Ok, so, I have been slacking, and if I do have any faithful readers out there, I am so sorry! This has truly been a crazy summer. I have 2 kids in “ESY” or Extended School Year. My 3 year old (almost 4 yo) son, gets on his bus at 7:35 am. That is pretty darn early! Five days a week, for 6 weeks!
Amy goes 3 days a week, for 45 minutes, from 8:15-9 am. I am very lucky. My husband drops her off on the way to work, and a neighbor (whose son is in her reading group) brings her home 2 days a week. I pick her up, just once a week. So, that works out.
But, I am a creature of habit. I feel like I waste my day, by not showering and getting dressed, so, I wake myself up at 6 am, to do so. I will have about 2 1/2 weeks of reprieve (minus the one day a week that I work). So, this is not a restfull summer! And, when I do nap, my lovely 3 year old son pokes me, and tells me, “Mommy, WAKE UP!” Darn kid! And, I must say, that I have been known to stay up too late. (hobbies, you know, scrapbooking and my new one, well, I only went once, Basketmaking- how sad is that? I am trying to get started on playing golf, too)
Anyway, I digress, as I sit here, drinking coffee at 3 pm, as I am going to another class tonight, discussing Dyslexia, symptoms and solutions. But, here is the rest of my first summer enrichment, and in a few weeks, we can go off topic and discuss Wine Appreciation, for beginners….(needed it to counteract the Orton Gillingham stuff)
The second part of the class continued to cover the different types of syllables in words. There are 6 types. And, apparently not all teacher education programs in colleges, even teach this to aspiring teachers. They belong in this “CLOVER”. Once you know the different types of syllables, you can pretty much help a dyslexic person, break down the word to read it, or to help them spell. I am not going over all of these right now, but, if there is any interest, I can write about it.
(I asked our instructor, why the teachers don’t even learn about this in school, as it would seem appropriate for them to learn, in order to teach reading…she had no idea, as she never had it until after she became a teacher, and agreed that it was silly that it wasn’t taught in all programs)
We worked on syllabication, too. How to break words apart into their syllables, and yes, there are many different patterns, that good readers can do with out difficulty. So, then we learned how to teach this to our children/students.
Then, we got to watch a pretend “Texas Scottish Rite” OG based lesson. And, it is systematic, and builds upon what was learned already, to what needs to be taught. And, it really works.
We also played some card games that our instructor brought. They were so much fun! Quibbler, and My Word. I am going to definitley look for them.
I am sorry that this is not as detailed as my last post, but, I did want to say, how great it was to really be able to learn how to carry over some techniques used in school, and gives me great strategies to use at home, to help Amy!
If I learn anything exciting tonight, I will let you all know!
I’m fascinated that they don’t regularly teach what we call “sounding it out” (breaking down into syllables) in schools – over here it seems to be one of the staples of teaching to read. I’m dyslexic too, and we are due to have a child in Dec, so I’m really interested in your blog.
The Broken Man
http://theblogofabrokenman.blogspot.com/