When Learning is Fun, It’s Easy and It Stays!
The eyes of the young boy hunched over his last worksheet in Part 14 moved effortlessly word to word. His hand stretched into the colored pencils spread in front of him with a smooth motion as he chose the next color he needed to mark the decoding in the next word.
Shaun quickly and confidently used different colors and different symbols to mark prefixes, suffixes, root words, consonant digraphs, consonant blends, consonant twins, the sounds of “c’s” and “g’s”, vowel diacritical markings, syllable division and accent marks.
He did all of this from memory.
By repetitively using colors to mark prefixes, suffixes, root words, consonant digraphs, consonant blends, consonant twins, the sounds of “c’s” and “g’s”, vowel diacritical markings, syllable division and accent marks, Shaun easily put the “puzzle pieces” in a word together to find meaning.
Example of a Level 3 worksheet with phonetic markings for decoding.
The Silent Elephant “e”™ colors and phonetic markings Shaun chose to indicate how to decode words are not random markings taught in isolation.
Instead, the phonetic markings and the colors used to mark them are the logical outcome of the fun, multi-sensory activities that Shaun experienced as he learned each phonetic concept. More importantly, he had fun learning the concept and the markings.
These activities included acting, puppetry, cooking, games, singing and many other multi-sensory activities that set the phonetic concepts firmly in multiple parts of Shaun's brain.
In Silent Elephant “e”™, every phonetic concept is introduced with a multi-sensory activity.
As he finished his worksheet, he began to glow with pride and as he raised his head, his bright smile beamed at me. He was proud.
Shaun was so calm, so in control, so meticulous and so very pleased with himself as he flew through that worksheet marking word after word, reading each sentence effortlessly with expression and comprehending completely.
He knew that he knew how to decode and read every word on that page, and he knew that he comprehended everything he read.
He also knew that just two years before, he wasn’t even able to read at a first-grade level and now here he was reading at a 9th grade level, 4 years ahead of his grade level.
He knew school was easier now and getting easier all the time.
He also knew that he is profoundly dyslexic and that learning to be calm and focused had been hard. He knew that learning to read, write and spell through the fun activities in Silent Elephant “e”™ had not only helped him find calm in learning to read, but helped him understand what he hadn’t been able to understand before.
Looking up from his worksheet, his bright smile told me the truth of all of this.
Example of a Level 2 works showing phonetic markings for decoding.
Each marking takes their mind back to the activity they experienced to learn that concept.
Let’s ask those questions that come to mind, WHY was Shaun able to make such fast progress with Silent Elephant “e”™? WHY was this profoundly dyslexic young boy able to move from primer to 9th grade in two years?
It’s because Silent Elephant “e”™ is experiential, it’s multi-sensory, it’s fun.
It teaches the whole child through fun activities that activates all parts of their brain through their senses, thus “wiring” their brain with memories of these fun activities and with the knowledge learned during them to decode unfamiliar words. It teaches them the way they learn best – through fun experiences.
Long after he completes Silent Elephant “e”™, Shaun’s brain will retrieve memories of the fun activity he experienced while learning the phonetic markings associated with each learned phonetic concept. His brain will retrieve this knowledge when he needs to decode any unfamiliar word.
Shaun’s anxiety is gone; he will always feel confident that he has the skills to support him as he moves into high school, college and adulthood.
When children learn to read, write and spell experientially through fun, meaningful, multi-sensory activities, learning WILL be FUN AND FAST and it WILL STAY with them.
Contact us here or call us at:
Linda Katherine Smith-Jones 208-859-4406 or Nina Henson 208-860-3125
