Dancing Bears - fluency, cursor questions

[Hypatia.]

I'm using Dancing Bears with my 7 year old (dyslexia suspected but not diagnosed) and have a couple questions about use.

 

First, with the cursor. How long do you keep using the cursor to uncover each sound? I'm hoping that at some point she'll be able to read "cat" instead of just sounding it out slowly and then putting it together, but I'm not sure when that will happen. Do I just keep uncovering the words bit-by-bit? My 5 year old son is also using the program and will be passing her soon, so I'm not sure when to just show him the whole word.

 

Secondly, the Mastery Tests. So far she has had to go back and repeat the section each time she gets to a Mastery test, largely due to the laborious sounding-out of the words. Do I just continue repeating these sections as necessary, until she can pass the recommended time frames for the words and number of errors for the sentences?

 

Any advice or BTDT-experience would be great.  

[Lots of boys]

Hi, We are using Dancing Bears too (my ds 7). We are using the A1/A2 books to slow it down even further. I still use the curser with all sections for him. If I don't, he forgets how to chunk up the word (tries to split vowel teams up when sounding out etc.). My little guy still sounds out every sound slowly for every word. It is very, very slow.

 

As far as the Mastery tests, I only go back if he really struggled. If he got all the words on it but was a little slow, I still move on.

 

What book are you using?

[KSinNS]

Sounds like your daughter is in too high a level. D (no dyslexia but ADD) had the same problem with the first half of A. He is doing better now, but still has lots of anxiety about the mastery tests. If I had it to do over again, I would have restarted with A1. In general, their books work best if easy. The spelling books suggest that unless the kid is achieving about 90 percent accuracy, the book is too hard.

 

Wrt the cursor, I uncover the whole word from left to right quickly, then go back and chunk the word if the kid needs help. But, my kids don't have dyslexia. I've completed the series with one kid, one is most of the way through B, and one is in A2.

Edited April 1, 2016 by KSinNS

[geodob]

Though one thing that I wonder about Dancing Bears, is if its approach can result in speech difficulties?

With its unnatural emphasis on letter sounds?

 

[Cynful]

My son was older when we started it, probably 12, but I used the cursor for a good long while.  I credit it with really getting him reading.  It slowed him down and made him consider each sound.  I'm not sure I see the unnatural emphasis on letter sounds.  I used the cursor for each sound.  So reading for example I would show r then ea then d then ing.  Hope that makes sense.  He has no speech difficulties.  We didn't have problems with the mastery tests except for slowness sometimes and since he has processing issues, I didn't make it a big deal.  I would go with how you feel she's doing and sometimes that means not following the "rules" of the curriculum.  

 

I liked DB and A&P so much, I'm going to be using it with my youngest who has no difficulties.

 

Good luck,

[Hypatia.]

Thank you for your input! I moved her down to the A1 book and that seems to be a better fit. That has the added benefit of her not noticing when her younger brother passes her since they're no longer in the same book.

[LaughingCat]

Though one thing that I wonder about Dancing Bears, is if its approach can result in speech difficulties?

With its unnatural emphasis on letter sounds?

I'm not sure what the unnatural emphasis in Dancing Bears is?  Using the notched card is different from using tiles such as Barton or LIPS do -- but both Barton and LIPS have WAY more emphasis on letter sounds IMO  (although I have not looked at Barton past level 2 -- but it would appear the tile work gets more emphasis not less as the program continues).