Reading with a notched card question?

[Tabrett]

I used a notched card today for the first time with my 6.5dd. I showed a whole word at a time unless it was a new very long word. She FLEW through her reading. It was almost fluent! I'm rather shocked!:eek: We were reading The Fire Cat.

 

OK-so this worked.

 

What does it mean?

 

Does it mean she becomes overly visually stimulated, has tracking problems.....what?

 

It really was like day and night in her reading! I normally use a book mark under the line and point at the words as she reads, but this really worked.

 

How long do I continue with this?

 

Do I try to get her to use the notched card by herself?

 

What other strategies work with a notched card or with kids who do well with notched cards?

 

This is very EXCITING!

[ElizabethB]

Have you tried nonsense words?

 

Do they have the same effect as a notched card? (Tell in advance that they are a nonsense word.)

 

Hove you tried syllable divided words? And, try different division marks: ba-ker vs. ba ker.

 

Also, have you tried all uppercase words? Children guessing from word shape often read better and faster with uppercase, there is no word shape in uppercase: CAT vs cat, bled vs BLED, pad vs PAD

 

Trying these things to compare will help narrow down the cause.

[Amy in KS]

That's normal in my book.

 

Decoding words is hard work. It's like advanced calculus might be to you. If you had a big page of calculus problems that you were assigned to do, you would most likely be overwhelmed. If you had one problem to do, it wouldn't be as overwhelming. By only allowing the child to see the word being read, it reduces how overwhelming the work is.

[Amy in KS]

You might also have a lot of success with doing work on a whiteboard. Write out the words that you want her to read one at a time.

[Giraffe]

My brother used notched cards to read when he was in school. He is severely learning disabled and if he didn't have the card he would report that the words were "jumping" around the page and were also jumbled horribly. To this day he has a hard time tracking.

 

I'm not saying your child is LD. My brother is just the only one I've known to use a notched card and it saved him in school. My mom went back to school to get a degree in education and she was the one who realized his disabilities and got him evaluated by the schools. His teachers just thought he was not smart. He's very smart, just has a hard time in standard schools (Mom wishes she had homeschooled us, but she didn't know about it at the time).

 

HTH....

[rdolphingirl]

I've done this with two children so far ... my eldest only used a card for a few months. He now reads very well with no problems.

My middle ds is currently still learning to read, and uses his card part of the time. It seems to help him focus, but he can also read short selections without the card now such as a few lines in a reader. When he first started sounding out words he used the card for ALL reading, so I guess that is progress.

 

I would for sure hand the card to your child, and see if she can use it herself. Maybe she just needs it to focus on one word at a time?

 

My eldest also had a special colored strip, to view just one line at once. He used that for a short time after the card. Seemed to help him transition from one word, to one line, then to nothing to help. I got this at a Mardels a few years ago.

I think this is the same thing : http://www.thereadinghelper.com/catalog.htm

 

Its possible she has problems, its also possible she just needs time to mature more, and might outgrow this. Either way best wishes to you and her on figuring it out!

 

HTH,

[Ottakee]

I LOVE the notched card idea. I first heard about it from http://www.prometheantrust.org/soundfoundationsbooks.htm in their Dancing Bears program (you can see their directions in the samples of the teacher's books). http://www.3rsplus.com also has it listed in their resources, etc.

 

You can have her start controling the card as you go. Then when she is ready, try putting the book mark ABOVE the line she is reading. That has worked MUCH better here than going below. That way when they get to the end of a line they can fluently go to the next line.

 

We used the notched card here off and on for several years. My daughter had vision therapy with little improvement but that notched card really helped. Now she is reading without it.

[rafiki]

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