Have you ever had "this" conversation? If you are the parent of a gifted child, the answer is probably yes. If you are the parent of a homeschooler, the answer is more often than not yes. If you are the parent of a gifted homeschooled child - the answer is definitely "YES"! It is often hard for many people to come to terms with what it is like to homeschool a gifted child. The is particularly true for young gifted children. Due to asynchronous development, it is not uncommon for gifted young children to have a curriculum plan that looks like Frankenstein went and got a PhD in Education. When I talk of our children doing both phonics and physics, people look at me like I have 2 heads, and only because the third just fell off and dropped onto the floor!
But, it is our life, so I thought I would write about. This isn't so much for others, but just to help me organize our lives. And yes, it is June and I am preparing for Fall. It will honestly take me that long to get everything organized. Mainly because with gifted young children - you are constantly balancing developmentally appropriate with age appropriate. Writing is limited by fine motor skills. Reading is limited by vision development and font size. Diving into an online "live" course is limited by nap time! And no matter how open minded another robot "geek" is, it just isn't cool to say your best buddy and collaboration partner when it comes to robot design is five years old - especially when you are 12! So, we are always walking a tightrope, finding resources that will work with our lives. Deciding just how "deep" we can go with certain issues. This is why we have chosen to stay clear of history for a bit. Not because I deem history unimportant, but because I know the types of questions my three year old daughter asks, and she isn't emotionally prepared to handle the "why" of slavery or war or human sacrifice or many of the other issues that would take place when we studied anything from American history to Egyptian history.
So, what are we doing?
This fall we will be doing the following subjects:
Intensive Phonics
Nature Science
Physics
Mandarin
Music Appreciation
Each child will also continue in their musical instruments (one on drums, one on violin, one on piano)
We will be doing one weekly coop (we think) and one occasional coop for field trips and special events.
We will also be doing some "specials"
Bible/Ethics/Moral Development
Logic
The kids also get to do some clubs at a private school that are available to us through their afterschool program:
Mandarin Club
Dance Club
Art Club
Science Club
My eldest will also be trying out a Science Club through a local organization.
Here's to preparing for a great Fall!
Showing posts with label phonics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label phonics. Show all posts
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Intensive Phonics Part 2
I'll be adding some pictures a bit later, but wanted to get the plan up now (while I am organizing things). I always cover information in at least four ways with the kids. This covers there different learning styles, and allows me to reinforce information in fun and new ways.
Spines that influence the way I set up our curriculum
1. Uncovering the Logic of English by Denise Eide
2. Find the vawol: Read the Rime Learn to Read by Miriam Cherkes-Julkowski
3. Reading Horizons Intensive Phonics at Home
These two books are written for the parent/teacher to help you have a more foundational understanding of the reading process. Reading these two books before designing our curriculum was key in helping me to set things up.
The main four ways the kids learn reading/spelling through intensive phonics is 1) parent-led instruction, 2) computer-based instruction, 3) reinforcing DVD's/videos, 4) arts and crafts/games. Since I separate reading and writing, our main source of interaction is through communicating - I can tell if the children understand by their responses and interactions with me during our lessons. I also use magnetic boards. I have several sizes of magnetic boards - from lap boards to wall boards. I have tons of magnetic letters and hundreds of words.
Parent-led instruction:
Using the principles from my two spine books, I set about with certain activities we will do on a weekly basis. We will cover a minimum of 2 phonic rules a week. Weekly activity include:
1. Parent-led intensive phonics at home - one or more sections each week
2. Webber Phonological Awareness Photo Cards - these are flash card that deal with a unique set of phonological awareness (such as syllable deletion). These are really important for my dyslexic child
3. AlphaTales books - these are 26 books that focus on the different letters of the alphabet. They are neat stories that utilize a number of interesting words that start with the various letters
4. Starfall books - these are books to coincide with the various stories on the Starfall website.
5. Bob Books - we have the entire set and I like these because the children can use their phonic skills quite quickly to read the books. Mind you, the books are a bit boring, but they work for us.
6. Dr. Seuss books - Dr. Seuss books are AMAZING at reinforcing phonics. Especially with the made up words that coincide with phonetic skills. Just a great tool to use. I LOVE Dr. Seuss books!
Computer-Based Instruction:
1. CD-ROM based intensive phonics at home (my eldest, age 5, enjoys this program a lot in this format)
2. Help Me 2 Learn Super Star Phonics CD-ROMS. We have the entire set, so they can do computer based activities based on what we are learning
3. Hear Builder Phonological Awareness CD-ROM - great for ear training, again necessary remediation for my dyslexic child
4. Starfall - a great free website that teaches phonics skills
Reinforcing DVDs
1. Rock-N-Learn Phonics DVD - we may do this depending on our mood and if we need some reinforcement
2. Tad Letter Factory and Tad Word Factory DVDs - these videos are fun ways to reinforce things we are learning
3. Classic Electric Company DVDs - fun way to reinforce some of our learning
4. Word World - a great program for letter substitution
Arts and Crafts/Games
1. Wood and Card board letter decoration. We are starting with the alphabet and phonics associated with the different letters, then moving on to blends. Each new letter we do gets decorated as we discuss it's phonic sound(s), the role it plays in words (consonant or verb), what is special about it (like Q always needs a U after it or Y is sometime a noun and a verb).
2. Games on the magnetic board - like Hangman, Scrabble, etc.
3. Felts - I have quite a few nursery rhyme felt scenes, so if we are doing sounds that are common in a nursery rhyme I have felts for, we will act those out. I also have felt letters so they can write a word or sentence that has to do with the felt scene showing.
4. Rory's Story Cubes - these are nine dice with different pictures on each side of the dice. You pick how many dice you want the child to throw (the more dice you use, the harder the story to develop). We will start with one die and kids will have to try to come up with a story utilizing at least one word made up of the phonic rules we have learned.
5. Story development. Just to have some fun, we will sometimes take an object or even a painting and each child will make up a story around it. I love this as a way for them to utilize their language skills and expand their vocabulary.
6. Letter bead bracelets. There are times when they may want to learn to spell a particular word. Especially if it is a new word we learned during story telling or in science or from reading a new book. Instead of just telling them how to spell the word, we will spell it out with beads, then make a bracelet with the word spelled out. They can wear the bracelet around as they learn to spell and sound out the word. If we haven't gotten to the correct phonetic sounds yet, I will just tell them the rule and let them know we will learn about it more later. They will eventually have enough bracelets where they can wear messages on their arms. Also have necklace strings so they can create long words or even sentences to wear around their necks.
7. Painting and coloring based on different words we focused on while learning our phonic rules.
These are some of the things we do weekly. I want to keep things interesting and focus on the outcome of learning. Since my kids are at such different levels - intellectually working quite far above their ages, but also dealing with dyslexia and limits in fine motor skills based on age - we have to be creative. Hopefully things work, but if we need to try something different - we will do that too!
We will discuss Handwriting in my next posting
Spines that influence the way I set up our curriculum
1. Uncovering the Logic of English by Denise Eide
2. Find the vawol: Read the Rime Learn to Read by Miriam Cherkes-Julkowski
3. Reading Horizons Intensive Phonics at Home
These two books are written for the parent/teacher to help you have a more foundational understanding of the reading process. Reading these two books before designing our curriculum was key in helping me to set things up.
The main four ways the kids learn reading/spelling through intensive phonics is 1) parent-led instruction, 2) computer-based instruction, 3) reinforcing DVD's/videos, 4) arts and crafts/games. Since I separate reading and writing, our main source of interaction is through communicating - I can tell if the children understand by their responses and interactions with me during our lessons. I also use magnetic boards. I have several sizes of magnetic boards - from lap boards to wall boards. I have tons of magnetic letters and hundreds of words.
Parent-led instruction:
Using the principles from my two spine books, I set about with certain activities we will do on a weekly basis. We will cover a minimum of 2 phonic rules a week. Weekly activity include:
1. Parent-led intensive phonics at home - one or more sections each week
2. Webber Phonological Awareness Photo Cards - these are flash card that deal with a unique set of phonological awareness (such as syllable deletion). These are really important for my dyslexic child
3. AlphaTales books - these are 26 books that focus on the different letters of the alphabet. They are neat stories that utilize a number of interesting words that start with the various letters
4. Starfall books - these are books to coincide with the various stories on the Starfall website.
5. Bob Books - we have the entire set and I like these because the children can use their phonic skills quite quickly to read the books. Mind you, the books are a bit boring, but they work for us.
6. Dr. Seuss books - Dr. Seuss books are AMAZING at reinforcing phonics. Especially with the made up words that coincide with phonetic skills. Just a great tool to use. I LOVE Dr. Seuss books!
Computer-Based Instruction:
1. CD-ROM based intensive phonics at home (my eldest, age 5, enjoys this program a lot in this format)
2. Help Me 2 Learn Super Star Phonics CD-ROMS. We have the entire set, so they can do computer based activities based on what we are learning
3. Hear Builder Phonological Awareness CD-ROM - great for ear training, again necessary remediation for my dyslexic child
4. Starfall - a great free website that teaches phonics skills
Reinforcing DVDs
1. Rock-N-Learn Phonics DVD - we may do this depending on our mood and if we need some reinforcement
2. Tad Letter Factory and Tad Word Factory DVDs - these videos are fun ways to reinforce things we are learning
3. Classic Electric Company DVDs - fun way to reinforce some of our learning
4. Word World - a great program for letter substitution
Arts and Crafts/Games
1. Wood and Card board letter decoration. We are starting with the alphabet and phonics associated with the different letters, then moving on to blends. Each new letter we do gets decorated as we discuss it's phonic sound(s), the role it plays in words (consonant or verb), what is special about it (like Q always needs a U after it or Y is sometime a noun and a verb).
2. Games on the magnetic board - like Hangman, Scrabble, etc.
3. Felts - I have quite a few nursery rhyme felt scenes, so if we are doing sounds that are common in a nursery rhyme I have felts for, we will act those out. I also have felt letters so they can write a word or sentence that has to do with the felt scene showing.
4. Rory's Story Cubes - these are nine dice with different pictures on each side of the dice. You pick how many dice you want the child to throw (the more dice you use, the harder the story to develop). We will start with one die and kids will have to try to come up with a story utilizing at least one word made up of the phonic rules we have learned.
5. Story development. Just to have some fun, we will sometimes take an object or even a painting and each child will make up a story around it. I love this as a way for them to utilize their language skills and expand their vocabulary.
6. Letter bead bracelets. There are times when they may want to learn to spell a particular word. Especially if it is a new word we learned during story telling or in science or from reading a new book. Instead of just telling them how to spell the word, we will spell it out with beads, then make a bracelet with the word spelled out. They can wear the bracelet around as they learn to spell and sound out the word. If we haven't gotten to the correct phonetic sounds yet, I will just tell them the rule and let them know we will learn about it more later. They will eventually have enough bracelets where they can wear messages on their arms. Also have necklace strings so they can create long words or even sentences to wear around their necks.
7. Painting and coloring based on different words we focused on while learning our phonic rules.
These are some of the things we do weekly. I want to keep things interesting and focus on the outcome of learning. Since my kids are at such different levels - intellectually working quite far above their ages, but also dealing with dyslexia and limits in fine motor skills based on age - we have to be creative. Hopefully things work, but if we need to try something different - we will do that too!
We will discuss Handwriting in my next posting
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Intensive Phonics Part 1
For some reason, complete phonics is often referred to as "intensive phonics". The reason is because most children never get to opportunity to have a complete phonics education when they begin to learn to read. I absolutely LOVE the book "Uncovering the Logic of English" by Denise Eide. I use this book at the "spine" for our trip through intensive phonics.
I teach solid phonics first for many reasons. The first is that my eldest is dyslexic, so it is immensely important that a dyslexic person have a solid foundation in phonics. The second reason is that English is a phonic language. I have no inkling why we teach English often times as if it were a pictorial language like Hieroglyphics! Sight words are pictorial, so the absolute worst way to teach English. By teaching intensive phonics you can teach 104 phonics rules that will explain 98% of all English words. It isn't at all too much to assume that even a young child can learn 104 rules - it would be similar to a child learning the 100 sight words they are expected to know when they complete First grade. So - do you spend your time teaching 100 words so that at the end of the day they know 100 English words, or do you teach 104 rules so that at the end of the day they can read 98% of the over 40,000 words in the English language?
Our lesson plan begins with us learning 2 rules a week - which means we should be finish learning all 104 rules in a calendar year. We will adjust faster or slower as needed. We are starting with the alphabet because they know it already, but it really needs to be re-taught from a phonic perspective. We will learn each of the sounds that the letters make - teaching all the sounds associated with each letter. For instance, when starting with "A", we go learn the three separate sounds that the letter "A" can make. We then will move on to blends.
It can seem as if it takes longer for a child to learn to read when they are taught intensive phonics. However, the wait is worth it. While sight words give a child a fish, phonics teaches the child to fish for themselves.
I have found many people start with phonics, and quickly to sight words. This is like starting to carefully work a puzzle with a child, the quickly fill in the rest of the pieces and show the child the picture. While the child started to learn the puzzle for themselves, the learning process simply stops and they see in whole pictures instead of pieces. This becomes a problem when a child sees new words that have some of those same puzzle pieces. The child just doesn't know how to effectively use those clues to put the new picture together for themselves.
This is the reason there are "sight words" for every grade level as children are given more and more words to try and memorize. At some point, the capacity to memorize gets overloaded. Some children learn to decode for themselves, although it can be hard to learn when to use "f" and when to use "ph" without given explicit instruction. English starts to feel random when it isn't random it all; in fact - English is very logical!
Intensive Phonics Part 2 I will reveal our year long curriculum for Intensive Phonics
I teach solid phonics first for many reasons. The first is that my eldest is dyslexic, so it is immensely important that a dyslexic person have a solid foundation in phonics. The second reason is that English is a phonic language. I have no inkling why we teach English often times as if it were a pictorial language like Hieroglyphics! Sight words are pictorial, so the absolute worst way to teach English. By teaching intensive phonics you can teach 104 phonics rules that will explain 98% of all English words. It isn't at all too much to assume that even a young child can learn 104 rules - it would be similar to a child learning the 100 sight words they are expected to know when they complete First grade. So - do you spend your time teaching 100 words so that at the end of the day they know 100 English words, or do you teach 104 rules so that at the end of the day they can read 98% of the over 40,000 words in the English language?
Our lesson plan begins with us learning 2 rules a week - which means we should be finish learning all 104 rules in a calendar year. We will adjust faster or slower as needed. We are starting with the alphabet because they know it already, but it really needs to be re-taught from a phonic perspective. We will learn each of the sounds that the letters make - teaching all the sounds associated with each letter. For instance, when starting with "A", we go learn the three separate sounds that the letter "A" can make. We then will move on to blends.
It can seem as if it takes longer for a child to learn to read when they are taught intensive phonics. However, the wait is worth it. While sight words give a child a fish, phonics teaches the child to fish for themselves.
I have found many people start with phonics, and quickly to sight words. This is like starting to carefully work a puzzle with a child, the quickly fill in the rest of the pieces and show the child the picture. While the child started to learn the puzzle for themselves, the learning process simply stops and they see in whole pictures instead of pieces. This becomes a problem when a child sees new words that have some of those same puzzle pieces. The child just doesn't know how to effectively use those clues to put the new picture together for themselves.
This is the reason there are "sight words" for every grade level as children are given more and more words to try and memorize. At some point, the capacity to memorize gets overloaded. Some children learn to decode for themselves, although it can be hard to learn when to use "f" and when to use "ph" without given explicit instruction. English starts to feel random when it isn't random it all; in fact - English is very logical!
Intensive Phonics Part 2 I will reveal our year long curriculum for Intensive Phonics
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