One of the students that I have the opportunity to tutor is a second grade student who is not yet reading on grade level. For this school year, I am one of the people who is working with him to improve his reading ability. He is also seen by the reading specialist at his school.
With all that said, we had to start at the beginning. He was not able to identify relationships between letters and sounds so that is where we began. We were able to make progress with this pretty quickly and from there we are moving through the basics of phonics. I am a supporter and believer in whole language and know that is works best most of the time. However, I also know that when it's not working or when we identify a struggling reader we must quickly assess to find the problem, identify the specific starting place, and then intentionally and systematically teach phonics.
So this section is ideas, activities, and lessons that I have used during tutoring.
I try to find trade books, poems, or Reading A to Z books that have the letter patterns/families in them so he can see them within authentic reading. Here we are highlighting the letter patterns we were focusing on in the book we read.
With all that said, we had to start at the beginning. He was not able to identify relationships between letters and sounds so that is where we began. We were able to make progress with this pretty quickly and from there we are moving through the basics of phonics. I am a supporter and believer in whole language and know that is works best most of the time. However, I also know that when it's not working or when we identify a struggling reader we must quickly assess to find the problem, identify the specific starting place, and then intentionally and systematically teach phonics.
So this section is ideas, activities, and lessons that I have used during tutoring.
I try to find trade books, poems, or Reading A to Z books that have the letter patterns/families in them so he can see them within authentic reading. Here we are highlighting the letter patterns we were focusing on in the book we read.
Sorting words based on their sounds and letter patterns. I note the words he struggles with each session and those become our starting point for the next session. We talk about the sound and then think through where the words falls within the sort.
Something else I like to do with the words he has a hard to remembering/memorizing is use SpellingCity.com. I make him specific lists (usually only about 10 words) titled with the letter pattern and each week I use the words he struggled on. This gives him one more practice with the ones he can't seem to remember. I have really seen progress since I started the Spelling City specific lists as well as starting the next session with last session's struggles.
Plurals-
One of the things we have been practicing lately is correctly using plurals. I found some great ideas on Pinterest. I liked these charts to help us go over the rules and give him a reference to check himself. The first one can be found here and the second set is here.
Then we played "Don't Get Struck By Lightning" which worked perfectly! You read the word and then say the plural form...if you are right, you keep it. If you get a lightning bolt, all of your cards go back. I found it here. It's even cuter printed in color.
One of the things we have been practicing lately is correctly using plurals. I found some great ideas on Pinterest. I liked these charts to help us go over the rules and give him a reference to check himself. The first one can be found here and the second set is here.
Then we played "Don't Get Struck By Lightning" which worked perfectly! You read the word and then say the plural form...if you are right, you keep it. If you get a lightning bolt, all of your cards go back. I found it here. It's even cuter printed in color.
We also had good luck playing Plurals Go Fish. This game was on irregular plurals which was good practice. I found this game here.