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Education is a Process, Not a Destination
Aug. 17, 2007
Curriculum Picks 2007, Part IV - English
Resources:
various readers
All About Spelling
Getty-Dubay Italic A
nursery rhymes
For this year, the concentration is on reading. There will be no grammar and only some handwriting and a fair amount of spelling (for the decoding reinforcement).
READING
For reading, we're going to be reading a variety of early readers for half an hour to forty minutes a day, seven days a week. This is the only school that we will make sure to do on Saturday and Sunday as well. I strongly believe that reading is the greatest doorway to learning, and this is reflected in my emphasis upon it.
DS is dyslexic. Yes, he was taught to read through phonics, but phonic merely lowers the chances of reading problems--it doesn't rewire a miswired brain! For that reason, our biggest challenge right now is speed. We'll continue reading books at the second grade level until DS's speed is in the higher end of the normal range for second grade. We'll read many classics, including Arnold Lobel, Seuss, Gene Zion, and the like, as well as new favorites, such as Cynthia Rylant. Dyslexia, unless it is incredibly severe, needn't be a stumbling block to any child of normal intelligence with the right amount of intervention.
SPELLING
For spelling, we will use the program All About Spelling. It is one of several Orton-Gillingham derived programs, but it needs much less time than other programs, like Spell to Write and Read, and does not require writing. The first level is equivalent to about K-1st grade, so I won't mind taking more than a year on it, if we need to, since we'll only be doing it for a short while each week.
HANDWRITING
I believe that the goal of handwriting is legibility and clarity, and I couldn't care less about 19th century traditions. For that reason, Getty-Dubay Italic is a perfect choice for us. This year, DS is just doing one worksheet per day, and that is all. If he wants to write more later in the year, he can, but I'm just concentrating on a good, loose pencil grip and correct letter formation this year.
Most of the time he spends on handwriting is actually spent on the coloring portion, as I read our chapter book read-aloud. This is great fine motor skills practice and helps him concentrate.
READ-ALOUD
Our read-alouds are of three types: the current chapter book, picture books, and poetry. The first and third I read, and the second is what DH reads at bedtime.
I'm choosing our chapter books to be developmentally appropriate and high-interest but with a very rich vocabulary in order to expose DS to more words in a fun context. In addition, I don't particularly care to read books to him that he would otherwise read in a year or two but prefer to choose something more out of the way. Of course, I also look for short chapters!
We are starting this year with George Macdonald's The Princess and the Goblins, which is just about perfect. DS is mesmerized by the "ooooold lady Irene" and the goblins, both. Our next read-aloud will be Kipling's Just So Stories. After that, I'll probably start choosing fairy tale books, like those by Lang.
MEMORY WORK
Our memory work for English this year will be nursery rhymes, one per week. They are culturally important rhymes to know, are appealing to children, and memory work in general helps train the memory, as well as helping enunciation and presentation, which, since DS is a born mutterer, he needs. |
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Posted by 
Aug. 17, 2007 - Untitled Comment
DS isn't the only dyslexic in the house
:-)