Final observation

Here I am at the final observation!  My student is beginning to understand the concept of vowel, consonant, e syllable types.  She made no errors on real words last week and only one error on nonsense words.  Today she made two errors on nonsense words.  I will NOT be at substep 4.2 for my final observation but my instructor said it would be acceptable to be at substep 4.1 as long as I have multisyllabic words.  I think this has been a good year and feel like I have grown.  I like the way we learned how to use the Wilson reading system.  I can see that taking the entire year to learn how to use this intervention helps me be a better reading instructor.  I like having the use of this tool.

a full week

We had a full week of lessons.  I am now getting my student for a full hour in the morning.  What a difference having her for a solid hour has made!  She is still struggling with vowel consonant e syllable type.  I have really tried stressing to look for that e and then put the long vowel sound in her head.  She has made some progress but it is slow going.  We tried nonsense words but her charting was so bad that we went back to real words in an attempt to really drill this.  In writing, she consistently leaves off the e.  I am hoping we can move back to nonsense words by the end of this week because we have to be on step 4.2 by next Wednesday!

this past week

I didn't get much time with my student this past week.  However, we finished up with real words and began nonsense words for the v-e syllable type.  I was not surprised to see that my student had difficulty with decoding these words.  She is still having some confusion about when to make a vowel long and when to put a silent e on the end of words.  I believe we will be at this substep for a bit now.  We're winding down, however and I feel confident we will be on step 4.2 in 2 1/2 weeks which is where I NEED to be by then!  I can see how this step is helping my student with decoding.  I feel good about giving her the tools she needs to be a successful reader in the future.  My only concern now is if I will ever get to use what I've learned with future students.  Only time will tell!