is really easily overwhelmed by anything. Even hearing me tell her to do a few things can overwhelm her sometimes. It just is something that she does and it helps when I try to make things in baby baby steps.
I tried making my own booklets a bit and Bunny just wanted to know why she couldnt read a real book. 🙂 So I have some readers that she is pretty good with. I was able to find some Miss Rhonda Readers written by a Montessori teacher and they are a little trciky sometimes, but mainly the right amout of sight and phontic words! But I think that making some more would be a good idea.
February 2, 2012 @ 2:36 pm
It can be very frustrating at this stage to pull a reader off the shelf at the library and recognize that your child, at this stage, can’t read any of it. 90% of the readers at our library are heavily reliant on sight words…very little is phonetic. The “phonics practice readers” are really compatible for single letter sounds and are compatible for everything else once you get to the reading folder stage. But, she really should have several readers per week. This is why I make my own. I know he can read 95% of the words on the page and that the reader will be focusing on a particular sound or sounds that I am trying to drive home that week. This week our readers focused on all the spellings of “long I.” Bunny just needs readers that use mostly single letter sounds but focus on one of the double sounds in each reader. Ideally two-three words on each page will use the target sound. Keep this up until she is reading with all 40 key sounds quite well, THEN you can introduce alternate spellings and pronunciations. This doesn’t “just happen” in the Dwyer method, but rather through the phonogram dictionary, reading folders, and WORD STUDY. Word study gets only a brief mention in the pamphlet, but it is implied that it is important ongoing work. Dwyer probably doesn’t get into it because she was focusing on the more “primary activities” and also because word study is pretty standard in Montessori elementary and perhaps she didn’t feel it needed a lot of explanation. When you get to that stage you’ll want to get organized to make sure that you are exposing her to all the extra spellings and trends. Words their Way is good for this as is the Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading that I use. I think a lot of people chalk up almost everything as “puzzle words” when really many exceptions have patterns (like the long-I sounds in kind, mind, rind….child, mild, wild) During word study you will sort out these patterns.
Obviously she is going to run into words by accident in a reader or in her real environment that don’t follow the sounds that she knows. Believe me, you are more upset about it than she is! Just be very matter of fact and explain it as briefly as possible. For example, if she reads “zoom” with the “oo” sound as in “book.” You would say, “You’re right. ‘oo’ usually says ‘oo’ as in ‘book’ but sometimes it makes another sound ‘ue’ as in ‘zoo’. In this word it makes the ‘ue’ sound. Now try.”
I don’t pre-read the readers for Kal-El like Annicles does, but I do prepare him. We learn any new puzzle words first. We read a list of words that use the target sound. When we start the reader he is technically able to read 100% of it even though he’s never seen the reader before. I don’t rush him to start each page. There is usually a big pause as we turn each page because he does naturally what Annicles said…he looks at the picture, “wonders” about it, asks some questions, makes a hypothesis about what he thinks might happen, etc.,
If he misreads a word, I don’t correct the word by saying it for him. I restate the “rule” each time. Usually its, “the E at the end makes the vowel say its name” and then he corrects his own word. Or, it could be a sentence like the one above regarding ‘zoom.’ Sometimes, but rarely, he will read a double letter as two singles. “p u s h.” Then I say, sh together say “shhhh”. Then, HE fixes what he read.
Don’t let her see you be exasperated when words don’t follow the rules. You don’t want to give her the impression that reading is hard or frustrating. When a word breaks the rules all Bunny wants and needs is information.
Like Annicles said, we read EVERY DAY no matter what.
February 2, 2012 @ 3:43 pm
So if I make little readers for each of the double letter sounds, do I present all of the sounds first, or does she just need to know a few? You said that this work is done as paralle work right? I think that makes sence so that she has a chance to see it, then to see it used while she is learning. I think that I get overwhelmed and freaked out a bit when it comes to working with different spellings and pronunciations becuase I am a really terrible speller. I read really well, but I cant spell worth a crap. This means that while I can see a word and know what it says, I really cant spell it correctly. (In fact there are times when I will reword a whole sentence to avoid using a word I cant spell without the spell check). This is something that I really want to help Bunny avoid. I want her to love reading, but be able to spell well too. Thanks for all of your advice. I will start working with the sounds daily, write some little booklets, prepare her for hard words first, and keep her reading. It helps to know that you just tell them the sounds that they are having trouble with. I think that sometimes she get frustrated when I tell her to sound it out over and over. If I sound it out with her, she gets it by what I say. If she sounds it out alone, she will add sounds that arent there sometimes and I dont know why. I think she is a suditory learner. Thanks so much again!
February 2, 2012 @ 6:52 pm
The readers work is parallel to object boxes and puzzle words. They are not usually parallel with the sandpaper letters. Since you didn’t teach the doubles with the singles (I think) then your situation is a little different. I would introduce a sandpaper letter, do a sound bin with it, do a sound sort with it (against a single letter or another double once you are further down the road), then do a reader that uses it. Then, do ANOTHER reader that uses it. Future readers should include that sound even when they are focusing on another so that they accumulate and you don’t just stop practicing the sounds once she’s learned one. Soo…lets say you do a couple readers with “ai.” Next, you’ll do a couple readers with “ee.” Your “ee” readers will contain a lot of “ee” sounds, but also some “ai” words too so she doesn’t lose that skill.
I agree with The girl who painted trees in that we strongly disliked almost all the readers we found until we found the “Phonics Practice Readers” and “The Ordinary Parents Guide.” These were the only readers that actually had “plots” most of the time. Phonics practice readers has several parallel “sets”…the more practice you need, the more sets you do . We own the “B” sets and borrow the “A” sets from our library. We haven’t needed the “C” sets because I also make readers.
Learning to spell is an ongoing process that will take years. Don’t worry about all the different spellings yet. Maybe try getting the “Ordinary Parent’s guide” from the library so you can see some of the pronunciation rules. Even then, its a reading book…not a spelling book.
February 2, 2012 @ 7:31 pm
This book sounds like a must to look for! Thanks for the suggestion!
What happened to us with the sounds was that I found Montessori when Bunny was just about 5 years old. At this time she knew a lot of her letter sounds and names. So she never really did much work with the sandpaper letters. Some months after this is when I found all of your posts about the Dwyer Method and decised to try it. With all the focus being on the sounds games, we played those for a long time! She did really well and when we got through those, I started showing her the double letter sounds, mixed with the regular ones she knew. She hated it! So I back off a bit and waited. Then she started discovering her ablilty to write. So We went with that a bit and I kept giving her a few presentations of the double sounds. Some she got some she didnt. I think that this idea with some sound boxes and sort will work for her. I am going to be workingn on them tonight! I hope that this is what we need to get over the hump! I will look into the readers though. If the library doenst have them ,I may just buy them becuase I think she will like reading books that are “real” vs. my homemade ones! She siad it makes her feel grown up! Thanks for telling me what to do. I am in one of those spots where i just cant seem to figure it out! You are the best!
February 2, 2012 @ 4:23 pm
I can’t help too much. Bear just naturally picked it up. I do know though that like Bunny, she did not like the phonetic readers and just wanted to read real books. I went to the library and perused our own and looked for the “baby” books and picture books with as little writing as possible. I would co-read with her so she would read all the cvc words for me and I would read the more challenging words slowly so she would see the process of breaking down those words. Also, many times as I would read (any book) to her and get to a word with the double letter phonogram, I would stop and show her the phonogram and say, “look, these letters together say ____. Do you hear that sound in this word? Listen again.” By modeling this way repeatedly, she picked up the phonograms (for reading) very quickly. Spelling is another story and I intend to continue to use All About Spelling for that. It’s great so far and has really helped Bear internalize spelling rules like when to use double letter ck at the end of words. But I digress. Bear developed her reading fluency by co-reading with me. Every child is different though. You just have to find what works best for Bunny and you combined. Making readers would have been too much work for me with J-jo and everything else on my plate and I knew that Bear wouldn’t have even wanted to read them. We too read EVERYDAY and especially when she was at the sounding out stage.
February 2, 2012 @ 7:35 pm
I like the idea of co-reading! I will try that too! I think that poor Bunny is in for some serious reading work time with me! But I think that reading together will feel more like fun rather then “work”. Showing her the words with the double letter sounds will be really a great idea too! She like to see why she is learning things. She is really practical and doing something without a visible result is just silly to her! I;m so glad that Bear learned to read so well! I really will be looking into All About Spelling in the fall for Bunny too! I will probably have questions then too! Thanks for your help!