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Everything posted by forty-two
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Forgetting the Terminology of Phonics
forty-two replied to domestic_engineer's topic in General Education Discussion Board
If you wanted an alternative, I often just go with first sound (for the short sound) and second sound (for the long sound), where the "order" of sounds is based on the frequency - so first sound is most used, second sound is second-most used, etc. I used The ABCs and All Their Tricks to modify the basic WRTR/OG phonograms (for maximum accuracy), but obviously you can just use the unmodified set for simplicity (the changes were mostly in the order of the less frequently used sounds anyway). Rewards does something similar, just restricted to the two most common sounds for each phonogram, with a lot of "try the first sound first, and if it doesnt make a word that fits, try the second sound" (though they use sound/name for the single vowels, instead of first/second sound). -
Forgetting the Terminology of Phonics
forty-two replied to domestic_engineer's topic in General Education Discussion Board
Per this website's description, instead of letters/graphemes having sounds, they go the other way: sounds have spellings. AKA, instead of "the letter 'a' makes the sound /a/ as in apple or /A/ as in apron", it would be "the *sound* is /ch/, and it can be represented by "ch" or "tch"." That's actually how I taught my kids, although I used a different program. (I used Dekodiphukan (decode if you can), an old innovative program developed for schools in the 70-80s, that was scanned and distributed free online, along with a set of free iOS apps, after being discontinued; it uses sound pictures to teach the 44 sounds in English, and teaches blending and spelling first with the sound pictures (such as a buzzing bee for /z/) and then with phonograms.) -
Forgetting the Terminology of Phonics
forty-two replied to domestic_engineer's topic in General Education Discussion Board
First step would be to have them repeat it back to you. If that's correct, you could ask them to give a word that uses that sound (if that's a task they could do - my kids all had problems with phonemic processing and probably couldn't have done that for a while), or to ID a written word from a list that uses that sound. If it's looking like they might be having problems hearing certain sounds, the way that Barton does it in their student screening is to use colored squares (three sets of three different colors, for nine squares total) and give three sounds, where the goal for the student is to 1) repeat the sounds, 2) represent them with colored squares (same color for same sounds, different colors for different sounds), and 3) touch each square and say the sound. (It's Task 3 from the screening - my kids all failed it so hard.) Sometimes all three sounds are the same, sometimes two are the same and one different (if you are only doing a quickie check, I'd use this set-up - it's like the triangle testing used for blind taste tests), and sometimes all three are different. The screening uses phonemes that are easily mistaken for each other, but you could set up contrasts with long/short or with similar-sounding vowels or whatever. The idea is that you are trying to bring in a visual cue to help determine what's going on. -
Forgetting the Terminology of Phonics
forty-two replied to domestic_engineer's topic in General Education Discussion Board
Don't have any ideas that aren't drill-n-kill, sorry, but at least it's just a like a minute a day. The way Rewards Reading does it, is to differentiate between the "sound" of the vowel letter and the "name", probably because short/long don't really apply in English the way they do in Latin or Greek (where the difference really is "length of time you say the sound"), but you could do the same thing, just using short/long terminology. It can be hard to logic out in English which is which, though, since it doesn't always correlate well with the actual length of time the sound is said. Anyway, the drill they have you do is to have "a e i o u" written across the page. Then you say "point to the first letter" <they do>, "first say the sound (or short sound)"<e.g. /a/>, "then say the name (or long sound)" <e.g. /A/>. Then "point to next letter" and so on. Run through the list twice, correcting as necessary. I usually hit the ones they miss an extra time or two. Repeat most days till it's automatic. Also, is the problem they just don't know the short/long classification (i.e. if you asked them to list the five short vowel sounds, they couldn't do it; ditto for the long sounds)? Or is the problem that they aren't identifying the sounds correctly? I.e. It's not that they don't know that /O/ is long, it's that they aren't necessarily *hearing* it correctly as /O/? -
My dd is doing TT Geometry right now, and it's been just what she needed. Nice, solid problems. As far as I can tell, it seems like they tightened up the grading, as you only have one extra chance to try again (I was a bit disappointed by this, honestly - on the proofs dd could have used more tries - although it makes sense from a preventing-cheating perspective), and it certainly looked like asking for the answer would automatically prevent you from being able to give an answer to it again.
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Spelling for the kid who didn’t learn phonics
forty-two replied to Ting Tang's topic in K-8 Curriculum Board
Oh, I don't disagree that you can't escape the memory load. But the ability to break a word into syllables and phonemes, and to know and apply the usual spellings for those phonemes (most common and most common alternate), really helps to reduce the memory load. I mean, there are an annoying number of just-have-to-memorize-which-odd-vowel-spelling words. But the vast majority of the letters in those words *are* regular. Basic phonetic spelling ability and basic rules get you at least 70-80% of the way, which is absolutely not nothing. At the very least, that 70-80% gets you more than close enough to look it up in a dictionary or for spell-checker to know what you meant, which is pretty important in daily life. Not to mention, the *inability* to do those basic "break it down and apply common rules" spelling tasks makes it very hard to ever get spelling imprinted. *Having* them may not be enough for perfect spelling, but their *lack* pretty much guarantees bad spelling. -
What to do when you are fully convinced/disagree with family member?
forty-two replied to sheryl's topic in The Chat Board
Since you mentioned that you are Christian, in your shoes I would pray about it. I know that sounds like a pious cop-out or something, but I don't mean it that way - I'm 100% serious. You have a problem that really bothering you and negatively affecting others, and you don't know what to do about it or if anything *can* be done or even if you have standing to do something in the first place: you might not know what to do, but God does; you might not be able to do anything, but God certainly can. Not to say you *haven't* been praying about it, but just trying to maybe reframe what "doing something about it" means: that praying about it is *itself* doing something, and the most necessary something. Interceding with God is a most basic and fundamental good work, underlying and supporting our other good works. -
Spelling for the kid who didn’t learn phonics
forty-two replied to Ting Tang's topic in K-8 Curriculum Board
I don't really see the disconnect/distance between phonics for reading and phonics for spelling that others are (though phonetic spelling is definitely a harder skill than phonetic reading; improved spelling generally improves reading, but the reverse isn't necessarily the case), but that might be because I think of phonetic reading/spelling as working through words by sound, versus by sight, instead of the nitty-gritty of using "the rules". In any case, I definitely used phonetic spelling instruction to remediate weaknesses in phonetic reading instruction and ability (significant weaknesses, in our case); my oldest exited phonics-only reading instruction as a pure, though fluent, sight reader <sigh>. Given your ds learned to read without phonics, my first thought is to wonder if he's reading phonetically or not, especially with what you say about R&S "almost confusing him" (my sight reader was beyond confused with R&S) - working through words phonetically might not be his default. I'd rec having him try to read nonsense words - "words" that are phonetically regular but aren't actual words - because, not having seen or heard them before, he'll be forced to use his phonics skills alone to read them. One of the posters here, ElizabethB, has put together a lot of phonics resources, including a list of nonsense words: http://donpotter.net/pdf/blend-phonics-nonsense.pdf . My kids all had/have dyslexia-like problems (and I use dyslexic approaches to remediate them), but I don't think it's too odd for some kids to need both formal spelling instruction (a la R&S) and a decent amount of structured practice in context (a la dictation). Dictation doesn't have to add more than 10-15m, and you don't have to do it every day - seems like it wouldn't be a huge deal to continue R&S while adding in a bit of dictation practice-in-context. -
Help for a confident, but weak writer
forty-two replied to Buildingculture's topic in K-8 Writing Workshop
It's frustratingly common for students to not automatically apply their formal grammar knowledge to their own writing. For starters, can she state the definition of a sentence, and what makes a run-on a run-on, and a fragment a fragment? (I would separate the style issue of technically correct but repetitive openings from the issue of grammatically incorrect run-ons and fragments.) And can she identify run-on sentences and sentence fragments in isolation, in formal grammar activities? If she can do that, then can she identify her own run-ons and fragments when you ask her to specifically look for them when editing her writing? As well, can she fix other people's run-ons and fragments, turn them into grammatical sentences? If she can do both of those things, can she fix her own run-ons and fragments when you specifically ask her to? Since she's doing well in her formal grammar course, she's got a starting point - just have to specifically work on teaching her to apply it to her own writing. -
Also, French twists look very neat and professional. This is a good method for doing a French twist on long hair: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYc7QuM9Mgk . I tried it on my past-hip-length hair, and it worked well. The way it has you tuck in the remaining hair at the bottom of the twist instead of the more fiddly and fragile top part (or up and down the whole thing) really does the trick better than anything I've tried. And it's quite stable, too, even without using all the pins the lady in the video used. It took me a few tries to figure out the right amount of hair for the main twist, but I had a solid twist in 5 mins.
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I think if you do the French braid and then put the braid up into a bun - that would look nice and not be too different from what you already do, and generally braided buns hold really well.
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Still kinda traditional, but not girly: we usually do a leather-bound study bible or prayer book.
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I used to prefer paperbacks because they were cheaper (can buy more) and smaller (fit more on shelves). But in the past decade I've come to appreciate more of the aesthetics of books and I appreciate good paper and bindings and bigger type and white space a lot more now. Also, hardbacks stay open on my lap or on the armrest, and paperbacks I have to hold open the whole time. So for books I want to reread a lot, I go for hardback (or at least nice trade paperbacks), instead of the cheapest mass market paperback I can find. I also make heavy use of my kindle, but mostly for library books or free ebooks. I generally only straight up buy ebooks when it's a lot cheaper than a paper copy, although there are several beloved book series that we've picked up on kindle when they are on sale, even though we also own nice paper copies, just for the convenience of an e-option.
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He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!
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Happy Good Friday, with bonus cautionary parenting tale
forty-two replied to Ginevra's topic in The Chat Board
In the vein of "things that are obvious to those who know, but are exceedingly unobvious to those who don't even know what they don't know": So our tradition (Lutheran) has a custom of standing for the closing verse of hymns when that verse is Trinitarian in nature. Plenty of members probably don't know the why, but since in the new hymnal those verses are marked with a little triangle, I at least figured out *why* we are standing (more or less). But what I didn't know is what we *call* those verses, and no amount of scouring the current hymnal helped. I'm the tech head at our church, in charge of making slides for the services, and I like to include as much of the extra explanatory material and customs and such included in the hymnal in the slides as I can - keep the transmission of all that alive and such. So when it came to those verses, I wanted to do a little more than just "Stand" and the triangle, but I had no idea what to put; I ended up with the somewhat clunky "Stand for the Trinitarian verse". But, lo and behold, I was flipping through an old English language hymnal used in our denomination before we had an official English language hymnal (official one was in German till 1941), and I ran across a page marked "Doxologies" - and it was a list of Trinitarian verses :jawdrop. They're called *doxologies*, which is blindingly obvious once mentioned, but I had *no idea*, despite being raised in the denomination. No one told me, and it wasn't ever explicitly written out in the hymnal - probably because it was too obvious to mention. I think older members knew (when I mentioned my revelation to a friend, I got the vibe that it had never occurred to her I *didn't* know), but I never though to ask, and even with a whole year of staring at "Stand for the Trinitarian verse," they never thought to mention it to me. A small, kinda stupid thing, but I was *so* happy to finally get an answer for that. -
Happy Good Friday, with bonus cautionary parenting tale
forty-two replied to Ginevra's topic in The Chat Board
Same here. Blessed works pretty well for any religious holiday, and is esp useful for ones like Good Friday (where "happy" is not exactly the sentiment associated with the day) - I was very glad when I learned it and finally had a good option. -
You'd think so - I hope you get at least one of them 🙂. Although my dh (the pastor) forgot to put in Jesus Christ Is Risen Today into this year's service :jawdrop:. Fortunately I saw it before the bulletins were put together, so we could fix the horrible oversight ;). I don't have any one hymn that stands out as *the* Easter closing hymn for me, but at this church people expect I Know My Redeemer Lives, so we usually do that.
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Lutheran (LCMS), and I do expect to hear it (along with Hosanna, Loud Hosanna) - it does say Palm Sunday to me; and fortunately we sang both yesterday (plus the third of the three Palm Sunday hymns in the hymnal, Ride On, Ride On in Victory). Although I was just talking to my sister, and while she of course knows it, she doesn't necessarily have expectations around it (which is good, because they didn't sing it at her church yesterday). And that is a hymn I'm not familiar with - Jesus Christ is Risen Today is what I expect for the opening Easter hymn.
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That's how it works in our house - we've mutually agreed to the thermostat settings and stick to them. We do negotiate wrt turning fans on/off, though.
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Compass Classroom Grammar for Writers
forty-two replied to RubyPenn's topic in High School and Self-Education Board
I bought it when it first came out, and I really like it. Through my ineptitude (at grammar itself and at picking grammar programs), I'd ruined grammar study for my oldest, but this program overcame her ingrained skepticism (she loves to write, which helped). (When I first proposed it to her, she was cautiously in favor, but wanted to read something the program author had written in order to see if he was worth learning from, lol. Our library had his Wilderking trilogy and she liked it so much she asked for the trilogy for her birthday; it is a good trilogy.) It also is the first program that enabled *me* to finally grok grammar, to understand what is actually going on instead of just pattern-matching. In general, I've found that analyzing writing from the perspective of *using it to write* (e.g. literary analysis from the perspective of *how I, as a writer, can do these kinds of things, and when/where/why I'd want to use them*) has been the most effective way for me to really wrap my mind around it, and it's been true likewise here. FWIW, I rather like the detailed answer key, because it helps to have an explanation when we aren't sure what it going on (or when I can intuitively get the answer but can't explain it to my stymied kid). Also, I found that my middle schooler got a lot out of the videos, but the exercises were too much for her (as a total grammar newbie), even when we were doing them together - aka, ime not really kidding about being a high school program. But it's been a good level for my high schooler. Overall, this is probably my favorite grammar program, narrowly edging out Killgallon's Sentence Composing approach. I do really like Killgallon, but I found that we needed to complement it with more formal understanding to make it more than just pattern matching, and this was the first program that really made sense of the higher-level concepts for me. It also was immediately applicable to complicated, "real world" sentences, and one of my oldest's frustrations with grammar study was the huge disconnect between beginning grammar study sentences - too easy - and the too-hard real world sentences; we never got far enough to get even close to bridging the gap before GfW. This gave us shared vocabulary/concepts to apply to discussing her writing across the board right away (and I do think that for the grammar to stick, lots of those discussions need to happen). In general I think one of the reasons grammar study doesn't stick/doesn't get applied in students' actual writing is because the application step isn't explicitly taught and practiced; as well, I don't think GfW has enough practice itself to make it stick (which is just observation, not criticism - I think there's enough practice to grasp the concepts and be able to start using them in one's own writing, which is what I want from it). -
Read the unabridged Count of Monte Cristo for fun in college - loved it - read it in four 5h sessions over just a few days. Definitely rec the unabridged version - it's all so intricately plotted that losing parts would damage the whole thing.
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Kristen Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Undset Laurus, by Eugene Vodolazkin The Hammer of God, by Bo Giertz Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, by Svetlana Alexievich
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WRT romances, most all Christian romances are sex scene free; I like Terri Blackstock (suspenseful romance) and Kristi Ann Hunter (regency romance). As well, Debbie Macomber's books are generally free of sex scenes, and she's a popular and prolific author. Also, Georgette Heyer's regency romances are some of my favorites, and they are likewise free of sex scenes. WRT mysteries, I really like Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries, and I also like Agatha Christie, esp the ones with Miss Marple (Sleeping Murder and The Tuesday Club Murders are my favs). I also like the Jane Austen mysteries, by Stephanie Barron.
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Private Christian College recommendations?????
forty-two replied to Dawn D's topic in General Education Discussion Board
My oldest is looking at one of our denomination's schools: Concordia Nebraska (we're LCMS Lutherans), to study church music. Some of the Concordias have an iffy rep wrt being faithful, but Nebraska is still widely considered solid, and their church music program is excellent. I've already talked to my dd about the likelihood that a decent chunk of her fellow students might not be concerned about faithful living, but there's still a solid core of students who care there. I know that a Christian college isn't a bulletproof method or anything, but my advice to others about religious schools has always been that you don't send your kid to a school if you are unwilling for them to adopt that school's beliefs. Secular is just as much a belief system, and the corollary is to not send your kid to a secular school if you don't want them to become secular. IDK what to do wrt my youngest, who wants to do engineering at our state school, other than getting plugged into a local church, local community of believers, is *vital*. But, honestly, a good local church is still pretty vital even going to a Christian school. -
Things I did/do with my likely stealth dyslexic kids: *after finishing up phonics (a homemade WRTR-style approach), I go through it all again in cursive. In addition to being the only way my oldest could even *learn* cursive at all, it also was really great for breaking her of the sight reading habit (my eldest exited phonics lessons as a near-total sight reader <sigh>). And in general learning cursive has been really good for their reading skills - it was worth doing for that reason alone. I've read that writing in cursive requires people to be able to work through words in syllable chunks, not by individual letter/phonemes, and learning cursive uncovered that my oldest couldn't do that. And learning to read cursive required them to work through the words using their phonics, because it was different enough in appearance that they couldn't recognize it by sight anymore. *Rewards Reading - it builds multi-syllable word attack skills. There are ten activities per lesson, 20 lessons total, designed to be done a lesson at a time (I split it into two chunks to avoid tiring my kids, but they were younger than yours, ~5th when we did it). The activities: blending oral syllables into words, reviewing vowel sounds, breaking words into syllables, hearing words pronounced wrong and correcting them, learning prefixes and suffixes and using them to break words into chunks, some vocabulary building with prefixes/suffixes, and some practice spelling long words using the above skills; later lessons have a passage to read. I got a previous edition used several years ago, along with blank workbooks bought on the used market, for not too much. *Spelling Through Morphographs - extends the skills built in Rewards to spelling. More detailed/intensive than Rewards - 140 lessons or thereabouts - you could do them doubled up. I really like it, but since it's been awhile since I used it with middle (and haven't yet gotten to it with youngest - he's in Rewards rn), I have less on the tip of my tongue to say, esp since it can be pricey even on the used market (I paid $90 several years back, but I've seen it for less as well as more since then - price fluctuates a lot). I required the kids to do it in cursive. *Concurrently with the above, I did studied dictation using Spelling You See's visual marking system to do the "studying" part - it was great for helping my oldest learn to see the insides of words, and it was the only way either girl could be successful with dictation for quite a while. *After StM, I did Touch Type Read & Spell, which is an O/G approach to typing. It was pricey but it was a third run through phonics and it was also likely the only way my oldest could have learned typing. It took my oldest 1.5yrs and my middle a full two years to get through it (they repeated so many lessons, plus they each restarted the whole thing once, when they really hit a wall), but they are really solid typists now - they constantly write on the computer. It's 24 modules of 30 lessons each, iirc, and each lesson is about 5-10min. I had the kids do three lessons per day, and they could be repeats. It could be done even after your ds is back in school. After all this, my oldest could spell fairly well (no more than one average error per handwritten page, and close enough typing for spellcheck to figure it out), and my middle could spell okayish (close enough for spellcheck usually, but quite a few errors per page handwritten; she's 8th and could use another run through spelling), but they are both really, really solid on reading. ~*~ In your shoes, I'd rec Rewards, TTRS (if not solid on touch typing), and learning and/or practicing cursive in an O/G way through whatever spelling you do; StM is a solid spelling program if you can find it used for not outrageous prices.