2 Review, 1 New in OPGTR

[ALB]

How do you do this in your lessons? Specifically, what parts of the lessons do you review? Do you summarize the rules and point to examples or actually have your student re-read the words/ stories again?

Every day I am so tempted to skip the review part, because I'm never sure how to do it well, and I don't like adding to the material she will be reading in today's lesson. Most of the words show up again later, so we do have quite a bit of review built in, but I want to build a good foundation as we go.

Also, do you work for a certain number of minutes a day on phonics, or just do one lesson? I am most comfortable just doing one lesson per day, which means the time spent might vary, but maybe there is a better way to do this? We are not supplementing with ETC or anything else.

[IsabelC]

For my elder child who didn't start reading until age 6, we didn't do reviews until later in the book. We began slowly, and then once he sped up and was able to do more than one lesson per day, I would add some repetition of any bits and pieces he seemed to have forgotten in his other reading. (For some reason, we ended up doing the AI story about Gail the Maid about 10 times!)

 

With my next child, who started at age 4, I have not yet started doing review. She gets discouraged easily, so we are taking it very slowly and usually only get through half a lesson per day. I expect that eventually the penny will drop and she will take off when the time is right.

 

If you want to do 'Two Review and One New' as per the instructions, I think the method is that one of the reviews will be a quick recap of the previous lesson, while the other review would be something that you have flagged as difficult for your child. The idea is that if a page is difficult, you don't get stuck on it until your child is bored and frustrated, but rather keep moving, knowing that you have marked that page for review in a few days time. I would just be summarizing the rules learned and maybe read over some words or some sentences, but not both (if the reviews take more than a few minutes each, your child will be starting to get tired of it before you have covered the main learning for that day).

 

As for how long to spend on reading lessons, I pretty much ignore the lessons and do as much as my child can tolerate and learn. Sometimes that has been 3 lessons in a row, other times it's been just part of one lesson. I don't like to push past a reasonable frustration level, nor do I like to stop when they're interested and we're on a roll.

Edited October 28, 2010 by Hotdrink

[Alice]

I didn't really worry too much about the review. Sometimes I would just say at the beginning of the lesson something like "remember last time we talked about ae saying a" and have him read 4-5 words from the previous lesson and then say "today we're going to talk about another way to say a..." Sometimes I would have ds read to me from a reader (like Bob books or the Nora Gaylos books) that was easier than the lessons we were currently on. That served as a review. As we got further in OPGTR I would often do the lesson but not have him read all the sentences at the end of the lesson. Then the next day we'd read the sentences from the lesson the day before and introduce the new lesson. So we were doing sort of the last half and first half of two different lessons.

 

We typically did the equivalent of one lesson a day.

Edited October 28, 2010 by Alice

[skueppers]

I made a list of ten words drawn from the previous lesson and any other lessons that needed review, and had her read the list. She tended to get distracted if I used the actual book for the review, plus a list of ten words seemed manageable to her.

[toddandleah]

I didn't really worry too much about the review. Sometimes I would just say at the beginning of the lesson something like "remember last time we talked about ae saying a" and have him read 4-5 words from the previous lesson and then say "today we're going to talk about another way to say a..."

 

 

Us too. I also play a game with my daughter, writing a word from previous lessons on the white board for her to pronounce. If she misses it, I get a point, she tries to beat me. I give her a little treat if she wins (a gumdrop or time to play a computer game). We usually do 11 words.

 

Leah

[alpidarkomama]

I didn't review once. Just did one lesson, then the next, often two in one day as it got easier for her. DD just didn't seem to need it. And we finished the book last week!

:party:

[dcjlkplus3]

When I do the Review part (depends on how are day is going) it usually just involves going back through the last few lessons and having her (or him) read a word here or there from them - never actual sentences.

 

I really the poster who makes a list of troublesome words, we'll have to see about trying to do that.

[snickelfritz]

I mark any words she had trouble with during the lesson and those are what I check. Otherwise, I just pick a word or two from a page. If she struggles, we do a few more. If she does it easily, we mve on.

[Cindyz]

We fully review the last two lessons before going on to the new lesson for the day. I remind him of what the lesson was about and he reads all words and all sentences from both review lessons. I noticed that this really helps to build fluency and confidence. By the time he's read the words and paragraphs for the third time, he whips right through it and is so proud of how well he can read it and it also gives him the chance to put some emphasis here and there and some life into the "story". Once we've finished review, we move on to the new lesson. We only do one lesson at a time because I think the review is more important for us than rushing through. I would say that the two review takes approximately 5 minutes and new lessons take 10 - 15.

[newlifemom]

I reviewed the concepts that they struggled with. Near the end, I reviewed the harder words and words from foreign languages.

[jer2911mom]

We usually do review the previous lesson and one additional one (that I have flagged with a post-it tab) that needs more review. If my child still has trouble with any of the words, I make an index card (unlined card) for that word using a Sharpie. If she doesn't know the meaning of a word, I write "meaning" in the upper left corner in pencil. It then goes into a stack we use for our "Word Envelope". I pull three new cards from the stack each day and if she can read it, she gets a check in the upper right corner. If she knows the meaning, she gets a check in the upper left corner. Those three cards will then be added to the envelope. Before I put them in, we go through the cards in the envelope. Once she gets three checks for reading the word (over 3 separate days) and three checks for meaning (if that was on the card), then it goes to the "Word Bank" box, an index card box (hers is purple since it's her favorite color). She loves to bank words! After the Word Bank gets pretty full (we've only done this once since July), we go back through the cards and if she still knows them at that point, I consider them learned long-term and the words come out of the bank. She can do with them as she pleases - teach them to her stuffed animals, her little sister, play school with them, whatever. I got this system from my mom, who is a special ed. teacher with a Montessori background. It works really well for review and is also building my child's vocabulary. I also put things like punctuation marks and sounds she is confusing (e.g., "ch" and "ck") on the cards. My mom also gave me a copy of the Dolch reading lists (pre-primer and primer), so I add in those words as well (I did a pretest first and only add in the ones she doesn't know). This is probably too much information!!

 

ETA: We do one new lesson per day, sometimes breaking up a lesson if it is too long. We also supplement with ETC.

[ALB]

Us too. I also play a game with my daughter, writing a word from previous lessons on the white board for her to pronounce. If she misses it, I get a point, she tries to beat me. I give her a little treat if she wins (a gumdrop or time to play a computer game). We usually do 11 words.

I like this idea!