Jennifer N.
-
Posts
129 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by Jennifer N.
-
-
Maybe it's the time of year? I placed an order with RR in May and although I can't remember how long it took for the order to arrive, when it did I remember thinking to myself that was a little faster than I expected. Usually I give them a two week window in my mind for expecting the package. I think in May it was a week or less.
-
Thanks for posting this question Sherri. I always thought the main difference was in what curricula/companies were recommended. But now I am really curious to get a look at the 1st edition. I think I've only checked out the 2004 from the library (my first brush with WTM) and I own the most recent edition.
-
Huh. Well it seems to be my posts in the General Ed Discussion forum that don't show up in My Content. I only have two there but neither show up in My Content. I'll just have to make sure I go into that forum directly to check on any posts I make there. Reminds me to go check on my first one...
-
Yes, I think the new look is a real asset. I'm glad to see I am not too far behind in noticing the changes. But there are so many good resources out there in the cyber world sometimes I forgot about some of them and don't use them for a while and I wondered if I'd done that with the nrrf website.
When I first went to the website a year or two ago, the old look of the website made me wonder about the up to date ness of the information. Of course, I learned over time it was a treasure trove of information.
-
Whoa, I guess I haven't been there in a while. The website has been completely revamped (or at least it looks that way to me). Does anyone know when this change was made?
I just linked over there from 40L/thephonicspage.org's how to tutor page and I had to double check it was the same website I have printed articles/resources from in the past.
-
I am searching through the archives to find information on SSRW's kindergarten and first grade program. i just bought the 1st grade kit from the classifieds. It looks pretty comprehensive and starts by teaching the letters. Is it necessary to do the Kindergarten workbooks as well? I will keep looking through the forums and go back to CBD and Rainbow Resource websites to look at their information on the difference between the K and 1st grade levels.
-
So I just discovered this neat feature last week. It makes it easy to keep up with threads I've participated in.
Question: I started a thread yesterday asking a question about WRTR. It does not show up in "My Content." Am I doing something wrong? I wrote the original post and I responded once to say thank you. It's the first thread where I can't easily go into "My Content" to check on new replies.
Thank you.
-
Thanks so much, I appreciate the replies!
-
What is the difference between the websites Spalding.org and the Riggs Institute?
I am new to WRTR (but have used another O-G based program)... Riggs Institute says they use WRTR. I ordered the 4th ed of WRTR as suggested by Ellie and Hunter elsewhere for another poster. My library doesn't have a copy or I would have tried that avenue first.
Looking at the phonogram cards, Riggs sells their own set of cards? How are they different from the ones purchased from Spalding? I ask because a reviewer on Amazon was very emphatic that a set of cards up for sale were not WRTR cards but Riggs but didn't really specify what the differences were.
Do both companies' cards include instructions for letter formation on the back?
I printed lots of interesting articles from Riggs...
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me.
-
When I taught in public schools, children rarely repeated a grade. Even students who were below grade level in core skill areas like reading in 1st grade were moved on. It does not surprise me that the teachers are not recommending repeating the grade for your daughter so you are going to have to make this decision yourself. It's a hard one. I had to make a similar (but not same) decision for one of my children (about when to start K, he was right on the cusp age wise). I have since made of point of asking people who have had to make decisions regarding age cutoffs/kindergarten enrollment why they made the decisions they did. It's led to some interesting discussions... I have to tell you though based on what I've learned from others, it really depends on the individual child. There is no one set formula for a making a decision like this. I think you should mull it over and go with your gut.
I was one of the oldest in my grade when I went through school just because of the age cut offs at that time. In high school, I left a year early to go to college. This could always be an option down the road for your daughter if she wishes. In my day, it was called early admission (not early acceptance, that's where you agree to go to a school if they accept you in December). I applied as a junior in high school, went to college while completing requirements for my senior year at college. I was able to graduate with my high school classmates the following year. That was important to me at the time so my high school "class of" was the same as my friends and we'd go to the same reunions. Not all colleges do early admission, but some do.
-
And VAVA is a public school too, you are not considered a homeschooler. The parent is the "learning coach" which means teacher in the house. Your child learns at home.
-
I'm sorry, I don't have time for a long post right now (about to make dinner) but have you considered a public virtual academy? I live in Virginia too and my oldest was in the Virginia Virtual Academy this year. My middle two are in public school and my youngest is 3. I have mostly been an afterschooler but last year in 3rd grade, the public schools just weren't meeting my oldest's needs, not even close (not enough challenge, one size fits all etc). VAVA as the school is known uses the K12.com curriculum. If you want to know more, you can ask me here or private message me. Depending on where you live in Virginia, I might know of some enrichment options as well but you might want to private message me that information.
www.k12.com/vava for more information
My oldest is going back to bricks and mortar school in a full time advanced academics program next year.
I actually would love to full time homeschool but I am a former public school teacher and my intention is to return to paid teaching at some point.
-
I don't know if this is really relevant to the discussion but Virginia's public virtual school has to be hosted by a Virginia county. This school is called Virginia Virtual Academy and it is not a charter school. There was a bill tabled this year by the VA senate (but passed the House of Delegates) that would have allowed the school to become a charter school. This bill will come up again next year (I think it was HB 324 if you want to look it up). If the school is allowed to become a charter school, many more options will open up for students including numbers of students allowed to enroll and possibly curriculum choices. Right now, Virginia Virtual Academy is hosted by two counties in Virginia, one is Patrick County. So a student enrolled in the Patrick County side is technically a public school student in Patrick County. Students who did not live in the county had to pay an out of district fee last year to attend but at least for next year will not.The school uses the K12 curriculum and it seems to me, K12 helps to provide some of the administrative functions as well. Maybe this changes when a school is a charter school?
I am not sure why some counties would choose not to host VAVA students (which happened last year and they had to scramble to find a new host county and for time did not know if they would be able to enroll students 3rd grade and above; they did have to drop some middle school grades) but it may have to do with Virginia's state tests, the Standards of Learning assessments. VAVA students' scores count for those counties. I suspect this because there was no trouble continuing the K-2 portion of the virtual school but in Virginia, SOL testing does not begin until 3rd grade.
-
I just learned about this other learning to read resource in the afterschooling forum. I am pasting part of a post here in case there is interest.
"I am always on the lookout for good programs to recommend to parents, especially parents who have never heard of the word afterschool. So I went to look at First Reader. At first, I thought it was only available used on Amazon or other websites for a pretty high price. And I was only googling the book by its name with the ISBN which brought up lots of used copies selling for a pretty high price. But guess what? There is a website that tells you all about First Reader AND there is a program for older students too (geared towards 3rd grade and up struggling readers). Here is the website: http://www.firstreader.com/
Thank you for pointing out this resource!"
-
I liked Bob Books. My youngest had a bit of a speech impediment and I used phonic faces http://www.elementory.com/ with them. I also used First Reader http://www.amazon.com/First-Reader-Phyllis-Schlafly/dp/0934640246 . Once the kid has a handle on sounding out words, sight word memorization is important for fluency, and besides the old fashioned Dick and Janes, I like the first through third grade Mennonite Pathway readers for that because they really pound the first 1000 words in the Dolch list while still being interesting stories http://cathyduffyreviews.com/phonics_reading/pathway-readers.htm (The 4-8 grade readers are not worth buying imho.)
I am always on the lookout for good programs to recommend to parents, especially parents who have never heard of the word afterschool. So I went to look at First Reader. At first, I thought it was only available used on Amazon or other websites for a pretty high price. And I was only googling the book by its name with the ISBN which brought up lots of used copies selling for a pretty high price. But guess what? There is a website that tells you all about First Reader AND there is a program for older students too (geared towards 3rd grade and up struggling readers). Here is the website: http://www.firstreader.com/
Thank you for pointing out this resource!
-
Thank you for all of your responses. I appreciate all your feedback and perspectives. It's given me a lot of food for thought.
-
I wrote about this in another thread but on reflection, I think I should post separately. Here is my question:
My 3 1/2 year old son was late in talking. He had single words at about 2 1/2 but now speaks in complete sentences. He has trouble saying certain consonant sounds and often drops off the beginning consonant sounds of words.
My question is, how does this affect early reading instruction? I would like to teach him his letters and sounds next school year (he knows his colors, shapes, can count 1-2-3) but is that even a good idea if he still struggles with making sounds in everyday speech? A speech therapist gave me a list of sounds he should be making by age/gender norms according to the Iowa scale (?). He is okay there but on the later end of the spectrum. He struggles making sounds like /f/, /s/.... His speech is sing songy in that he makes lots of vowel sounds but leaves off key consonants. We can almost always understand him (tho' there are times we cannot) but outside of our family, people do not always.
I have used LOE and Foundations with my older three and those have been so helpful in teaching me how to teach him to physically make the sounds with his mouth. My other children had no issues in learning to talk. With this child, I had to make a point of having him look at me when I spoke so I could teach him how to make certain sounds.
-
Oh my goodness, I was just thinking last night I should post here and see if anyone else preschool speech and language resources. Thank you all so much!
But I do have a follow on question. My son does not have a severe speech delay but he is in the late talker/keep an eye on development range. Receptive language is great, hearing not a problem. It is his production of sounds that is the issue. He is 3 1/2.
My question is, how does this affect early reading instruction? I would like to teach him his letters and sounds next school year (he knows his colors, shapes, can count 1-2-3) but is that even a good idea if he still struggles with making sounds in everyday speech? A speech therapist gave me a list of sounds he should be making by age/gender norms according to the Iowa scale (?). He is okay there but on the later end of the spectrum. He struggles making sounds like /f/, /s/...he often leaves off beginning sounds of words. His speech is sing songy in that he makes lots of vowel sounds but leaves off key consonants. We can almost always understand him (tho' there are times we cannot) but outside of our family, people do not always.
I have used LOE and Foundations with my older three and those have been so helpful in teaching me how to teach him to physically make the sounds with his mouth.
-
PS - You know you can get Math Mammoth printed out on Lulu? That's what I've done in the past and now the books come with a spiral binding so they open flat too. I don't remember doing it that way to be any more expensive than when I bought Singapore this year or even the CTS books. I wanted everything printed out and in one place too.
You do write in the CTS books so those wouldn't be reuseable for another child.
-
I don't know if this link will work if you are not a member of their forums but I asked a similar question earlier this year on the forums at Rainbow Resource. My questions was more towards scheduling and the need for the teacher book. I got a really helpful reply. By the time the reply came, I had decided to buy the teacher book too. My son has used Primary Math Standards Ed 4th grade for a few months. He does not write in the textbook but I do allow him to write in the workbook. The teacher textbook is useful and has good background information to share with the kids.
http://ourhomeschoolforum.com/forum/math/68-singapore-primary-math-standards-ed
But I am going back to afterschooling all the kids this summer so I decided buy Critical Thinking Skills Mathematical Reasoning books -- all in one, no teacher text, can be used as a core curriculum or supplement. It's spiral. It was described to me by a homeschooler who used Singapore for years and loved it as Singapore on steroids (very colorful). I like what I've seen of Singapore but I did not want to juggle all those books with my older 3.
-
PS--Both my older two will attend a full time gifted program next year as well. My second child is going into 3rd. I bought him the 3rd grade level of CTS. I don't think it's going to be too hard for him and he's already started the book. I have my kids do a certain number of pages to earn computer time on the weekend.
Looking back at your post, I didn't really answer your question I guess. If you want to stay with Singapore, I think you would need the textbook and the workbook. The other books are extras.
-
I've used Math Mammoth as an afterschooler. It's a great curriculum. I dabbled in Singapore Standards ed for 4th grade this year (to do in place of one child's K12 math course) and I like how they teach math too. So, this spring a lady at our enrichment school was selling Critical Thinking Skills materials. She had used Singapore with her older children and loved it but likes the CTS math even more. She described it as Singapore on steroids (it's very colorful). I bought books for my older three children to work in over the summer. What I like about CTS is it is all in one. No teacher textbook. Singapore gets fiddly with the two books (at least for me). The math books are titled Mathematical Reasoning and they go by grade levels. It's a spiral curriculum.
I have one in a public virtual school this year for the first time, two in bricks and mortar and the youngest is 3. So that's why I do a mix.
-
I used Hooked On Phonics levels to approximate grade levels in OPGTR. Here's the blog post with the information. Like a PP, my kids have figured it out and it's all review now (we're in the back of the book) but we keep plugging through, 2 lessons a day (8-10 minutes) because there are occasional gaps.
That is an awesome blog post! Thank you!
Also, if you are looking for phonetic readers like BOB books, you can try the I See Sam series which you can find the first 1-52 free on line here:
If you want cleaner copies, you can sign up for a free trial account at readingteacher.com and print theirs off. I've seen lots of people who love the I See Sam series on this forum. You can also just buy them pre-printed too at https://www.iseesam.com/
I have also bought the Nora Gaydos books from Amazon and Primary Phonics readers too to supplement early phonetic reading.
I second Elizabeth's recommendations (whose website is awesome) about being sure he is really reading words and not guessing. I used to teach in public school and my 3rd child is in K public school this year. Forgive me, I used to teach children to read the first sound and guess the word and memorize sight words and look at pictures to guess a word, etc because that is how I was taught to teaching reading back then. Then I found the homeschooling world when I first stayed home with my oldest and checked out The Well Trained Mind from the public library.
I had to stay a step ahead of my daughter's teacher (whom I love) this year so she wouldn't pick up those guessing/sight word reading habits. It was really interesting to see it first hand. I taught my oldest to read the way it is taught in public school and he is a voracious reader but I have had to remediate his spelling. My 2nd was taught the same way but intuited a lot of the code in early 1st grade. So my 3rd is the first one I have really watched closely every step of the way and actually started teaching her at home before K. She started picking up some bad habits mid year but I was able to train those out of her pretty quickly because I knew what to look for.
-
Thank you! I have her first level of RLtL and it is really good. This is a great chance to look at some of Kathy Jo's other materials.
Logic of English question
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
The game book is good if you like to play games. Foundations actually has the directions for the games in the lessons, Essentials directs you to a page in the game book. The game book doesn't cost too much. The game cards do because you have to buy 2-3 sets and if your students are different levels it is helpful to buy sets for each level you are teaching or you will constantly be shuffling your cards as to which ones can be used in games or not. The game cards are business card sized. If you are so inclined, you could make them yourself (laminating would be a good idea). The game cards have the phonogram printed large in the center portrait-wise and a smaller version in an upper corner. If I made them myself, I'd make the upper corner phonogram a bit bigger because when you play hand held card games (like Go Fish), you can't really see the centered phonogram. I store my game cards in a business card file like this: http://www.containerstore.com/shop?productId=10011030&N=&Ntt=business+card+file. I use the dividers to divide out which phonograms have been taught, mastered, yet to teach. I don't think all the games in the game book require game cards; many are active games, get up and move around games.
You can do without Doodling Dragons. I use my basic phonogram cards a lot for review and teaching. Have not taken the cellophane off my advanced phonogram cards. For Essentials, I only taught the spelling portion so the grammar cards were not needed and I didn't use the spelling rule cards much either. If you get the spelling journal, the rules are listed on pg. 7 and your child could use that as a reference instead of spelling rules cards. The new journal is really nice IF you are going to use it. They just revised it earlier this year and words are categorized by sounds and then broken down into how the sounds are spelled. The revised journal includes the rules about when certain phonograms may or may not be used.