Tamerin's 14th birthday was a great occasion. We went to see the South African stage version of High School Musical and she and friends were enthralled. Such a happy day. She blogged about it here. (To any South Africans who might be reading this post, the show is well worthwhile.)
I gave her a Zac Efron (the main actor in the HSM movie) book and below are a few short video clips of how we go about reading it. As we did last year, we still:
1. Match words (look at the word and hear it and match it to the correct word on the base sheet).
2. Choose and show words (hearing the word and finding it, without an example.)
3. Sight read the words individually (flash cards).
4. Write the words.
5. Read sentences.
The words are chosen from text she wants to or needs to read: i.e. they are most of the new words in a particular piece and include words I know she has struggled with before.
What I find very satisfying is that Tammy is now better able to split up a word in syllables and read it syllable by syllable instead of just guessing the word. When we come to a difficult word, I write down the "bits"and we practice saying it, bit by bit. Not only does it help much with pronunciation, but I find that in the end she can actually spell words like inevitably, mischievous, initial, relationship. (Bearing in mind that she is supposed to be mentally handicapped, this is quite an achievement.)
Pronunciation is improving - very slowly, but surely. The HSM dialogue she and her brother did on her birthday party went quite well, but unfortunately the video clip is not too clear - they were pretty much silhouetted against the light. I will keep the clips though, as they will help me to evaluate progress in speech later this year. It is already light years better than 20 months ago, when I first met her.
"Gabriella" arriving at her new school.
Matching words
Choosing words
Flash cards
Writing out new words
Reading Zac Efron's Annual.
2 comments:
Do you break up the big words into syllables to help Tammy read them? I have wondered about doing this with Jacob when he comes across bigger words. How do you go about doing this?
Ab -so- lute- ly! I write them down syllable for syllable and then say them syllable for syllable. I.e. I will first only write "ab" and we will practice saying it until she is comfortable with it. Then I'll add "so" and we'll practice to say so, so, so and then abso...! Her tongue needs lots of practice! But I find that she can then read the word and spell it in the end. It takes time, but for us it's the only way. As I said, the big words are taken from a text she wants to read, but they surprisingly jump up here, there and everywhere.
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