Post by robinr on Jun 29, 2014 20:16:09 GMT
My first student is one of Appleton's newest refugees. She expressed frustration at being unable to write in English and wanted to work on her reading. By assessing her skills, I discovered that because she had all her schooling, through university level, in French, she kept trying to use French sounds to both read and write, and to use French grammar forms, such as putting a descriptive adjective after the noun instead of in front of it as we do in English. I decided that we needed to step back to square one, first learning the alphabet letters and sounds (again, she kept wanting to do many in French). The consonants aren't as bad as the vowels, because more of them are the same or similar in French. But vowels are very different. So we are working our way through the short vowels, first working in short a families (e.g. -ad, -at), then just any short a word in CVC(consonant vowel consonant) or CCVC or CVCC form, then sentences with short a words. One thing I want to share with anyone else who wants to do something similar with a student: Use YouTube song videos. Most people will get the song "in their heads" after a couple of playings, and this not only helps the student remember, but it's something I use as a reminder in later sessions when we run across an unfamiliar word with that sound. For example, this song www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tif2a8vXeAA and its repetition of a - a - a - a which I "sing"/repeat as often as necessary when tackling a word she struggles with. So far I have identified YouTube videos for all the short vowels. There are MANY, but I stick with ones that repeat the sound as much as possible, as well as ones that have enough of a "bounce" that they might catch in one's brain/become an "ear worm".
If anyone else does phonics work and has ideas to share, I'd love to hear them. I would also be willing to share all the lists I've made and the web sites I've found helpful.
If anyone else does phonics work and has ideas to share, I'd love to hear them. I would also be willing to share all the lists I've made and the web sites I've found helpful.