Ready to Have FUN Diving Into Teaching Phonics with
Phonetic Reading with Silent Elephant “e” Parts 3-14?
I ended my last phonics blog post encouraging you to thoroughly assess your students using the assessments in Part 2. You now know their areas of strength and need.
I know you are now ready, eager and excited to DIVE right into the first phonics lesson in a one-on-one setting, a small group setting, and/or a large group setting, but first, a little more explanation about Phonetic Reading with Silent Elephant “e”.
In Phonetic Reading with Silent Elephant “e”, all new concepts are introduced through whole body, multi-sensory activities such as drawing, acting, music, puppetry, story-telling and class discussions. These are all best practices for all children.
Drawing pictures is particularly powerful to enhance and ensure meaning. When you have your students draw as you draw an explanation of the concept being learned, their comprehension deepens as it activates multiple parts of their brain.
Acting is another important technique for all children and extremely important for any struggling, ELL/ESL and dyslexic students. Having children and adults help you act out concepts pulls in their background information, which again solidifies their comprehension by activating multiple parts of their brain.
Further, Phonetic Reading with Silent Elephant “e” uses colors and shapes to highlight the different phonetic parts of words on students’ worksheets. As a student uses colors and shapes for the markings, they begin to SEE PATTERNS in words. As they see these patterns, they are able to apply them to new words. (Please think back to Josie’s post.)
After a phonics rule has been introduced through the engagingly active and memorable activity, children begin leveled practice pages with you or another student as their partner. The level of their practice pages is determined by their present personal level of success in phonics that you determined by giving them the multiple phonics assessments provided in Part 2.
I’m sure you are wondering just what I mean by “leveled” practice pages?
Phonetic Reading with Silent Elephant “e” provides three levels of complexity within each lesson to meet the needs of ALL students -those struggling beginners right up to the gifted readers.
Phonetic Reading with Silent Elephant “e” provides Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 Partner Practice pages to be used in school or tutoring sessions and Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 At Home Practice pages to be completed at home with parents, thus providing a home-educational setting connection.
When introducing a new phonics rule, all children begin working with their partners on Level 1 pages. This is important to build a strong phonetic foundation based on continual success for all students. To provide extra support, I partner an ELL/ESL child with two English as first language students.
After completing Level 1 with their regular partner, I individualize children’s instruction by allowing readers that are above proficiency to do Level 2 and/or Level 3 right away with another above proficiency partner in school and with their family at home. This ensures their strong phonetic foundation based for success and meets their individual learning needs.
You will find the students working in Level 2 and 3 will move quickly. You may need to adjust the pace of your progression through these levels to meet the needs of your students.
If you are home schooling, again begin on Level 1 to ensure your child is solid in the concept being taught, then move to Levels 2 and/or 3 if your child is proficient at Level 1 or 2.
Now that you have assessed and you know which level of Partner Practice pages and At Home Practice pages to use to meet your students’ needs, your students will be ready to begin partner work.
In my next blog posts, I will address the integral part partner work plays in my program and I will share my specifically designed formatting requirements for student practice pages for dyslexic people to maximize their success!
If you have further questions about phonics, feel free to contact us.