Julia had a tough time working last week. She had some hitting and yelling issues at school, and at home she did not want to do work. Yesterday, I took a step back and worked very gently. We read a few pages of Sagwa and Julia read all of the sight words that she knows. Then I drew some dinosaurs and Julia wrote their names with me sounding them out. We also wrote words and then turned them into drawings of the object. She had fun with this.
Regarding sight words: I may have written this before but I don't feel like checking back. Christy checked Julia on the sight words that I told her that Julia knew at home. Julia knew 6 of the 30 words that has no trouble names at home.
Today, after super Julia and I got to work. She did not object to doing work but I did remind her about her goal of getting 30 stickers so that she can earn the little pet shop fitness center. Doing her work tonight Julia stayed on task and was not distracted at all. She was calm. Watching her work, I could almost imagine this girl doing absolutely anything that she wanted to.
What we did:
1. Go through our sight words
2. Made a February calendar
3. Wrote a paragraph. This is the first time that Julia wrote more than one sentence about one topic. I am cleaning up the spelling. Julia wrote: "I saw a Chinese dragon. It had black eyes. Dragon danced. Now, the dragon sleep." I did encourage her to keep writing about the dragon.
4. Go through A-M for sounds. She was very serious and enthusiastic about doing this -- a few days ago, it was teeth pulling work. I pushed her further and paired a short A with all of the consonants we've reviewed so far. She could make both sounds without trouble (B-A, B-A, etc.) but I was the one who had to do the blending of the sounds. Working like this brought up an almost ancient fear. I remember very well learning to sound out words in first grade. I did very well with sight words and other memorized things, but sounding out words was way beyond my grasp. David has been known to say that this is why I am such a terrible speller, but that is another story. Anyway, I remember the moment of discovery of releasing the consonant and making the vowel sound. I remember the fear that I would never be able to do it and the elation that I did it.
Pretty spectacular.
1 comment:
I'm a new reader to your blog, so I have not read many entries yet.
My son is 8 yrs old and he's been home a year now.
We used phonics with him, but there was a set of flashcards that were helpful from Trend,
www.trendenterprises.com,
that are called "Word Families".
I purchased them at a local Teacher Supply store. They are grouped in rhyimg words.
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