Another Question on PG

Just use the search button on the top of the page and look for shay.
*After* you’ve spent a week doing that, shay has posted many kind offers to answer emails.

I have read all of Shay’s emails. I even read over 3000 of them and have 1000 more to read on the READNOW yahoo group. Shay called me and talked to me for over 2 hours. She is my new role model and I am so inspired by her. She has helped so many students and I told her she has no idea how many others she affects by helping others with her strategies and tools used to remediate.

I was hoping to hear how PG could work on an elementary level if anyone cared to share as SHay works in the high school.

I want to get good at PG but can’t get trained until the summer and feel like a couple of my students will fall through the cracks if I don’t hurry and help them to decode. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Michelle

Michelle,
I am a Title 1 remedial reading teacher for grades K-2. I also teach
3rd and 4th gr. dyslexic students.

One of the many ways that I teach reading is with Phono-Graphix. It is a
wonderful program and it works!

I would be happy to answer any questions that you might have if you
will e-mail me privately.

BE

Michelle,

I am glad you are planning to go for the training. You will want the Word Work kit to use…it is MUCH easier to use at school than the RR book. It has all the practice sheets and tests as reproducibles. Honestly, you may just want to try the book with one child to get a feel for it and wait and do your groups after you get the training and Word Work kit. Good luck!

Janis

Ok, I will mostly work with small groups, should I just buy the basic kit….or the overheads w/cardstock?……And does anyone know about the special box to store with drawers for around 80 bucks? It sounds nice and easy but maybe I can do without it? I have a few extra bucks this week and don’t know if I should just spend the 175 on the basic kit…or go for the nicer kit? I don’t know if overheads are great or if just the cards in the basic kit will be fine?

Any help is appreciated as I want to go online and buy it ASAP.

You are great, and I appreciate all your posts.
Michelle

Michelle,

PG was a wonderful discovery for me, too! I am just really beginning to use it, so I am only speaking as a beginner! I have unfortunately taught for a long time with ineffective methods and far too little training.

I think you should only get the Word Work kit for now. Really, it has everything you NEED.

With small groups, you do not use the little sound-picture cards you buy from Read America (RA), you have reproducible sheets with squares on them on which the child can write the sound pictures (letters). So you do not need the storage box with drawers.

The only thing I lack is readers for appropriate practice and I am asking around now which way to go on those. If you take training, by the way, they’ll discount materials, so don’t buy anything but the essentials now anyway. I consider the Word Work kit essential. I’d buy each kid a white board from Wal-Mart because they are cheaper there.

I am always excited to hear another teacher discovering an effective method. I only wish the news would spread more rapidly! But school systems are pretty set in their ways, unfortunately. It takes one person at a time to change things!

Good luck to you!
Janis

I will buy the kit tonight online. I really appreciate the advice.

I need some books too so I hope someone will tell us what they use and like. What do you use in addition to PG in a resource room? Do you go from PG straight to real books? Do you ever go right back into any basals or other remedial books on the shelf? My plan was to use PG and go to Read Naturally like Shay does. But when I hear, students need lots and lots of practice reading the Advanced Code…..which books are best?

I am reading Reading Reflex again and copying pages from the book but I can’t wait to get the kit. It seems a bit unorganized in my class room with all those envelopes. I am learning everyday. I wish there was a PG video.

Michelle

Michelle,

I am being told to get some decodable books for practice. After I research them, I’ll let you know. I have a feeling “normal” kids being taught with PG may be able to go on into regular literature quickly, but I just think that LD kids may need extra practice of the decoding skills to make it automatic. Hopefully Shay will give her opinion. After I research them all, I’ll get back with you and list the ones that are best. There is a resource you should check out, though, if your budget is tight for materials. Subscribe and copy decodable and leveled books from a web-site:

http://www.readinga-z.com/index.html

I actually use Great Leaps for fluency as it is less expensive if you teach multiple grade levels. I think my student and teacher guides for grades 3-5 was about $100 or so total. I think Read Naturally is about $100 for every grade.

PG is easier with Word Work because it is all in a notebook. You won’t have to deal with the envelopes as the kids will have tons of the blank squares and will make the new sound pictures as they do a new lesson. Most of the work will be on the white boards and the blank squares. And there are worksheets and supplemental activities, too!

There are actually 4 videos of Carmen McGuinness teaching particular types of lessons. My child’s school bought them when we went for the training. It’s $125 for all four videos, so you might want to save your money for the live training instead.

Janis

Hi Michelle,You have several q’s to address; I’ll try to get to all of them. How long to advanced code? That totally depends on the student(s); if they already know 1 to 1 mapping, start them on advanced from day 1. If they are young (k, 1st, 2nd), they may need work at pink level (basic code) but will get through it fast, usually in a few hours. Also, don’t wait if they know basic code, but have probs. with segm., etc. They can learn both simultaneously.
Yes; pretest them all. Then, you’ll know if you must do any work on blending, segm., or phoneme manipulation. It is more difficult, of course, when you have a group, as not everyone is at the same level.
One thing you can do, no matter what the age (since NO ONE knows the code!) is to work on one particular sound at a time with the group. The biggest difference in me having a kit and you using the Reading Reflex book is that I have all those words cut up (like the ones starting on page230), so I can just tell the child ” today we will work on the sound “oe” and then lay each word down and have him put it under the correct catagory (In a classroom for ESL that I worked in last year, we just asked the kids for words that contained the sound “oe” and wrote them on the board. We made the catagories and the kids came up and wrote the word where it belonged. They enjoy it; they get excited to learn that there’s a system that makes sense and they memorize the different spelllings for the sounds quickly.
You asked if you use this all year; yes…forever! That is, some kids will catch on faster that others, of course, and it won’t take a year.(it takes only about 10 or so hours when one-on-one.) Others will need the entire year to learn the code, use it, get their comprehension down…you will also see their spelling scores soar when you get into multi-syllable and they chunk the word as they spell it.
Get the LESSON PLAN book from Read America; it lays out what to do in a classroom situation; even gives every word to use (I have done pretty much what I was told for 3 years now and my remediation time is fast; no junk thrown in; just teaching the code.)
Want them to get excited to learn “the secret code”…..I tell them to go home and ask their folks to show them how to spell “sh”…most parents can do “sh” and some do “s”, but very few do “ch”…(I show the kids the words “sugar” and “machine”, so they see the code in context…..the kids get a thrill showing off to mom and dad and the parents get intrigued that there IS a code!
Hope that helps…you certainly helped me today! Many thanks!

Michelle, I forgot to ask you what grade you teach; since it’s LD, is it all ages?

I teach intermediate LD resource in a public school. I’m glad you found this site and thanks for the nice posts. We can all learn from each other.
Michelle

Leslie,

Are you using Word Work? I think a lesson plan book was something that went along with a clinician’s kit. If Michelle gets Word Work, that will be all she needs. It goes lesson by lesson and tells you what to do. It even gives supplementary activites you coudol do with a group. I just don’t want her to be confused about what type of kits we are talking about. Word Work may be newer than the old kits. It was designed for small group (or classroom) teachers. I use it one-on-one, too, becuase of the reproducibles.

Janis