Anita's Teaching as Inquiry Blog

Email conversation with a parent... Teacher Email Great news!! We tested -- today and he is now a Orange Reader. He has skipped green and moved to Orange. We are so excited.  Thank you so much for coming on board and supporting --- with reading.   Parent Response  Ohhhh Anita, that's really made my day!!!  Thanks - wonderful support from you guys! We really appreciate all the input and encouragement you've given him - great stuff.  The interventions to make this happen Phonics - using sound boxes Using bookmarks with reading strategies reminders. Using praise charts, and rewarded with time for literacy games Guided sessions teaching how to read buddy reading listening to the story Extra reading milage with support from a parent. Regular connects with parents

For many of the learners I have they are involved in the STEPS programme. The most effective approach of this programme is to develop all of the underlying processing and cognitive skills at the same time as teaching the literacy knowledge. This is done by ensuring that the learner sees and uses the word in a wide variety of contexts. The learner will do a whole series of activities in the order specified to make sure that he/she can: Read the word confidently and without hesitation Recognise the word instantaneously Put the word into context Spell the word Break the word into individual sounds Blend the word together (from sounds or chunks) Define the word Type or write the word The carefully designed structure means that a non-specialist teacher/teacher-aide or parent can use the program effectively, even if they don’t have an indepth theoretical knowledge of this field. The graph above shows the accelerated progress made in 20 weeks for these specific learner...