Bonita, I'm glad to hear that your students are doing so well without phonics instruction. However, as a 15 year veteran of teaching Title I kiddos, I consistently find that the students who are still with me or have moved in after second grade, bring two major areas of weakness with them - phonics and fluency. They just don't know what to do with those vowel sounds, and they don't have the background knowledge to "try it both ways". We began teaching phonics again this year (after not having it in the curriculum for several years) - we are using Animated Literacy. I am already seeing a huge difference in our K-1 kiddos who are receiving this instruction. I can't wait to see how they do on their DRAs at the end of the year! The four elementary buildings in our district are currently conducting some action researach on the effectiveness of this phonics instruction - not all buildings are using it, so we'll be comparing notes at the end of the year. I'll keep you all posted on what we discover.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Bonita DeAmicis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 8:38:58 PM (GMT-0600) America/Chicago Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] vowel sounds ---- Joy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Lori, > I stand with you, but refuse to duck. My kids not only read well, but make > unbelievable gains in their testing, across the board. (Not that testing is > everything, but it's hard to ignore 30 and 40% gains for every single child > who walks in my door.) Does your school do standardized testing of first graders? _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
