I explained it as a medium pause, with a comma being a small pause, and a period being a big pause (and a paragraph break being an even bigger pause). I know, not much of an explanation, but enough for reading aloud and copywork, for dd7.5 anyway. Eta: I do think I included the basic idea that the length of the pause has to do with how connected the ideas are - longer the pause, the more separate the thoughts. Idk, I think it's a good enough explanation to be getting on with, and gives a decent enough foundation for more formal grammar knowledge down the road.

Color me confused, because I'd have said that mut and mutt sounded identical. I didn't think the double t made any difference in how it was pronounced (or that it changes pronunciation in general, but I'm totally not up on my rules, so...) I mean, in mutter it sound likes mutt (two t's). How would you say it? (In general, no one's trying to be tricky with the pronunciation of nonsense words - they all are very straightforward letter-sound combos. And when a *real* word/syllable commonly has a different pronunciation than the usual, it's pointed out.) As I said, when your student knows by sight all the usual ones yet still needs practice with phonics. And while they don't happen to exist, they *could* exist - they don't include any letter combos that aren't used in English.

Well, wop is w-op, and op is a bonafide syllable. The ability to add a sound to an existing syllable is an important one to have - if you can't do it easily, there's a problem. I didn't read the article, so I don't know what the teacher was doing, but at least in LiPS, nonsense words/syllables are used as *practice* in tracking sounds, and encoding and decoding. You aren't working each combo to mastery, but are using them as practice in getting the *skills* needed in reading/writing to mastery. You wouldn't have spent more than 10-15 sec on wop (minus issues, in which case you'd use wop to target the underlying skills you are trying to develop). And one reason for using straight up nonsense words/syllables is if you have a student who has sight memorized all the usual combinations yet doesn't have phonics down - gives you practice material that requires them to practice their phonics. (That is so very, very much dd7.)

"Mut" is - you even had it in your post - "mut-ter" First thing that comes to wrt "wop" is "do-wop" :lol:. And for my turn at over-thinking, or at least perfectionism: most syllables, nonsense or otherwise, aren't *a* sound, but are *several* sounds put together (since in phonics words are broken down into the smallest sounds possible - a phoneme is *one* sound, and syllables usually contain more than one phoneme).

LiPS is careful about distinguishing between words and syllables - most "nonsense words" are legit syllables.

Fwiw, I was an excellent reader, A student in AP classes, and I'd probably have failed a nonsense word test (my mom was the same). And while I think a remedial class is ridiculous in those circumstances, there's a *reason* I'd have failed the test - phonological awareness issues that *didn't* go away just because I managed to learn to read in spite of them - and I'd have really benefited from someone noticing them and helping me remediate them. Because those deficits made learning a foreign language extremely hard, and I spent years thinking that foreign languages just weren't my thing. Plus I felt stupid when I couldn't pronounce words I learned from my reading. I've learned so much from learning to teach phonics to my kids (two of whom have the same deficits as me, poor kids) - learning to blend at 30 is all sorts of not fun, but it's better than never learning at all. I'm a big fan of nonsense words, because they are an easy test to catch all sorts of issues. Because if they are hard, there's generally a *reason*, and that reason doesn't go away just because someone managed to learn to read effectively in spite of it.

This is probably a minority experience, but dd7 had that problem, and we did Reading Pyramids, but it wasn't enough. I gave her the Barton pre-screening, and she failed it (even though she reads above grade level). Explains a lot. Anyway, if your dd has problems orally putting syllables together to say a multisyllable word (which dd7 did, although mostly just on unfamiliar words), in addition to having problems reading them, I'd give her the Barton screening (free, doesn't take long) to see if there's a phonemic awareness issue. I mean, it's really hard to accurately *read* a word if you can't accurately *hear* it in the first place.

http://youtu.be/4ThvBNZdGcQ Yes, that was exactly what come to mind. Love that video - the troll said exactly what I was thinking, and of course, if anyone knows how to treat exceptional children with uncontrolled potentially deadly powers, it's Charles Xavier ;). (And they thought the same thing I did about the opening theme :lol:.)

One that hasn't been mentioned: Apollo 13, at the end where they are all waiting to see if the astronauts survived re-entry - gosh, I am tearing up just thinking about it. Idk what it is, you *know* they are going to be ok, but every. single. time. I watch that movie I cry at that part.

Probably by *doing* early academics with them. They are likely to have learning-centered books and toys around, and probably make an effort to point them out to their dc and use them as they play with their dc. And they are likely to do more learning-centered play with their kids. They value it, so they are likely to make the time to do it, and to keep on trying if their first attempts flop. And - this is a biggie, I think - they are more likely to set aside what they are doing and respond to a kid request to do a learning activity than to do other forms of playing. I know that I wanted to foster a love of books and reading, and so I forced myself to stop what I was doing and read whenever they asked. (Not that I didn't do other things with them, but I was more likely to ask them to wait a minute as I finished up, and of course sometimes that means the moment is lost.) Idk, like anything a parent values and wants to teach their kids - you make the time to do it and you make the effort to make it work in spite of obstacles. It's not that the kids are exposed to it incidentally (although I think there's more of that than one might think), but that parents do it deliberately *because* they value it - they show its value to them by treating it as something worthy of time and attention *by* giving it time and attention.

Why, though? Isn't that what little kids *do* - imitate their elders? I mean, my littles wanted to do just about *everything* I did, *because* I did it. Kids are immersed from birth in a world that is *saturated* with what their parents value, and that's the basis for their early learning. Barring special needs, why *wouldn't* the kids of parents who value early academics not be interested in early academics?

I'm not as cynical, I guess. I agree that it's likely that many moms who wonder if their kids are gifted/SN or who act as if they are gifted/SN have kids that are not "officially" gifted or "officially" SN. But neither gifted nor SN is a binary, gifted-OR-totally-average, SN-or-totally-typical thing - there's a spectrum ranging from completely typical to extremely, extremely exceptional. Plenty of kids have some degree of exceptionality from the norm yet aren't *so* far from the norm to be over the commonly accepted "line" for having an official diagnosis. Parents genuinely notice differences between their child and others, or notice commonalities between their child's traits and the traits of a particular exceptionality, and legitimately wonder. And it's very hard to evaluate *how* exceptional your child is compared to the norm when you have no idea of what "the norm" is (I certainly don't) nor much experience with what the extreme ends of the spectrum look like (since they are by definition rare). My experience is this: I have no idea if my dc are gifted, but they have issues that are comparable to gifted issues *and* the solutions that work for gifted kids work for them, even if they are "gifted lite" or "merely bright" (hate that phrase) or completely, utterly typical in every way. I have no idea if my dc have an LD, but they have issues that are comparable to LD issues (specifically phonological processing and dyslexia), and so far the solutions that work for kids with those issues are a huge help to my kids. Honestly, I *don't* think my dc have diagnosable LD issues, but they do have issues along that spectrum, and learning what people do to help the more extreme cases is *very* helpful. I find more help with my borderline/sorta-typical-sorta-atypical kids from reading about how to teach definitely atypical kids than I do reading about how to teach typical kids. My kids aren't typical enough for that to work, even if they aren't atypical enough to be "officially" exceptional. I realize that's exactly the sort of parent who frustrates the heck out of parents of very atypical kids, because you can have all the "cachet" of being different without the intensity of the problems that the very exceptional experience. But from my point of view, it's not like that at all. I just want answers, and the people who deal with exceptionalities are the ones who happen to have them.

Per the isbn "rules", a new edition is supposed to have a new isbn. It didnt seem that there was any "isbn police" to enforce it - not pissing off your customers was the main rationale given. It sounds very frustrating :grouphug:. I read that you can buy isbn numbers in lots of 10, 100, and 1,000 - I wonder how much a lot costs - how much are they saving, exactly? Eta: looked it up. You *really* save by buying in bulk. You can get a single isbn for $125, 10 for $295, 100 for $575, and 1000 for $1000.

My focus at the moment is studying the manual for LiPS - I'm finding the info fascinating, but though it's straightforward, it requires more study effort than I've put in since college. After LiPS I'm going to focus on math - the Liping Ma book, and working through the Elementary Math/Geometry for Teachers books. I also have my on-going, extremely slow efforts to learn Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Actually, I think the LiPS material is helping to fill in *my* phonemic awareness gaps, and I have hopes my progress will pick up a bit. I've been stuck on the Greek and Hebrew alphabet for faaaaaaaaaaaaar too long - I know what sound each letter makes and have for years, but sounding out the words is way harder than it has any right to be. It's rather comparable to "regular" reading difficulties, interestingly enough. (I painfully learned to blend in Greek as I taught my dd to blend in English - with about the same level of success, too, given that I'm about to do LiPS with her and that I never managed to get beyond reading individual Greek words - a sentence exhausts me.) Anyway, I've got this grand plan to take myself through LiPS in Greek and Hebrew (probably dragging dh into it to read out sounds and syllables and words and such), once I have it sorted enough to do with the girls in English. (I also have ambitions to incorporate stuff from Seeing Stars, which I impulse bought because I had LiPS and Visualizing & Verbalizing and wanted SS for completeness, as well as take myself through V/V with Latin, because I have lack of visualization skills that are holding me back there. I'm just full of language-related program-combo craziness :lol:.)

At least for dd7.5 it wasn't so much that she couldn't make as many connections at one time as other kids, but that she had so many *more* connections she had to make than most kids. Her phonemic awareness was bad enough that she couldn't do any of the beginning phonemic awareness activities in reading programs - they all required skills the typical kid automatically develops that she never did. I thought she'd finally got it, when she seemed to start blending, but it turns out she just got better at compensating for her lack of it (as I found out when she failed the Barton pre-screening - thus why we are doing LiPS).

I don't know what to *do* about speech issues, but my understanding is that that can definitely impact learning to read - you might want to ask on the learning challenges board here, as I know several people here have posted about those sorts of difficulties. I was all gung-ho WRTR/SWR, wanted to teach my dc "right" ;), but while I stuck with pure phonics despite the fact that dd7.5 would have learned to read via sight words so much faster (and I felt bad at times for teaching reading via her weaknesses instead of her strengths), I gave up on the explicit rules approach, because it was just too much. I did a purely phonetic approach that taught via implicit patterns instead - figured that I could always do WRTR/SWR for spelling. And I am happy with that decision. We might have lost out on some brain training, but learning to read phonetically was hard enough for dd7.5 - you can only build so many connections at a time, kwim? Random thought - maybe you could have him air write his words - big arm motions - to get some of the kinesthetic writing benefits?

That's pretty similar to how LiPS teaches to differentiate between /w/ and /wh/ - the amount of "wind" you produce, with /w/ having the least and /wh/ having the most.

Fwiw, learning all the sounds for each phonogram at once was confusing for dd7.5, and so I went away from WRTR/SWR to a program that did one sound at a time. Took longer but she needed it. But we're about to do an intensive phonemic awareness program (LiPS) because she still can't differentiate between several sounds, so she might not be neurotypical here. I've read that's one of the big differences between straight up Orton-Gillingham programs and O-G inspired programs, actually - how fast all the sounds are introduced. Apparently kids who have difficulties learning to read tend to get tripped up when too many sounds are introduced too quickly. True enough here, certainly.

/w/ and /wh/ are actually different sounds (I suck at hearing/feeling the difference, though), so when to use 'w' and when to use 'wh' is determined by which sound you hear - 'w' and 'wh' aren't two ways to spell the same sound.

Ack, my used third edition was $90 on Amazon! I didn't buy the kit, but I'm making all the magnet sets - I went through the kit materials list and wrote out everything I needed to make - what I needed to copy, what needed laminating, and what needed magnets. (Let's see: 24 colored tiles (six colors, four of each color), 15 colored tiles (for introducing the vowel circle), mouth pictures, letter symbol tiles, syllable tiles, vowel mat, tracking mat, plus I made tiles with the sound pictures from Dekodiphukan; there were a few more things I copied from the book, but they aren't sold as part of the kit anyway.) I already had card stock and a roll of magnet tape from when I made homemade AAS tiles, so there wasn't much to buy. I've done all the printing and dh laminated them at work - just have to slice and dice and attach the magnets. I did buy the mouth magnet pictures from Gander, though - they are the same size as the mouth pics in the manual, but in color. After spending a few hours trying to get clear enough copies, I gave up - most were fine, but I just could not get the tongue scraper pic clear enough - I do think it could be done, but I decided that it was worth $30 to not have to fuss with it. Eta: for the pre-Barton stuff, I think you'd need the colored tiles, letter symbol tiles, and mouth pictures, but not the syllable tiles.

Very straightforward, but not open and go. It's well arranged, and I got a good sense of the big picture right off, but I've found I need to genuinely study the manual, take notes, put in the effort to learn and master the material - basically like a self-study college class. I haven't had to actually *study* in a while, so it took me a bit to get into the right mindset, but now that I'm putting in the time to interact with the material, I'm making good headway. There's a clear flow to the program, and a fairly small (though powerful) set of tools and techniques used to teach the program. Correspondingly, there's actually just a small set of information you are trying to teach, too - the bulk of the learning comes from applying that information in several ways, with increasing complexity. So learning the program consists of mastering the basic information to be taught (straightforward) and internalizing the techniques used to teach that the students. To do this there are sample dialogues for everything, plus examples of error-handling for all typical errors, so you get a *lot* of examples of how to use the foundational techniques to teach all aspects of the program. And if you got the DVDs, which I didn't (I just got the manual (used) and the mouth picture magnets (new - could not get clear enough copies from the small b&w pictures in the manual)), you'd have lots more examples, in a different modality, to assist in the internalization process. I'm not a DVD person, but I can see how they'd be helpful - added examples, lessen the need for studying the manual. But for $100-200 I'm willing to study the dialogues and take notes and otherwise pretend I'm back in school again ;), learning something that takes actual effort and attention to detail. (Plus, I'm actually pretty in love with LiPS, because the info is so freaking *awesome*, and I love how the emphasis is on teaching the student to be able to judge for themselves if something is correct, instead of just memorizing the right answer. And in general I'm a fan of using a small set of info and tools in flexible ways to tackle all aspects, instead of having separate info and tools for each separate bit.) I'm a real novice at *teaching*, as well as a novice at this sort of linguistic information, though - I'm starting from scratch in so many ways, so I don't have any pegs in my head to hang this stuff on - I'm basically *creating* a bunch of pegs right now, so it takes more effort to get it to stick. That may be why some professionals are all, "LiPS is too hard for parents to do," because parents don't have all the background knowledge that gives pegs to hang the new info on. But idk, to me LiPS is pretty darn complete, and everything makes sense, even if it takes a bit of time and brainsweat to actually *master* it.

I'm prepping to teach LiPS to my 7.5yo and 5yo (making and locating supplies as well as reading the manual and taking notes, wrapping my brain around the program), and it does indeed teach reading in addition to phonemic awareness - takes you all the way through multisyllable words. But if generic you is just doing LiPS as prep for Barton, you can stop much earlier in the program (the Barton website says when - somewhere around tracking sounds in cvc syllables/words).

I really like Dekodiphukan (decode-if-you-can). It starts off by using "sound pictures" to represent each of the sounds in English (44 sounds) - like a hissing snake for /s/ and a crying baby for /a/. My dc and I have all found the sound pictures to be very intuitive and easy to remember. Students learn to blend and read and write words with a one-to-one match between sound and sound picture first, and then, after they understand the core concept of writing and reading - going from sound to print and from print to sound - they learn the different ways to spell each sound using letters. The program is free. You can download any or all of the classroom kit, plus they turned it into a set of free iPad apps.

Most obvious subject I see is that of gun control - programme took the side that carrying weapons inevitably leads to using them, and pro-carry advocates argue otherwise. Also have ridiculousness of fashion, in that carrying deadly weapons was a fashion statement. Any of that help?

WRT why the general sentiment here sometimes seems to be pro-John and anti-Sarita, I'd guess it has to do with how JH wasn't scared of interacting with contrary views, and in fact iirc that used to be a selling point of SL - to read a variety of POVs and discuss them in light of the family's beliefs, instead of sheltering kids from them. But SH, from reading about stuff here, seems to be far more on the sheltering side, which really does go against both JH's approach and the approach of most people here. It is rather a jarring change, and takes away most of the SL appeal for me.