SHAY - PG question regarding Advanced Code stories

>…..at what level of reading proficiency should he be at before we move onward to Multisyllable Management? Laura,

Hi Laura,

I just wanted to toss in a comment on this one issue you raised.

After working with a lot of kids, I’ve concluded that the best screen to determine whether a child is really ready for multisyllable work is whether they can look at the first chunk in a word and simply read it (without having to decode it.)

Thus, when they see “rock - et” (written with the chunks separated as in the early part of PGx multisyllable work) can they simply say “rock,” or do they have to think it through (r..o..k…rock!) If they are still at this level, then they need more work in single syllable words before spending much time in multisyllable work. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t explain chunking, and let them try words they encounter in real text, but if you press ahead with the multisyllable work when they are still decoding one-syllable words sound-by-sound, you will stand a good chance of frustrating them. Blending two, three and especially four chunks is difficult enough without also having to be working at the level of individual sounds.

On the other hand, if they easily look at a chunk and say it, they’re ready….even if they choose the wrong vowel sound for the chunk.

Hope this helps…..Rod

I think that is a good determiner. Thanks Rod for explaining this to succinctly.

Hi Rod!
Thank you for explaining that. My son can read some multisyllable words easily and others he has difficulty with. For example, in reading through “Whales” he can just read the word “largest,” “mammal” and other words quite easily the first time around. It seems like he automatically is beginning to “chunk” words on his own. However, beginnng with the story “Wind,” he was having much more difficulty. We did a second reading of it this morning and he still had quite a bit of difficulty with some of the words. For example, “particular” and “hurricanes.” And what I’ve noticed is when he starts having a difficult time, he starts squirming. And then he sometimes will guess words — even simple ones that I know he knows like saying “the” for “a” (a bad habit!). That’s when I tell him to look at the word, slow down and sound it out.

Although, I’m starting to wonder if the real difficulty might be seeing soo many words together in one place. Maybe it’s a visual problem. If I take the more difficult words, write them on a dry erase board, he can read them much easier. He really has the sounding out quite well and does automatically “chunk” some words.

I did start him on Shirl’s Curls which was a little difficult. I had him read the story once and then I had him do the sound search exercise during a second reading.

Well, I think we’ll work on the sound searching exercises with some review (like word analysis, particularly of any sounds he starts to show confusion with). And then figure it out from there.

Again, thanks! :-)

Shay can say whether this makes sense in the context of the other stuff you’re teaching and learning, since I’m not that experienced with this program — but what I’d do in this situation is give him more word-level practice since it seems like he’s getting the stuff that he’s had a chance to really practice well. It’s the longer wordsa nd the ones wiht the more recent patterns (ir and ar) that are giving him trouble.

At the more advanced stages, I will have kids just practice sounding out words — say a dozen — as part of each day’s lesson. http://www.resourceroom.net/OGLists/multisyllables/mix4.htm is one that might be a little easy - or not.http://www.resourceroom.net/OGLists/multisyllables/mixsix.htm is a harder group.

Hi Laura,
I will try to answer your questions. When he is reading the stories, are you error correction? If you aren’t, you should be. You should never let him struggle. You should help him decode the words by asking him questions about the different sounds in the words. For example, if he reads the word boast, as bast. Stop him and say /b/, ( I always say the last sound that he says correctly) and then say, Remember the symbols oa? What sound does that represent? As I said before, don’t let him struggle, wait, give him another clue, like, Remember the first sound we did yesterday? if he still can’t get it, tell him and point out that oa can only be for the sound /o-e/. I don’t dwell on the stories. The only other stories that I use are the stories in the Wilson’s stories for older readers. I don’t put them into regular literature books until I am done with the program.
I don’t teach MS words until I am done with the program including special endings. The reason is that if you do MS words before you are done, when you get to a sound that you haven’t taught, you have to say, We haven’t worked on that sound yet. Some teach MS words earlier, but I don’t. I want them to realize that reading doesn’t have to be confusing, not to confuse them further.
Are you reviewing and reviewing the same sounds that you have already taught? I don’t do that. Remember, you will be continuing to work on the same sounds as you go forward to all of the 44 sounds. You are only asking 80%, not 100% mastery. What you should focus on, I believe, is finishing the program as soon as possible so that he can start reading on his grade level and you error correct. Don’t work with the words in isolation so much, your object is to get him reading. This will give him a lot of self-esteem, and that should be one of your objectives. I hope this helps. This is how I do it. It does work.

Laura,

I am looking for some interesting reading books for my 9 almost 10 yr old. What books are you using some of the titles sounded interesting.

Hi Shay,
Yes, I’m correcting him and doing everything you’ve described so it sounds like I’m headed in the right direction. (If only I could get the teacher and everyone who works with my son at school to correct him! Unfortunately, he had to start back at school today and I’m just hoping all his reading progress continues).

As far as going to special endings (isn’t that towards the back of the book?) you work on the special endings prior to multisyllable work? Do you also work on the later stories after multisyllable work? One reason I ask this is the later stories (like the one about Electricity) have quite a few multisyllable words so it seems to me that it might be more logical to read these later stories following multisyllable work.

I did go over a few more of these later stories yesterday, and the way we approached them is I used the dry erase board to analyze these words. Of course then we came across the special endings like “tion” and I had to talk more about chunking (because of the numerous multi-syllable words) and we haven’t actually practiced chunking so I wasn’t sure if I was doing it correcting.

It does seem like working on special endings and then multisyllable work might work a little better. I think I’ll try that.

Hi Laura, Yes I teach special endings first and then MS words. Do you know the three rules for MS words? Just in case you don’t: 1. A chunk is only a mouthful of sounds. 2. There is always either a vowel sound, er sound or special ending in a chunk. 3. Never split a sound. I hope this helps for decoding MS words.

my daughter has been devouring them.

Thanks you are always a big help.