“word mapping”

Here’s an interesting presentation of coaching/learning spelling in English. The author uses the term ‘word mapping’ which is the same term used with the Reading Reflex Phono-Graphic Method that combines reading and writing/spelling from the very beginning.

The underlying concept for ‘word mapping’ is that words are composed of sounds (phonemes) and that we represent these sounds with particular symbols (letters and combinations of letters). The Reading Genie website presents a nice progression for analyzing a word and learning its spelling, in 9 steps, where one doesn’t look at the actual spelling until step 6. This approach really puts the emphasis on the sounds involved and then the code necessary to represent those sounds.

There are a number of aspects of the Reading Genie website’s information that I don’t appreciate, e.g. a focus on blending of syllables and developing discrete phoneme awareness last (which I’m not sure is necessary, despite its relative difficulty). But there are some very useful tools there as well, including Developing Fluency, and for parents/teachers, How to Count Phonemes in Words.

The batle

(composed this past weekend, age 7.6)

“The batle will be soon.
Blue and Red, shall fight but I shall not!
But you must o noble knit!
I shall not it is to dangerous for me!
O.K but not next time.

So the armese march twords us. We will not die!
(You can invente the end.)”

———
Re-reading the ‘Thae Magik Hetr’ story tonight made me realize how long it’s been since any of E’s ideas have been published here, and how much her writing has developed since the last time. Thanks, Heidi, for mentioning these entries over the weekend.

an exquisite corpse

Here’s the exquisite corpse we all made up two years ago on Halloween night while sitting around the fireplace at a friend’s country house. The authors include 2 six-year-olds and 5 adults.

Aujourd’hui je suis en vacances. Halloween is tomorrow — and I like its spookiness. Once when I was young, my friends took me to a cemetery on Halloween night. And there, I felt a chill wind on my neck, and I saw a scary sight. The sun had set, but the only color in the sky was red, plus a black bat winged its way towards the window in the old stone north tower. And guess who lived in the tower? You’re right! It was the shaggle-tooth, green-haired frog princess. And she obviously had grown younger since I saw her last, and she was a more luminous shade of green. We thought she was really funny with shining green … especially how the tip of her nose blinked on and off … when she lied. And the lie she was telling me now was a doozy: She told me that her friend got married and the cake was poison! I was shocked and wondered if the bride ate the poisoned cake or if she just had a bad tummy ache. Hoping for the former, I brewed her a cup of broth of eye of newt and made her drink it in an ice-cold bath. Suddenly, she had an inspiration that saved her from this fate: She would cross her toes, blow her nose, sing a song of sixpence, and finally, blow a kiss to the moon … and then all would be well in the world. –FIN–