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Erin
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Mary Fifer wrote:
Me? I've moved to teaching (as a real effort, by the way, to be sure to convey new meaning especially when all of us would rather do something else) the suffixes and prefixes as added to base words. This way we cover phonics, spelling rules, and vocabulary. I start this when our children know most of the first 54 phonograms. They love the explanation (sometimes) because once they get the idea they can begin to guess what long words mean just by their syllables.
I use a whiteboard for about an hour a day. (A dear friend figured to use a $25 piece of melamine coated masonite - as used in cheap bathrooms - 4' x 8' available at Home Depot and Lowes type lumber stores.) I leave the prefixes that we come across on the left and the suffixes on the right so that as the year goes all I have to do is to point to what I am talking about. This also helps with some grammar since many words become a different part of speech by adding prefixes and suffixes.
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I'd love to continue discussing this idea introduced here. Mary, or anyone else familiar with this style of teaching I'm interested to know more. It reminds me of how we learnt at school, but I haven't found resources set up this way.
I'm currently needing to do some remedial phonetic work with my older children 16-8yrs to help with spelling. (and phonetical pronunciation) We've gone back to re-learn the Spalding sounds and some have forgotten many  When I do a google search for phonic games they are all aimed at younger children and frankly will make my older children feel babyish. The same with spelling, everything seems aimed at younger children. I'm after ideas to teach, I realise I've missed some building blocks but how do you go back and cover these without making your older ones feel rebellious?
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Erin
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Tina P.
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Hi Erin!
We use The ABC's and All Their Tricks, which is geared toward adults. I have them read about a certain letter or blend each day. It's a quick read. This one, which also includes a teacher's manual, looked interesting. But for my kids, I just wanted a basic review ... something they could do without me. 
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Erin
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Tina
Your first link isn't coming up with anything, I did a search within with the titles and still no success. The other book looks interesting.
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Erin
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Tina P.
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How about this link? Ta-da! It worked!
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Erin
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Tina
I was just over at Amazon reading a review and was intrigued by this comment; If you are familiar with the Spalding method but are turned off by the dry, uninspired approach, use this book as your word list as most of the words in Spalding are found on this list Well that sums me up, in theory I like the Spalding method, have even done a week's training, but in practice all those numbers made my children grind their teeth. I've never been able to work out a way to create a happy medium other than teaching the sounds. Believe it or not my favourite seller has it!
Your children only need a basic review, but my children need more We never actually left the starting gate Do you think it easy to adapt to use as a teaching resource?
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Mary Fifer
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Oh! Erin!
I wish that there were a "system" to use. I've had to find lists that teach what the prefixes and suffixes mean so that I could just present them as I dictated real text.
We have a bit of a rigorous Confirmation test in our parish so I get frantic being sure to teach the children how to write the answers to the tests.
I simply take the Catechism questions and "dictate" them as I write them on the board (most of mine usually copy - we are not handy with Spalding's dictation even though I think that it is great for older children).
I have to squeeze spelling, grammar, composition and punctuation all into one effort with Religion! I do not have time to use many resources - that's why I like the copybooks so much as per the other link you gave.
I start by reminding them that a sentence begins with a capital letter as I write the Catechism answer.
"There are..."
I show things as I go like, "There contains the word 'here' as does 'where'", "The verb 'are' must agree in number with the subject..."
"seven Sacraments: "
I say "We need to show punctuation so that people know a list is coming....."
"Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist..."
I say as I go that Baptism is a very particular thing so we capitalize it.... The comma helps us to see the items in the list.... pause once for a comma when you are reading and pause twice for a period... this timing helps you to understand what you are reading..........
I say "Con- is a prefix that means 'with'" and I write it on the board at the very left AND leave it up all year because co-, cor-, com-, etc. are related and are on my board still! The next time all I have to do is point to it and they make mental note.
I add "Firm is the base word and means to make firm, strong, etc."
I add "-ate is an ending that means to make in some cases (and whatever else I've learned at the time) and shows which /sh/ we use (tall letter) for the -tion which means the word is now a noun not a verb", etc.
This is the only way I can get these various subjects in for my children. Our older children are the ones who are relieved and have the most magic moments.
I did this for one of my daughters who had hated reading and was already 10 years old and thought that having read the 4 Little Angel Readers was enough!
This next is copied from a letter to a friend and I think it will be a help. I can do no more since Daddy just got home!
"I have great news for your 11 year old from our 11 year old daughter. She hated reading and would hardly read the 4 Little Angel Readers and had no confidence that she really could read most anything once she was through those little books. We have been using the Writing Road "method" as best we could so she was familiar with the basics in a good presentation.
Previously, I had read Mr. John Gatto's book on the History of American Education (proper title?) there's a lot of excellent info in it (beware a giant scandalous story in the center - if I had owned the book I would have torn out the page). The very best was nearly one line, something like: Old time teachers had the student read something hard and ever after that the student could read anything. I thought about that and realized that that had been the very same thing I had done with my oldest two. They had been homeschooled a little bit and then in a school for 3 years (out of 8 years - we've homeschooled ever since). Because of the differences in Math and Handwriting and different programs each year we ALL had a hard time. They wanted to join me in saying the Bridget Prayers (I was reading them to the second "set" of babies). The first time it took 2 hours but within the month they were able to read the BPs in less than 30 minutes! They persevered (their third degree Mason great Grandfather received the sacraments the very month after they finished!!!) and I didn't think another thing of it until I read Mr. Gatto's book (Emmanuel Books). On looking back I saw that both of them had devoured books ever since!
I did the same thing with my second two. Same results.
This 11 year old is my fifth. I decided to take one Bridget prayer each school day to have her read the prayer out loud. When she stumbled I went to the whiteboard and showed her the prefix + the base word + plus the suffixes and added the prefixes to a list that I kept on the board to the left, and the suffixes that I kept in a list on the right side of the board. When we started she finished in less than 45 minutes. That very week, on her own, she finished a Laura Ingalls Wilder book that she had not read 1/4 in 3 months. Reading had been too much work for her. By the time she had been reading the BPs for 1 month she had also read two other LIW books. That was this spring! She has read 10 or more since her April start.
Be encouraged. I think Mr. Gatto was right. My "good" readers and my "poor" readers have all leveled out (up!) on this advice! (Be sure to note that she had a much faster start than the school trained children. I credit that to her writing and writing road to reading. Mrs. Fogassy's Sound Beginnings is the best of the WRTR books to start with, short and sweet and common sense from someone who has walked the walk. Wanting to learn "how" to teach but need a video? Mrs. Barbara Beers' Phonics Road to Writing and Reading has been a God-send, especially since she incorporates grammar and composition with Latin prep! Yes Phonics has a DVD of the phonogram cards - no spilling the cards or getting the wrong sounds with the wrong card!)"
That was this last summer and still holding! And she hasn't missed a day with her Bridget prayers since April! And our seven year old (very sharp mind) is now reading them with her! Please pray that we do not forget a day on some distracting day like Christmas. They really want to finish their first year because of their Great Grandfather's story.
More later.
Mary
Wife to 1, mother of 8, 7 in God's care
St. Anne's Helper
P. S. I have started telling some of this on our Catholic Homeschool page and will get back to it this spring - hopefully with pictures of our whiteboard. What a God send that has been!
http://www.roman-catholic-catechism.com/catholic-homeschool. html
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MNMommy
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I am tuned in to this discussion. This is stuff I need to inhale!
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Jennifer
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Erin
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Mary
The dictation method, ah. We've done dictation for a couple of years although we are currently taking a break. How you describe it could well be the missing piece. Dictation has brought big improvements but not quite enough. You're combining the Spalding method of making certain they spell the word correctly as you write it, with making certain they punctuate correctly, brilliant!! 
I've also been thinking, I could dig out my Spalding book and adapt the words to use for family groups and suffixes and pre-fixes. I had the younger children take a little test the other day, in Ruth Beechick's little Language book she had a list (not long) of 50% of the written language plus a list of suffixes. (I've lent out my book so can't check, anyone?)
Regards the success of whiteboard/blackboard I remember reading somewhere about the whole brain process of looking up, then looking down and re-checking is important. When you think about it thre used to be far more board work and there could well be something in this.
I know when I use the whiteboard there is a difference.
I'm so glad you are inhaling in Jennifer, I'm breathing in with you  I love talking about this sort of stuff. 
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ALmom wrote:
| then we cut the rules out of the book, glued them to an index card and he has those to look at whenever and uses them sort of like flash cards or prompters as needed. I'm doing some of the same things with a few problem areas in our family (y dropping), adding vowel suffixes, etc. We have the rules neatly displayed and available for any of us to use. We just do this for short spurts here and there when we are covering something and I need a quick, systematic way to present something. |
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I've taken the liberty borrowing Janet's comment from here as to my mind's thinking, it ties in with our discussion.
Janet, or anyone else who has done something similar I'd love to know more about the details and success.
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ALmom
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Erin and all:
I've been really pondering this thread - turning it over in my mind in light of some of the recent things I've discovered about my own family.
My children are very visual, big picture learners in general, plus the most challenged reading/writing/spelling folks are all very science minded. I've never been happy following any single program and always tried to teach what they needed at the point they needed it. I know we want to model from quality literature and I've been pondering dictation exercises and how to weave it in with older folks without it seeming like one more thing piled on their plate. I've also found that I like different things for different reasons - but then find there is too much and a lack of being systematic. It is hard for me to get my mind around it if I don't know the steps and if I don't know the steps, I cannot come to the big picture, and if I don't have the big picture, then it is hard for me to efficiently present it to the children. I also have limited time and children.
So - WRR - I mostly use the idea of dictating words which they write in syllables, and underline certain things with a red pencil. I could care less if we ever learn which number sound so I've never been a stickler about them putting the little red 2 above the s when it takes a z sound. The children have learned the 5 reasons why you have a silent e - but when marking words, I don't care whether or not they put a number under it - as long as the double underline it in red, draw the arch to the long vowel if that is the reason, underline the v (English words don't end in v) if that is the reason or otherwise tell me the reason for it.
With spelling - the numbers are a convenience for me - We blew up the list of rules into a larger size and display it like a poster in the kitchen where I work with them in spelling. In my TM, at the top of the page, it will tell me which rules are relevant for this particular list and we just talk about the rule itself - not the number. It is also convenient for anytime we are looking at written work of any kind. I use some of the same type of dialogue as WRR and refer to the same rules. Oh, this is one of those words that you think to spell -- (double letters are probably the biggest challenge in our house).
I've begun to do the same thing with other things - whatever is already in my house. So I may have a book that has a list of prepositions - we can make cards of all those - and then come up with our own schemes whether we are memorizing prepositions, varying the way we write sentences, or discussing prepositional phrases. Anything to make the concept something we can learn without a ton of writing the first time through - and then practice later.
I have laminated the cards that were listed in English from the roots up. If I waited and tried to make everyone sit with me and "do the program" - well, it has been sitting in my house unused for 20 years. I simply cut, laminated and put in a box. The children have free access to it - and I can refer to it every time I want or notice it is relevant.
I have done something similar with prefixes and suffixes and rather than a white board which always entices my younger ones to scribble on it, or erase it or muss it - I have cork board with push pins and laminated cards. (I know with littler ones, push pins seem more dangerous - but my littlest is 7 and push pins are boring - just the permanent type markers and such are irrestible. I'd never have a long standing board of prefixes and suffixes. If I want, we can pull the cards down and manipulate them with different words.
I'm doing the same thing with some of the charts from WRR - they keep them and use them from year to year rather than re-make them every year. We do add words to them, and may remake charts if the concept hasn't stuck. I just discovered that some of those really torturously dry books like MCP do have pretty systematic presentation of rules - that is the beauty of them - so I use the rules.
You guys are just inspiring me to think about ways I can combine all this more into a really planned reading, studied dictation type thing.
Janet
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Erin
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ALmom wrote:
| So - WRR - I mostly use the idea of dictating words which they write in syllables, and underline certain things with a red pencil. I could care less if we ever learn which number sound so I've never been a stickler about them putting the little red 2 above the s when it takes a z sound. The children have learned the 5 reasons why you have a silent e - but when marking words, I don't care whether or not they put a number under it - as long as the double underline it in red, draw the arch to the long vowel if that is the reason, underline the v (English words don't end in v) if that is the reason or otherwise tell me the reason for it. |
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That's a great idea, basically taking the essence without getting hung up over those numbers, which btw I couldn't agree more with you on.
A good while back I would give my children a newspaper or photocopy a sheet from an old school reader and get them to highlight various double phonograms. That is another way to work on noticing the phonograms.
ALMom wrote:
| With spelling - the numbers are a convenience for me - We blew up the list of rules into a larger size and display it like a poster in the kitchen where I work with them in spelling. In my TM, at the top of the page, it will tell me which rules are relevant for this particular list and we just talk about the rule itself - not the number. It is also convenient for anytime we are looking at written work of any kind. I use some of the same type of dialogue as WRR and refer to the same rules. Oh, this is one of those words that you think to spell -- (double letters are probably the biggest challenge in our house). |
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Your TM sounds very useful. I have only an old copy of TWRTR and its not set out like that 
ALMom wrote:
| I have laminated the cards that were listed in English from the roots up. If I waited and tried to make everyone sit with me and "do the program" - well, it has been sitting in my house unused for 20 years. I simply cut, laminated and put in a box. The children have free access to it - and I can refer to it every time I want or notice it is relevant. |
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I don't have the English Roots Up book but I've been thinking I could still type up some rules and laminate them. Pretty excited about this, probably will get to it after Christmas.
All this talk has me inspired and I've been doing more board work with the children. I found a couple of copies of old spelling books from my childhood, they are pretty good. They have the rule for the week, exercises to re-enforce, plus a few other exercises and a dictation based on the list words. I had the children do a free test which gave me a definite idea where they are at I've grouped some of them which helps, although I need a harder book for my teenager.
Anyhow I decided with dictation rather than mark it myself I wrote the correct dictation on the board for them to copy and re-mark their work.
Now some of the children's handwriting also needs work.
Oh and a funny thing, my spelling books were written in the late 1950s for 5th graders. The children spent some time bagging out the dictation passage, the sentence structures were too long and rather awkward, they decided that it should be restructured which we did. I had to smile, their spelling might not be up to par but their grammatical graspe is strong
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MNMommy
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Mary Fifer wrote:
I start by reminding them that a sentence begins with a capital letter as I write the Catechism answer.
"There are..."
I show things as I go like, "There contains the word 'here' as does 'where'", "The verb 'are' must agree in number with the subject..."
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I wanted to tell you that this entire post was immensely beneficial for me. I have been teaching through dictation, and dd is making such vast improvements. Dictation has become one of our favorite parts of our school day.
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Jennifer
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Mackfam
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MNMommy wrote:
| I wanted to tell you that this entire post was immensely beneficial for me. I have been teaching through dictation, and dd is making such vast improvements. Dictation has become one of our favorite parts of our school day. |
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I'm glad you bumped, Jennifer, because this thread was immensely helpful to me as well in terms of sparking some ideas of being a little more thoughtful with dictation lessons. I wondered if the children would like the increased discussion of prefixes, suffixes and base words, but they have welcomed it! Our lessons are still short, but I do feel that the little bit of extra time spent on grammar, punctuation, and word origins has deepened the lessons, assisted the children, and been enjoyable!
A few resources I found online for reference:
:: Roots, Prefixes, Suffixes
:: List of prefixes and suffixes
I decided to order a very inexpensive used copy of The ABC's and All Their Tricks after Tina mentioned it because it sounded like a really great resource after reading all the reviews. I'm enjoying it immensely, and finding it very helpful! Thank you for recommending it, Tina!!
Something happened quite naturally the other day as we were working together on a dictation lesson regarding punctuation and my children fell in love with it and I'm utterly amazed at how quickly this one little thing has translated into more attentiveness and even, dare I say it, a desire and relish of using punctuation has occurred. I'm delighted.
I recalled a Victor Borge clip I had seen and related a few of his simple phonetic punctuations, commas and periods in particular, because my son was stumped by commas. Anyway, the kids were very intrigued, so we watched the video and I began discussing, one at a time, the reasons for various punctuation. I began reading our dictation sentences once Victor Borge style. The children have quickly become aware of the assistance and great role punctuation plays in reading a sentence correctly. It's helped enormously in a very short time so I wanted to mention it.
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Mary Fifer
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I'm so anxious to get back to this forum. There's simply been no time over these last holy days! I came to say hello and bookmark this page!
We have learned so much by taking a real text and describing the parts of it so as to make distinctions in such a way as it keeps our high school children intrigued at the idea of being able to figure out new words and that meaningful syllable by meaningful syllable it isn't hard; but interesting! The best answer for keeping them intrigued is to pull out a word that is seemingly hard for them to read (I simply use most any Catholic text - the Bridget prayers are phenomenal for this since I've seldom read a text more dense with 4-6 syllable words). After a few times with apparently hard words I have their trust and they stick with me on the less interesting words.
More this weekend. 'Hope everyone is having a joyous extended Christmas season!
Mary
St. Anne's Helper
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Mackfam wrote:
| I'm glad you bumped, Jennifer, because this thread was immensely helpful to me as well in terms of sparking some ideas of being a little more thoughtful with dictation lessons. Our lessons are still short, but I do feel that the little bit of extra time spent on grammar, punctuation, and word origins has deepened the lessons, assisted the children, and been enjoyable! |
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Exactly! Before I read this thread, I just threw the dictation out there hoping, I guess, that something would stick. Now, I write it all on the whiteboard. We talk through the spelling, locate nouns, look for subject/verb agreement, etc. It's all so obvious, and yet I hadn't comprehended that I have to teach the dictation in order for it to be fruitful. It has made our lessons so much more rich and dd is blossoming with this method.
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It tickles me what Janet said about her little ones mussing the whiteboard. It happens, but not here very often until guests come over, at least these last two years. Our youngest is now a brand new 6, but when the last three were smaller I did let them have the bottom line while I was teaching. They had to have something to do. Guess what?
They are my children who have the VERY best bottom line in their handwriting!!!! That alone gives them the best handwriting of all of my eight at these ages.
Thanks so much, Jennifer, for the Victor Borgia link! What a great idea. I edit this note to warn that Mr. Borgia seems ready to be a bit "off color" in related links. You might preview any VB video before you show it to the children, maybe I caught an off show but I will be careful from now on.
I myself understood punctuation better once I had seen his performance when I was a child. We look up "How to" on YouTube for other instructive videos, but we hadn't thought of this venue for such as grammar!
I wonder if there is a YouTube for the Phonograms? The Yes Phonics DVD of the Phonograms is handy, even for the children to use for dictation since the right sound is given with the right phonogram. The flashcards don't spill or get out of "learning order".
I have had to glean the little grammar that I know from sundry places, also, and have found that there is only one place that I have seen diagramming done with the names of the parts of speach in their proper places and it is in a series that I will not use again but for these forty pages..... The Writing Handbook by Loyola University has grammar by sections and explains grammar very well. The section on Diagrams is excellent in that it is precise and concise. It maps out where the
Subject ] Verb ] Direct Object
are supposed to be placed (in their system). I have not seen that anywhere else. What I despise about the Loyola Voyages series is that it has so many allusions to mortal sin especially in the ninth grade book, it teaches what it later unteaches, and it was the "information warehouse for Mastery Learning" long before DISTAR, etc. (dddoa by Charlotte Iserbyt)
The Seton 9th grade Grammar is nice, too. I have two (#3 and #4) that did not get much grammar K-8 precisely because I simply taught what I knew as I went and told them that they can catch up in ninth grade when big words would make more sense. I am so glad I did. Saying that a noun is in the nominative case makes so much more sense when you are old enough to understand the idea that noun and nominative both mean "name"! I would frequently explain that some big word like prepositional is simply a stuffy way of saying "placed before", etc., pre- means before and position means position - just a different pronounciation and -al means "of or pertaining to the word used". There are so many concepts in grammar that are like that. The reason for being able to name things these ways is for two people to be able to discuss the same piece of writing and be able to make discernments or improvements. Why spend years teaching something that they can learn in one year? - with the right terms, the right way, the first time?!
I have been teaching for years that there is a false distinction between a place and a thing in Loyola's definition of a noun, which is what gets so confusing about their exercises on this topic. A place is a thing and a thing can be a place. I was grateful to finally own a rewrite of Harvey's Grammar that concurred with my observation.
It really helps to teach early that the same spelling of the same pronunciation of most nouns is frequently a verb as well. Many are then adjectives. It simply depends on the way in which the word is being used and on the position in the sentence. This was a giant help to us, but this sort of simplification frequently made grammar "exercises" next to useless.
A treasure for our little ones (the last six), even the older two were intrigued, is the use of the image of a train to describe sentence structure. I simply explained that the engine was the subject (the one doing the work/link), the tender was the verb which made the work happen and the rest of the car was pulled by these two. Sometimes (frequently on the railway line near our house) there are two or three engines which are compound subjects, etc. I switch models so that they can see that there has to be a verb when I describe that the newer engines have the tender/coal fire function all in the same car and that the subject is understood. Its not the perfect analogy for an action verb since the engine in real life does the action and effects the action, but the tender model works for linking the rest of the sentence, etc. I didn't spend any more than one hour for the whole third grade year on that, but I've been able to refer to the image with complete success any time I need, even now in high school!
Did I mention the spelling trick I learned from a 1918 book?
The author had been a teacher and career superintendent and was apalled at the new "spellers". Talk about "inhaling"! (That was an excellent prhase, Jennifer.) This was food for my very soul. Our oldest two had gone through school in an academy for eight years and had had plenty of that sort of speller. At the 6th year my Dad went to Phoenix to learn Phonics at 70 years old and brought home the Spalding Method to his 25-30 grandchildren and eventually 60 other families! That month one of our children's spelling average went from 40 to 75, and true to Spalding's talk, once she learned all 72, her spelling did not dip below an 85. All four report cards from that year show that progress. My "A" student was thrilled, too. She said of the spellers (which only added endings to the same 600 words each year?!!), "Yeah, Mom, it's like Wham! Wham! Hope you know it!"
This author said to let the children write. Correct their writing and have them make their own speller of the words they miss! Wow. End of Wham Wham in our house! This way the stimulus response stimulus is working the right direction on the very nature of the problem. Our spelling improved overnight when the children found out that they were going to have to rewrite each misspelled word three times and put it in a notebook! God has been good to share this perspective with us and I hope that many ladies will see this note if it can help them use real books in a productive, not overwhelming way.
Must go!
Mary
Wife to 1, mother of 8, 7 in God's care
St. Anne's Helper
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MNMommy
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| Posted: Jan 09 2010 at 6:08am | IP Logged
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Mary Fifer wrote:
| I have been teaching for years that there is a false distinction between a place and a thing in Loyola's definition of a noun, which is what gets so confusing about their exercises on this topic. A place is a thing and a thing can be a place. I was grateful to finally own a rewrite of Harvey's Grammar that concurred with my observation. |
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This made me chuckle. I told my 7yo that a noun is a "person, place, or thing" just like what all the books say. She looked at me and told me that it didn't make sense because a person is a thing and a place is a thing. So, really, nouns are things.
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Jennifer
Tired mom to - 10yo dd, 7yo ds, 6yo ds, 4yo dd, 2yo ds
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greengables
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[QUOTE=Mary Fifer]-
Mrs. Fogassy's Sound Beginnings is the best of the WRTR books to start with, short and sweet and common sense from someone who has walked the walk.
I just came across this thread today and I am saving it to my favorites as I am excited about all the great input here and can't wait to really explore the ideas. Btw, I couldn't agree more with Mary about Mrs. Fogassy's Sound Beginnings! I have been homeschooling for over 20 years, and will be, God willing, for many years to come! I have always loved teaching reading and phonics,but this year I purchased Julia Fogassy's Sound Beginnings and I LOVE IT! Just yesterday I was telling a dear friend just how great this program has been for my now eight year old who has been reading delayed - primarily due to speech issues. Well, yesterday, something clicked for him. He grew in confidence and clearly understood the different sounds of ER: EAR, ER, IR, OR, and UR. Dictation is improving! YEAH! AND I found him really enjoying it!
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May God bless you,
Greengables - wife to best friend and mother to 11 blessings on earth
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ALmom
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Ok, I've revisited this. Thanks for the prefixes, suffixes lists Jennifer. I did not find that I liked that part of MCP - it was more of a scattered approach on that - so now I have something.
Also, would you mind sharing once more where/what you use for copywork and handwriting - some sort of on-line program you pay for that allows you to create your own handwriting sheets - choose your script type, spacing, size and content. I think this is the perfect solution for my idea of streamlining while still doing writing,handwriting, grammar and some word tactics. I also think it will be the perfect way to ease in more copywork for my children who have eye skills that make copying extremely difficult. I can assign a time limit for copying - do your best for 20 minutes, then the rest of the poem is still there typewritten but not assigned for copying after they have done 20 minutes. I'm hoping that we will see a gradual lengthening of what can be safely and neatly copied.
I'm also beginning to believe that using a whiteboard, chalkboard or something that requires children to look away and down is an important component of learning - or at least some eye skills we don't have. I'm going to try doing some of the word attack skills and dictation corrections this way.
Thanks for the ideas!
Janet
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Jan 11 2010 at 1:55pm | IP Logged
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ALmom wrote:
| Ok, I've revisited this. Thanks for the prefixes, suffixes lists Jennifer. |
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You're so welcome, Janet. It's always easier for me if I've found a basic resource I can print and refer to.
ALmom wrote:
| Also, would you mind sharing once more where/what you use for copywork and handwriting - some sort of on-line program you pay for that allows you to create your own handwriting sheets - choose your script type, spacing, size and content. |
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Yes! The program you and I were talking about is StartWrite. IMMENSELY HELPFUL TO ME!!!! HUGELY!!!!
ALmom wrote:
| I think this is the perfect solution for my idea of streamlining while still doing writing,handwriting, grammar and some word tactics. I also think it will be the perfect way to ease in more copywork for my children who have eye skills that make copying extremely difficult. I can assign a time limit for copying - do your best for 20 minutes, then the rest of the poem is still there typewritten but not assigned for copying after they have done 20 minutes. I'm hoping that we will see a gradual lengthening of what can be safely and neatly copied. |
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Exactly. It's a great tool for making copywork/penmanship/grammar/punctuation CONNECT to other more significant subjects. Tie copywork and penmanship to the liturgical year, a hymn you're trying to learn, Latin, a history quote, something inspiring from Literature, a beautiful poem...ANYTHING!!! And what is so wonderful about this program (because I cannot stop gushing) is that its usefulness is multiplied by the number of writers in your home. For you in particular, Janet, it will be perfect because you can choose font size - no longer are you limited by beautiful copywork with small print that is challenging for your folks with vision issues. This is truly a useful tool for approaching penmanship and copywork.
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: Teaching Suffixes, Prefixes etc
