Observation #4

Observation #4 is scheduled for tomorrow.  I am to go back and do a 3.5 lesson.  It will be good to review the vowel suffixes with her.  This past week we spent more time on the V-E syllable type.  She is still consistently missing one word in the charting.  I charted words with the suffix S.  That didn't seem to be more difficult for her.  She just doesn't remember that if there is an e at the end of the word the vowel is long.  In writing she is also consistently missing putting the e on the end of words with a long vowel sound.  I am hopeful that with work on this, she will significantly improve her reading and writing skills!

v-c-e

We started a new syllable type last week - vowel - consonant - e.  I was surprised by how difficult this was for my student.  I really thought she would have been taught about silent e somewhere along the way.  She may well have been taught about it but I guess it didn't really stick.  She is showing significant difficulties decoding words with a silent e.  In her first word chart she made three errors.  Interestingly, she heard and self corrected all three errors.  This week in her charting she made only one error so I am already seeing some improvement.  I believe we will be at this sub step for a while.

step 4

Well, last week we did the posttest for step 3.  I wasn't sure if I did the spelling part right so I re-did it with the same result - 100%.  My student was really off last Monday when we did the posttest.  I felt like I really had to drag stuff out of her.  She is still having trouble with a gap between what she thinks in her head and what comes out her mouth.  It is so interesting to hear her misread a word and when I get her to look at the word and tap it out and say it again, she'll read it correctly and then say, "that's what I said!"  with absolute conviction.  At any rate, even with being in another world on Monday she managed to pass the posttest so all is well with the Wilson world.  This week we are starting step 4.  In step 4 my student will be learning a new syllable type - v-e.  I am anticipating it taking a few days to get through the first lesson because we have a LOT to add to her notebook.  Since it's a short week I am thinking I'll just spend the whole week doing this one lesson.  We are WAY ahead of where we are supposed to be by now so I feel like we can slow down and get it right.  It will be interesting to see how this lesson goes.