struggling with unit 7 and above with Y1 son
Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 9:23 am
This is the first time I've posted on the board and I'd like to say a huge thank you to Debbie for helping my family so much. We have genetic hearing loss in my family and I've have been very worried about how my children would cope at mainstream school. One thing I no longer have to worry about is whether they are able to learn their synthetic phonics as with your brilliant course they have been picking them up very quickly at home with just a few minutes teaching each day.
I have four children under 6, and am currently using your course for my oldest son (6 yesterday and in Y1) and my daughter (age 4 and YR). We have been working in 3 day cycles, starting on day 1 with 'sound book activity sheets' for the new phoneme, the following day we revise them with the 'picture posters' and on day 3 we go through the 'I can read, write and draw' sheets together. My son is on level 7 and my daughter having benefitted from watching my son use the course is already on unit 6 although she is not 5 till August.
Their progress has been wonderful and they have enjoyed the course very much, I can see the satisfaction it brings them to be able to read well. I now seem to have hit a problem though as we have started unit 7. We no longer have 'picture posters' which my son misses as we used to play a game covering up the pictures and uncovering them once they'd read the word, they seemed to like it! I know they shouldn't need pictures to help them to decode, but it was a small reward that seemed to be worth having. Secondly, the 'I can read write and draw text has changed to just reading, and the text is very heavy going for a 5/6 year old. My son has lost interest in reading these because the text is just a bit too grown up for him and is very long.
I think these texts must have been written with older pupils in mind? We would love to keep going with the course but having worked so brilliantly for the first 6 units, we now seem to have ground to a bit of a halt. At the moment we are just doing the 'sounds activity sheets' on day one, followed by the 'miniposters' on day 2 and I'm at a bit of a loss what to do on day 3 because my son just looks despondently at the I can read sheets, reads a couple of lines then says he's had enough, and I can see what he means.
Obviously the initial course has been designed to cover a broad spectrum of learners. I was just wondering if you might be able to develop a course for very young learners going beyond unit 6, including the original layout of 'picture posters' and 'I can read, write and draw sheets'?
Once again thank you for all you have helped my family to achieve,
Michelle Moorhead
I have four children under 6, and am currently using your course for my oldest son (6 yesterday and in Y1) and my daughter (age 4 and YR). We have been working in 3 day cycles, starting on day 1 with 'sound book activity sheets' for the new phoneme, the following day we revise them with the 'picture posters' and on day 3 we go through the 'I can read, write and draw' sheets together. My son is on level 7 and my daughter having benefitted from watching my son use the course is already on unit 6 although she is not 5 till August.
Their progress has been wonderful and they have enjoyed the course very much, I can see the satisfaction it brings them to be able to read well. I now seem to have hit a problem though as we have started unit 7. We no longer have 'picture posters' which my son misses as we used to play a game covering up the pictures and uncovering them once they'd read the word, they seemed to like it! I know they shouldn't need pictures to help them to decode, but it was a small reward that seemed to be worth having. Secondly, the 'I can read write and draw text has changed to just reading, and the text is very heavy going for a 5/6 year old. My son has lost interest in reading these because the text is just a bit too grown up for him and is very long.
I think these texts must have been written with older pupils in mind? We would love to keep going with the course but having worked so brilliantly for the first 6 units, we now seem to have ground to a bit of a halt. At the moment we are just doing the 'sounds activity sheets' on day one, followed by the 'miniposters' on day 2 and I'm at a bit of a loss what to do on day 3 because my son just looks despondently at the I can read sheets, reads a couple of lines then says he's had enough, and I can see what he means.
Obviously the initial course has been designed to cover a broad spectrum of learners. I was just wondering if you might be able to develop a course for very young learners going beyond unit 6, including the original layout of 'picture posters' and 'I can read, write and draw sheets'?
Once again thank you for all you have helped my family to achieve,
Michelle Moorhead