What to use - EYSP or Unit 1 of full programme?

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debbie
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What to use - EYSP or Unit 1 of full programme?

Post by debbie »

Dear Debbie,

I am doing some private tutoring and have been asked to tutor a 7 year old girl from a gypsy family.

She is home schooled but at present all she knows are the alphabet names of the letters. She can recognise her own name and write 'mum and dad', as well as being able to write all letters.

I am considering the best starting point for teaching her phonics. I had
thought to start with the early years unit on your site but wonder if, as
she is very ready and eager to learn to start with the first unit of
teaching so she gets to read and write words. She was able in one 20 min session to transfer her letter knowledge and take in the phonic sounds of the first 3 sounds but is not ready to begin sound blending yet.

Any Advice would be greatly appreciated.
My reply:
It’s good to hear from you.

You can start with Unit 1. The first five or so Sounds Book Activity Sheets do not provide ‘cumulative’ words to blend but you can simply model the blending.

After that, the bank of words provided is ‘cumulative’ so it is possible for the learner to start sounding out and blending all-through-the-printed-word to try to ‘discern’ the target word.

It doesn’t matter if the girl cannot discern the word when she says the sounds from left to right. Let her ‘sound out’ three times – trying to build up some ‘automaticity’ and then you say the sounds as close to pure speech sounds as you can and this makes it easier for a learner to then 'discern' the whole spoken word.

Whether or not the girl is ready to blend, you can still model how decoding, and encoding for spelling works.

Have you seen the pdf files on the Free Resources page which describes the sub-skills of the three core skills and the phonics hand routines?

If not, please go to the Free Resources page and look at the material in the blue box labelled ‘IMPORTANT’.

When you have taught the first five or six sounds in Unit 1, then start modelling the decoding process with the ‘Sentences’ resource and the ‘I can read’ texts resource.

After that, alternate using the Sounds Book Activity Sheets with the parallel sentence and text level material.

As the girl is 7, she may well make surprising progress.

Keep all the material which is paper based in a phonics folder for the girl. This material is therefore ‘cumulative’ and can be part of ‘Revisit and Review’ for the beginning of each session with her.

In her phonics folder, select a mini Alphabetic Code Chart from the www.alphabeticcodecharts.com site, and a ‘Say the Sounds Poster’ from each unit as you progress through the units – and select an Alphabet Poster from the www.debbiehepplewhitehandwriting.com website for her folder.

Keep in touch to let me know how you get on.
Debbie Hepplewhite
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debbie
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Post by debbie »

These are good mini Alphabetic Code Charts to use in the learner's phonice folder:

http://alphabeticcodecharts.com/DDD_par ... bleTop.pdf

http://alphabeticcodecharts.com/DDD_sou ... ni_ACC.pdf

This one tracks progress but you would need it in addition to charts like the ones above (you might want to print it out at half size):

http://alphabeticcodecharts.com/DDD_Col ... 20A4x4.pdf
Debbie Hepplewhite
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debbie
Posts: 2596
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:28 pm
Location: UK

Post by debbie »

Then, at my free handwriting website, you might choose an Alphabet Poster with either the print (for younger learners) or the joined handwriting (for 6 to 7 years +):

http://debbiehepplewhitehandwriting.com ... Poster.pdf

http://debbiehepplewhitehandwriting.com ... phabet.pdf

There are many other versions of the alphabet and print and joined letter shapes - plus the video guidance for teaching joined handwriting at:

www.debbiehepplewhitehandwriting.com :D
Debbie Hepplewhite
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