REACH - tutoring and consultancy service

28/10/2023

Repeated practice and exposure - with only just enough ‘new’ to learn.

My must-haves for early literacy learning. What makes the difference in your literacy sessions?

Explicit, structured literacy instruction that is engaging and meets students at their point of need will help see all students thrive.

Some students need more repetitions than others. Time spent in school or home practice is crucial so they are not left behind even with explicit instruction.

Literacy learning also doesn't have to cost the earth.

08/05/2023

Regularly visiting and revisiting your child’s spelling helps them retain and use these words in their day to day writing. The more they see, and use the words and explicitly look at the parts of the words by mapping their code from left to right, the more automatic they become.

https://www.phonicbooks.co.uk/2023/04/18/making-good-use-of-spelling-tests/?fbclid=IwAR3ilu9RW10Jz1Y8C0tFP1S8ABv8VClNBhZJ2A-bl4Rk4nvfSouS5zAZcDo

Top tips on how to make the most of those weekly spelling tests, and the best ways to help kids retain and use what they've learned.

21/03/2022

03/03/2021

Although related to NZ this is a brilliant article with excellent links to describe why decodable readers are so important.

https://www.beyondwordsslt.co.nz/decodable-books-whats-the-point/?fbclid=IwAR1ERiWJzS3LS1Wl2nqZ99u75wm3GIFhfOexPxfG5wwUjY2TeDf-qpBuf30

Decodable Books – What’s the Point?March 3, 2021March 3, 2021 What are Decodable Readers? If your child is learning to read you may have heard the term “decodable readers”. The Ministry of Education is set to release a set of decodable readers shortly – much to the excitement of parents an...

02/10/2020

It is wonderful to see more and more people talking about what works and doesn’t work when teaching children how to read. This video shows beautifully why guessing strategies do not work and eventually fail our students. Without phonemic awareness (knowledge of how to blend and segment) and code knowledge (phonics) children cannot remember new words no matter how many times they are exposed to the word as a whole.
I will put a link in the comments for Speech Sound Pic Approach - SSP demonstrates best practice.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently helping our 1st grade daughter through distance learning. This has opened our eyes to the ways that kids are b...

07/03/2020

As an educator and someone who teaches literacy for a career, I still wrestle with spelling. I believe it is important for my students to see this struggle and my processing and technique i use when stuck - that I’m not perfect and neither should they have to be.
I have an Apple iPhone. I love using Siri to check my spelling and I teach kids to do the same. “Hey Siri how do you spell...?”
We write it down as Siri tells us. But more importantly is the next vital step! Knowing it tomorrow!
We now say it in speech sounds and code map it. With the child, we both write it over and over as we say it in speech sounds until we know it. By doing this we will know it today, tomorrow and in the future.

03/02/2020

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03/02/2020

Just using this public forum to let you know I will be beginning sessions soon. I want to apologize for missing calls, any lack of contact and communication these last 4 weeks. I have had a health scare that is on the mend after a few bumps in the road. Including ER tonight. Will be back on board in about 2 weeks. Thanks for your patience and understanding
Can’t wait to talk to you all very soon about the coming year of tutoring and your beautiful cherubs.

04/05/2019

I love SSP - this fabulous child loves his duck hands (shark hands). They have helped him move from writing some simple CVC (consonant vowel consonant words) with resistance to now confidently and successfully saying the individual speech sounds of words up to 8 sounds long, mapping them with lines and numbers and choosing the speech sound pics in order. He then uses his shark puppet to check the word (playing the word) as he says it again. This word was ‘crumble’. C-r-u-m-b-le. When asked to change one sound pic to make the word into crumple, he again used his puppet to follow the sounds say the word and quickly changed number 5 to a /p/. He then independently proceeded to add a line to the end and write crumpled.
SSP is amazing!!! It changes lives.
For more information follow link
https://www.dyslexiadoctorhouse.com

https://m.facebook.com/pages/category/Educational-Consultant/SpeechSoundPics/about/

Teach every child as if dyslexic, and meet the needs of all students from day 1. Meet the Speech Sound Monsters with Miss Emma, and learn about Monster Mapping. Dyslexia Doctor House.

06/04/2019

Have researched this and it is legitimate. Early identification is the key to preventing a lot of self esteem issues. Feeling dumb because a child knows they are not learning like, or to the level of their peers, is debilitating. Waiting too long can mean a child learns ineffective strategies to compensate. It is very hard to unlearn things. Much better to begin the search for answers early so you tailor support. Whether it’s dyslexia or something else EARLY INTERVENTION is so powerful. You can actually minimize many dyslexic behaviors by re wiring the brain early.