finger trace

I allow my kids to read any way they can, the object i thought was to teach them how to read, not to teach them to do it the way everyone else does.

my children both uses fingers and or bookmarks to keep their place while reading, I have heard some kids used see though colored sheets of plastic in rainbow colors that are spaced to highlight each sentance a different color. I also let my kids do the thing teacher hate- yes I admit it, iIam guilty!!, I let my kids WRITE in books!!! and not just with pencils, I am truely evil, I let then use pens, markers and even highlighters:-)

heck when they were both 3 and 4 years behind grade level i would have cut those books up into individual words if I had thought for one minute it would help:-)

ok, basically I think your teacher is a controll freak, and I think you might need to write into your iep under assistive technology that your child can use his finger to mark his place in his book, If you dont i can see someone actually trying to punish him for it.

I encourage my students to use their finger if I sense there is a problem. Some children need to do this for longer than others. I’ve also encouraged students to put a ruler under the sentence to keep them from getting lost in what they’re reading.

Perhaps she’d find a ruler less ‘babyish’. Or the tip of a pencil or the eraser end.

All the competent ld teachers encouraged my son to mark the word with his finger. Your teacher sounds like she’s outta the loop. If he has an IEP, I’d tell her to get with the program. You sound so nice. Too nice. Polite is fine. Not nice and firm gets results.

When I work with my son or am helping in the classroom and happen to have a child who is having difficulty reading, I often use my own finger. Most other children don’t need this so it’s more a habit of mine. But I think it’s helpful because when my son makes a mistake on a word, my finger stays there and he can spend more time trying to figure the word out.

I all children, any age, should be allowed to put their finger under the words if it helps them read.

One neat technique that a relative of mine (a teacher) recommended to me. Is the take a flash card. Cut out a space in the middle that will allow a few words to show at a time. As the child improves cut the space wider to include more words. With a large enough card you can include sentences.

Good luck!
Laura

mop wrote:
>
> When my son reads he puts his finger under each word as he
> reads. This was the way I was taught and still do it
> sometimes. His teacher is trying to break him of this and I
> do not understand why. When I questioned this she said she
> felt this was a baby type thing that he did not need to be
> doing this. When he tries to read without his finger he gets
> very confused and loses his place.
> How does everybody else allow their child to read? I was
> just wondering.
> Thank you.

A little on the low-tech side, but it works!
Everybody in the entire New Community School is encouraged (badgered, browbeaten :)) to underline wiht a pencil as they read. Out in the real world people do that sort of thing all the time, though perhaps they are all babies. It’s in the repertoire of Really Good Ideas that make reading easier.
If it makes the teacher feel better, tell her this is something your son needs to do because he’s a kinesthetic learner and the multisensory tactile-motor involvement increases his cognitive engagement.
And you might want to check out EZC Readers — little bookmarks wiht a plastic overlay about a line wide that you can use to “Highlight” as you read. They’re dirt cheap and fun. It’s assistive technology too ;)

A finger never gets lost.
A finger never crashes
A finger does not have to be programmed.
A finger does not require updated software.
A finger never has a power outage.
A finger can’t be taken by a bully at school.
A finger is easily maintained - simple soap and water will do.
You can decorate a finger with rings and nail polish.
A finger can feed you icing off a birthday cake.
A finger is a grooming aid (we won’t go there).

Anne

What class do teachers take in college to learn to find things to
make children’s lives difficult? Just wondering, I’ve encountered very few teachers who don’t get hung up on the little things. Or maybe they are just control freaks, or it’s an ego thing, I’m bigger than you so I can make you do what I want. Sorry, if this offends those teachers out there, but if you child had been subject to the things my child has….at the hands of teachers, you would feel the same.

… there *are* lots of “little detail” kinds of things that kdis don’t want to do, and only teacher vigilance and being a pest keeps them doing it (things like reading accurately). These are those “you’ll thank me later” situations.
And just to make it more complicated, the *same* detail that is a “you’ll thank me later” for one kid is a pointless frustration for another.
At any given meeting of teachers there will be disagreements between teachers who think it’s important to be strict on something and ones who think it doens’t matter that much — chewing gum, letting the pants droop how far?, … which ones are the “give ‘em an inch” situations? How much self-determination should a enter-your-age-here child have?

Don’t know if the topic’s on the education class curricula though.

I’d let my children read ANY way they wanted, ANY time they wanted, any thing they wanted -( had some teachers try to exclude certain books.. Goosebump series was popular at the time). I also thought using a finger / ruler was a form of learning to speed read ?? Which would be good thing , wouldn’t it? When I was in 4th grade, a long time ago, my teacher said she wanted to experiment with our reading groups. In a quiet darkened room, We watched the screen and followed a sentence that gradually faded out at the beginning and revealed the next set of words. (sort of like the cut out card thing someone posted here) Then we had to take a comprehension test. Over the year, the speed increased. I’ve never seen this again but it did speed up my reading & comprehension. It really kept you focused.
This finger method also keeps your eyes focused to the words- which if your LD kid, like mine, has extremely good eye hand coordination, this can also be a strategy to help focusing while decoding PLUS it reminds the kids of left to right reading. I also found using the “finger” helped with my children - like someone wrote - you keep your finger on the word they mispronounced, etc. without saying anything. It keeps the flow of reading going without interuptions or any negative words - wrong..wait..stop.. again.. what.. I also used this when reading aloud, so the kids could see the words I was reading, even if they didn’t understand it, they were catching on to the symbols/letters and practicing following left to right.
This sort of reminds me of the way they used to try to make leftys into rightys.
If its such a big deal to this particuliar teacher, I’d get it okayed in the IEP, but how ridiculous… such a waste of everyones time, especially yours.

My daughter has always misread words, left endings off, omitted small words, etc. She reads more accurately when she points to each word. When she was evaluated a few months ago the evaluators said this was due to her lack of maintaining attention and was due to her ADD and and that she should definitely point to each word as she read. They gave me some other strategies to help keep her focused on the print.

Bren,
I learned to speed read this way in highschool too. I have never met anyone else who learned this way. I wonder if we were both part of an expierment of the time? Any way it worked for me, I learned to spped read quite well that year. If it was an expieriment it must not have worked for others or they would do it now.