Victory Drill question

[sleepymommy]

Ds1 is doing really well with decoding and can pretty much figure how to read most words, he just hasn't really picked up speed. He still sounds out most every word and it's hard for him to understand little stories that he reads because it takes so long for him to go from the start of the sentence to the end.

 

I went back and decided to look at the Victory Drill book to help with this, it looks like a lot of phonetically grouped lists in the samples. I have Dianne Craft's Right Brain Phonics which is essentially a book of phonetically grouped lists, the lists are just shorter.

 

Is the Victory Drill book just timed reading of lists? Could I do this with other lists or is there some other element that I'm not seeing or understanding from the website and samples?

 

If you use the VD book, do you also get the TM and worksheets to go along?

[sleepymommy]

:001_smile: bump

 

anyone?:bigear:

[Scuff]

I originally taught my first 2 to read with VDB. I bought the whole set, but didn't use much of the worksheets and extra stuff. I ran into problems with it with DD and got Phonics Pathways before switching to R&S. (I love R&S, but it's somewhat heavier in sight words than I prefer in 1st grade. So I've gotten them blending and introduced to phonics before starting) It was just as you noticed. Too much added in one lesson. We got hung up at the lesson that had -ung, -ing, -ang, -ink, -ank, -unk, ect words all introduced and mixed at once. I still have the book and plan to use it as review/vocab for older elementary. I just don't think it's that great for teaching reading. Like the concept, just not the execution.

[sleepymommy]

Thanks Scuff, can you elaborate a bit more on the concept. I guess I'm still not getting exactly how it goes.

 

Do you just read the words? Are their any phonics rules included? I saw there were little asterisks at the bottom of the page with an explanation of some rules, but I'm not getting how that comes out in the teaching part.

 

Anyone else BTDT?

[Mom-ninja.]

Take a look at ElizabethB's (her user name here) site. She has games and activities for building fluency.

[sleepymommy]

Thanks Kleine Hexe, I do use ElizabethB's and Don Potter's Blend Phonics with ds1. He's been doing really well and learns the sounds with relative ease. It's the speed and fluency he's having trouble with. I've played the phonogram game with him on Elizabeth's site and he does pretty well with that too. It's more difficult for him when reading words in sentences I guess. He just goes so slowly that the sentence (even short ones) don't really make a whole lot of sense by the time he gets to the end.

[Scuff]

Thanks Scuff, can you elaborate a bit more on the concept. I guess I'm still not getting exactly how it goes.

 

Do you just read the words? Are their any phonics rules included? I saw there were little asterisks at the bottom of the page with an explanation of some rules, but I'm not getting how that comes out in the teaching part.

 

Anyone else BTDT?

 

We just read the words. When we first started, I made copies, enlarged slightly, of about 5-10 words. Once they were blending well, we'd work on more of the page, then onto the next. I believe they did have some rules, as you noticed, but it was also recomended to use "The ABC's and Their Tricks" alongside it. The worksheets did have the rules on them and it was fairly easy to match up the lessons with the worksheets. I'm not big on TM, and just did it. Not really sure how to explain that better. HTH. It's been awhile.