I was just looking at the diagnostic test for CLE LA and my son knows almost all of the level 100 (he is in first grade). What he doesn't know at all are the symbols that represent sounds- like the upside down e, the o with a dot on top of it, etc... Do they really need to know that at this age? He knows basic sentence structure, reads well, is getting there with spelling, and we are working on parts of speech (nouns, verbs). Suddenly I feel like we are behind since I haven't taught him anything like that. We do go over spelling rules, but I haven't taught him any of those symbols. What are your thoughts?
Frankly, we always ignored such symbols; I see no reason to learn them at any age. Personally, I feel that such things are overkill. By analogy, kindergarteners in Israel read initially with dots and lines over the Hebrew characters to represent the vowels. It doesn't take long before such symbols are superfluous. Children are fast learners.
No, they don't need to know that. I never taught it to my kids, and I never taught it when I was in the classroom.
In real life, those have only come into play in my life in 2 situations: 1 - trying to figure out in an actual book dictionary how to pronounce a word. (But why would anyone do that now when u can push the "hear pronunciation" button. ) and 2 - I was a French/2ndary ed major and in our linguistics class it was completely assumed that everyone knew what they meant and were used constantly through the whole semester. Now...while I had indeed been taught as a grade schooler, I definitely had to brush up on the the first week of class! Lol
I would think a class on international phonetics would be more appropriate! Especially since we don't have certain sounds in English (such as the nasal vowels).
CLE teaches the diacritical markings as you go along, because they're very helpful in using a dictionary independently. A lot of the primary grade LA and reading lessons use them mostly for new vocabulary words. Some people find that they don't match all the regional variations (such as when CLE shows the second e in "seven" being pronounced as a schwa or short-u sound instead of a short-e sound) used where those particular people live. I like that they're there, because so many of the kids I get - even middle schoolers - have not a clue about phonics, can't understand the dictionary markings (have VERY limited dictionary skills of any kind), can't divide into syllables, and are constantly misreading/can't sound out unfamiliar words and therefore have a more limited vocabulary. Next year I'm going to have a 9th grader do R&S's Developing Better Reading that teaches those things, and a 4th grader and a 2nd grader do R&S's 2nd grade Phonics precisely so they can all learn those skills! The 4th and 2nd graders will be doing CLE's LA, too!
If he has passed the 100 level on the test without knowing them, he can pick them up in the 200 level.
Just wanted to agree with Lindina - I wouldn't let him not knowing them stop you from going to level 200. We started with CLE at level 300 and we have just been learning them as we go along. There is a key at the beginning of each light unit reminding you what sound they represent. They use them a lot to work on spelling - for example list the 4 spelling words with the u sound etc. DS knows it is ok to come to me if he isn't sure what they mean and honestly I usually get my teacher's manual and we learn the sound and symbol together. I actually think they help him to think phonetically as he spells. I like CLEs approach it's just been a little weird to jump into mid stream. I plan to use CLE from the start with dd.
