Our dd1 is 7.5, and really struggling with long vowels! its holding her back with reading, and she gets so frustrated with herself what should she be doing at this age? what can we do to help? should we do a spelling programme if so any ideas? any games which would help? any particular books? any ideas are welcome Thanks in advance
What exactly do you mean by "struggling"? Can she HEAR the difference in the sounds? For example, if you verbally say HAT and HATE, can she tell you which is long/short? If she's looking at pictures, can she mark which has a long or short sound? Or is this specifically a reading thing, where she doesn't know, looking at a word, if it is long or short? The rule I learned as a kid was: When two vowels go a-walking, The first one does the talking. But then, my kids started watching "Between the Lions" (which, btw, I would reccoment highly!!!), and learned these two: When the "e" at the end plays the no-talking game The vowel before it says its name! and: Two vowels standing side by side The first one says its name with pride! I would often say these to Phillip when he would struggle over a word.
My oldest had a hard time learning her long vowels. We found The Phonics Game at a thrift store and started playing that for 20 minutes everyday. It really helped her because it was a card game she could try to win so she was motivated to keep playing. Through the game they learn all the rules for long and short vowel sounds and the ones that don't follow the rules. Don't know if you kids like learning through games but it might work for you guys too. My youngest has watched her older sisters playing for so long that she can hardly wait to start playing with them this year.
Its more to do with reading a book, and spelling. I am really unsure how much she should be able to do or if I am expecting too much from her She struggles with by and die, spellings and all the ou would and cloud things like that. The Phonics Game, is that its name? was going to try and find a game on ebay or amazon. Thanks again
I'd stop the spelling altogether. Concentrate on READING. And concentrate on the long vowel sounds. IGNORE THE DIPTHONGS for the time being!!! You can talk about them when she has her long-vowels down. Go to the library and ask for "Real Kid Readers".
Yeah the name of the game is The Phonics Game. It is set up to be a series of card games. To play the game you use their tapes or video to practice the sounds of the letters. Then you have to sound out the word cards to keep them in the game. You also get to steal cards from each other at certain times (but you have to sound them out) and read phonics rules and take the cards that apply to that rule from the other players. I never play for as long as it truly takes to make it all the way through. I set a timer and we play until it goes off. Then we see who has the most cards. The decks progressively get harder and introduce more complicated rules. We would stick to one deck for quite a while until all the words were very easy and then move into the next deck. I don't know that it was any better of a system than the others out there, but because it was a fun game my kids were willing to play it a lot. That enabled them to finally learn the rules. Hope it helps.
Have you thought about using a modified Spalding for Spelling and just doing more reading? I'm investigating Spalding, I have the book and everything, right now we are trying to come to grips with phonics and my students aren't doing to bad. I'm hoping that 2011 will find them ready for Spalding. I love the idea of one book to do the entire LA curriculum for 6 years! I love it!
So I also love between the lions-seems to have been stopped. Or at least its not on our pbs anymore... anybody know if you can get it on netflix or anything? As for long vowels-my son started to "get" them more when he read more, outloud. The word wouldn't make sense....after a few months of reading outloud for 20-30 mins a day, he didn't have this problem anymore. He doesn't have to read outloud anymore-but the reading was what got it for him.
It's still on at 2:00 weekdays in central Ohio, but it may be up to the individual station. Try the library; I know ours carries it on DVD.
Our station still carries Between the Lions - maybe something else? Electtric Company, Word World, Word Girl ... I really wish they'd bring back the Letter People! And don't forget Starfall! There's more than just letter sounds there - there are actual little "books" that cover both short and long vowel sounds, videos, games....
The OLD Letter People, where only the vowels were female! They're so much better than the newer ones!
I am sure you got lots of advice I noticed Jackie said the two vowels goign walking, well I added to that one for one of my kids I told them when there are two vowels one is chicken to speak and his friend speaks up for him. but also one is silent and one shouts out loud his name! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! OOOOOOOOOOOOOO! IIIIIIIII! UUUUUUUUUU! so he can be heard and they will know he is bold and strong! I am a story teller so that part came easy for me in teaching, tellling stories about different learning things.. hmm maybe I should write a book on that!
