Reading Abridged "High School Musical"

The reading of the abridged High School Musical story is going well. Both of us enjoy it! Tamerin does not yet read fluently, but compared to her reading ability a year ago, her progress has been very good. Comprehension is also much better. After we have read and discussed an extract, we watch the DVD, but only that particular part. She has watched the whole HSM DVD many, many times on her own before, but I do not think she has really understood the dialogue up to now. (English is not her mother tongue, however, she has always been taught through the medium of English.)

In my printed version I try to take out most new words - we now read just for the fun of reading and for the story. I have for instance substituted "learner" for "student", as she is more familiar with the South African term for school going children. However, of course there are also new words necessary to the understanding of the story like "audition" and "drama".

I also try to stick to the original dialogue so that it is exactly like the DVD, but this is not always so easy. In this video clip that I took yesterday she reads the dialogue of the basketball players discussing Sharpay. Until now she has not understood the reference to Sharpay as the Ice princess. In this exerpt there are still too many new words like "muttered". Today's had even more like "academical" and "accompanying", but I can't wait for Monday: there are no new words in Monday's piece. We are just going to consolidate for a while.

The sheet with loose words next to the page she is reading, is the sheet we used for matching, choosing and naming the sight words of this page. This method has worked well for her (and many other mentally challenged children I have taught before). I got the method from my sister in law whose Down Syndrome daughter learned to read very well this way. I will try to make a video clip of how we do it, but not next week...! No new words for a week!