The Elegance of Frequency: Seeing Results with Word Lists As you teach your child the 1000 most common words in English using the Teach Your Children to Read Well program, you will want to know the rate and accuracy at which your child is learning. We will use fluency checks as a measure of his or her performance and of your teaching. After eachContinue reading “The Elegance of Frequency: Seeing Results with Word Lists”
Christmas, Fun and Learning Another Yuletide Season that brings with it a couple of weeks of holidays from classes for the children. This holiday season does not need to be a period when learning comes to a halt, but it should be a time when learning is almost accidental – a spinoff from games and other fun activities. AContinue reading “Christmas, Fun and Learning”
The Elegance of Frequency: Seeing Results for Sounds and Sound Combinations As you teach your child the 63 various sounds and sound combinations in the Teach Your Children to Read Well program, you will want to know the rate and accuracy of your childâs learning.
A Critical, Simple, Almost Never Used, Measure of Academic Performance Whether you are a teacher, homeschooler or therapist, when we teach, we want to know that our teaching has been successful. Whether it is at the kitchen table, in a classroom, a withdrawal special ed program or a therapy session, we want to know that our teaching had an effect, made a difference, was worthContinue reading “A Critical, Simple, Almost Never Used, Measure of Academic Performance”
How Common Human Frequencies Affect Learning: One Concrete Example of a Fundamental Academic Skill Much of what students do in school on a day-to-day basis involves using a pen, marker or pencil. The productivity of students in their use of these tools varies widely. Humans can create 150 to 160 legible characters or numerals per minute. Sometimes students are far from being able to write letters or numbers atContinue reading “How Common Human Frequencies Affect Learning: One Concrete Example of a Fundamental Academic Skill”
Using Frequency to Assess a Student’s Reading Performance How fast do you walk, speak, read or breathe? How long have you been walking, speaking, reading and breathing? And you donât know? â¦. Interesting.
Getting Started in the Right Direction: The Case for Behavioral Objectives If you are going to assume the role of a teacher, whether you are trained as one or not, there are some conditions that you must be able to fulfill if you are to be successful. To ensure that the learning is passed from you to the student, there are several critical components that youContinue reading “Getting Started in the Right Direction: The Case for Behavioral Objectives”
Three Critical Components of Teaching a Lesson Zig Engelmann taught me this as part of my Direct Instruction training after I had been doing it wrong for a number of years. Instruction is a situation in which you need pure communication.
Helping Foster Children Improve their Reading Skills Sometimes it helps to convince people to try something if they know that you have actually done it yourself, so I have decided to tell you one of my many war stories about living in the special needs trenches for the past almost 50 years. Our local Childrenâs Aid Society called my office to seeContinue reading “Helping Foster Children Improve their Reading Skills”
Two Magical Tips for Blending Sounds Into Words As I outlined in my last blog, âThree secrets you must know about teaching phonicsâ, there are both easy and difficult ways to teach someone the relationship between symbols and the sounds they make. By using those three secrets, you are employing the most effective method. I always prefer following the KISS principle. So nowContinue reading “Two Magical Tips for Blending Sounds Into Words”
