Teaching Tip for April, May, June '08

At my presentations, I often give attendees a homework assignment - go back and look through your alphabet books and analyze the phonetic aspect of them. Try this yourself - I think you will be surprised! It has been my experience that the majority of alphabet books are lovely picture books and very poor phonics books.

Here are things to watch for:

• upper case letters only (since lower case is what children see in reading, they must be shown)
• long vowel sounds (it is the short vowel sounds we should be introducing first)
• irregular and r-controlled vowel sounds (eg. owl or onion on the 'o' page, art on the 'a' page, urchin for 'u', etc.)
• consonant digraphs and silent letter patterns (chipmunk or chair for 'c', knot or knuckles for 'k', shoes for 's', etc.)
• soft 'c' and 'g' sounds (city for 'c' and giraffe for 'g')
• words containing consonant blends, especially r-blends abd l-blends (drum for 'd', tree or train for 't' - many children do not pronounce the 'd' and 't' sounds correctly in these words)

I always enjoy hearing back from teachers with words they have found that do not accurately represent the initial sounds we teach children. Let me know if you find any good ones! Enjoy your last term!

To enhance the learning of the letter cues we recommend

• Bringing apples for ‘a' day and cookies for ‘c' day
• Purchasing a small bat and ball set for ‘b'
• Using the feather from a plume pen (for weddings) for ‘f' – tie a bow with a piece of thin ribbon around the middle to show the cross line
• Have someone handy with a saw cut out the house shape and paint it for ‘h'
• Have the children perform the actions for the action letters – jump for ‘j', kick for ‘k', tiptoe for ‘t', wave for ‘w', kiss (the back of our hand) for ‘x', yawn for ‘y' and zigzag around the room for 'z'
• An old pole lamp from home can be brought in for ‘l'
• Knitting supply stores have large, dull needles for ‘n'
• Lakeland (US) or Wintergreen (CDN) educational suppliers have a pig puppet very similar to our picture, which can be purchased for ‘p'
• Many novelty stores have rubber snakes for ‘s', IKEA has a large green snake that is perfect
• A vase can be brought in for ‘v' – I was able to find a blue one and painted the flowers on the front to replicate our picture
• Itchy's Alphabet Hands-On Vowels set provides a manipulative for each of the short vowel sounds
• See our Teaching Guide for stories to introduce each letter cue and specific ideas for teaching each letter

Teaching Tip for January, February, March '08

The Correct Sound for /r/

The sound for the letter 'r' is probably one of the trickiest to enunciate, but it is important that we say it correctly when instructing children. More often than not, we slip into the habit of using the /er/ sound for /r/. /er/ is the sound made by the letters 'er' as in teacher.

To make the /r/ sound correctly, I suggest saying the phrase 'red roses' several times. (You will notice that we do not say /er/ed or /er/oses). As you repeat the phrase, listen carefully to the sound you are making and also feel what your lips are doing. Practice isolating this sound from the rest of the word – say 'red' then say it without the 'ed'. Do this with the children as well, as it will help them differentiate between the two sounds. This becomes especially important when teaching initial 'r' blends. Again, listen for the difference at the beginning of the words 'prim' and 'perm' or 'trim' and 'term'.

You also don't want the children putting the /uh/ sound on the end of the /r/ to make it 'ruh'. Again, practice isolating with 'red roses'. If you have difficulty with this, don’t hesitate to give me a call at 1-877-368-7890 and we can do it together on the phone.

Teaching Tip for October, November, December '07

Check your alphabet books!! Many of the alphabet books out there are beautiful picture books but poor phonics books. Here are things to look for:

• both upper and lower case letters are presented - not just upper case! (our focus should be lower case)
• the vocabulary used is child-appropriate. Many theme books have a limited word base and end up using words far above a child's vocabulary.
• the vowel sounds presented are the short vowel sounds. These are the sounds we first want to introduce to children. Many alphabet books use long, irregular and r-controlled vowel sounds on the vowel pages.
• the consonant sounds are represented by pure consonants rather than blends or digraphs. The 'r' and 'l' blends can be especially problematic, 's' blends aren't as bad as the 's' is the dominant sound. I found one book that used the silent 'kn' pattern for the 'k' page! Abadaba Alphabet by Sheila Moore (abadabaalphabet.com) is a good alphabet book with a focus on letter sounds and lower case letters.

Teaching Tip for July, August, September '07

Even though most of us are enjoying a well earned summer break, many teachers are already giving thought to the new school year. One thing you will want to be sure to be prepared for is doing an initial assessment on your student’s letter and sound knowledge to get a baseline prior to instruction. Following instruction, you will want to do a post-test to determine both growth and concerns. I have developed a pre-test/post-test form which you can download from the website. Go to the HOME page and click on DOWNLOAD CONFERENCE HANDOUTS. You will get a security window: enter brenda as your user name and itchy123 as your password and you can access these forms as well as others. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about any of the information.

WISHING YOU A RELAXING AND FUN-FILLED HOLIDAY!

Itchy's Teaching Tip of the Month - April/ May '07

As the year end approaches, it is time to start thinking about assessments. Be sure you have assessed your students for letter sound identification and letter formations. Remember, it is the lower case letters they need to recognize and be able to print. That is what they see most and use most in reading/writing tasks. If they are struggling with either of these skills, focus on lower case and letter sounds for the next couple of months. If your assessments require you to test upper case and letter names, I suggest you identify those children as at-risk and put them on an IEP. Your rationale can be the fact that most of these children have short and/or long term memory issues and will probably struggle to remember 26 letters/sounds. We don't want to burden them with 52 of each so let's focus on what they most need.

Itchy's Alphabet game cards or our Interactive Games CD are great for providing the necessary drill and practice, in a fun way, to establish these skills. They are great for parents to use at home, too!

Itchy's Teaching Tip of the Month - January/ February/ March '07

We are going to continue discussing some of the position-in-space words that can cause confusion for children when printing. This session we will cover "down". Typically, children look at up and down in the vertical plane. When printing, we often want children to form letters from the top down, but if they aren't sure of "down" on the horizontal plane, they will be confused.

Try this: have 2 students stand side-by-side and point up - their arms will most likely go above their head and point toward the ceiling. If you have them point down, they will point to the floor.With their arms still at their sides, have one student lie down on a piece of chart paper and show the children where that child points when his arm is ‘down'. It is a completely different position-in-space on the horizontal plane. When wanting children to make a line ‘down' the page, I give them the clue "bring your pencil down to your tummy". This gives them a physical place to move their hand to. You can practice this whenever you hand out a paper with a quick 5 second drill. "Everyone, put your finger (thumb, baby finger, etc.) at the top of the paper. Now, slide it down to your tummy. Where are you sliding?" (down)

Itchy's Teaching Tip of the Month - October/ November/ December '06

We have been working on letter formations with our Grade 1 and 2 students this month and I have noticed many of our students with improper pencil grips. Many students tend to grip their pencil with too many fingers or with fingers extended straight out. This hampers finger movement and flexibility. I teach my students to pinch their thumb and index finger tightly together to form a circle with knuckles pointed out. Once they have formed this circle position, have them extend their thumb and index finger straight out then return to the circle.

Repeat this so they can feel the difference between the two. Also, encourage them to watch what they are doing so they can ‘see' the difference as well. You can then have them try to pick up a small object such as a toothpick with fingers extended (difficult to do) and then with fingers pinched (easy to do). This emphasizes the increased flexibility of the pinched grip. Next, have them place their pencil between the pinched thumb and index finger so it rests in the ‘well' between the thumb and first knuckle. Drop the middle finger down so it hides behind the pencil. Have them repeatedly raise and lower the middle finger so they can see it/not see it. Do these drills on a daily basis to reinforce the position. They will need frequent reminders initially, but it will pay off in improved neatness and proper letter formations.

Itchy's Teaching Tip of the Month - June/ July/ August '06

My apologies for those of you looking for the April/May/June tip. I did one up but must not have saved it. So, here it is again! I recently created Blackline Master X, Accuracy and Automaticity Drills for basic sight words. In the package, I've included many tips for spelling basic sight words and thought I'd share some of these with you here.  come - Teach the children to say "Come over to see me." The 'o' in 'over' reminds them to use an 'o' and the 'me' reminds them of the 'e' at the end.  some - teach 'some' as a partner of 'come' and they can usually spell it easily from - most children know how to spell 'mom' - encourage them to say "from Mom" to get the 'om' ending