In my study, I
worked with an elementary student for a whole month in an average of 1-2 hours
daily. My student was a girl in grade one. It is her second year in grade one
because her parents insisted to leave her in the same grade, knowing that she
passed the first year of grade one, in a try to help her in improving her
learning skills. She had a problem with English letters concerning spelling and
memorizing them. Her problem was clearly demonstrated in case of reading words;
because she was unable to spell the whole word she could just spell each letter
separately without forming the word. Although she has a strong personality in
her daily life, she was not showing it during class sessions and during
homework time at home. When her teacher asks her a question, whether at school
or at home, she doesn’t respond quickly although she knows the right answer, she
doesn’t dare to say it because she would not be able to endure the feeling of
shame in case of mistake. Especially for her, a girl who is learning the same
subjects for the second time, falling in any mistake during the session will
lead to disastrous results on her learning improvement.
My study is
based on helping my sister to read and to compose words correctly and my final
objective was making my students be able to read the whole story that I’ve got
her “Puss in Boots”.
Day 1:
Step 1:
pre-assessment
As a test for
her spelling abilities, I asked my student to read the first page of the story.
I found that she was unable to read most of the words, so I asked her to
pronounce each letter alone and then to try to spell the whole word. She
remembered most of the letters, but she forgot some especially the letters “t”
and “w”.
Step 2:
I asked her to
write the capital and the small alphabets in their right order. She wrote till
letter “H” and then she stopped because she forgot what comes after, so I asked
her to write the letters she knew no matter in which order. She wrote A B C D E
F j H G J S I K L N M Q V she forgot to write the rest, but when we read them
together, she remembered the letters X, O, Y, and Z. While reading the letters,
I asked her to write the small letter corresponding to each capital one she
wrote. She did, but she forgot the small Q and she tried hard to remember it.
Finally she remembered it was “q”.
Step 3:
On a separate
piece of paper, I wrote all the capital letters, and then I asked her to write
the small ones. She faced a problem with the letters W and Y, because she
forgot the small letters that correspond to them, but when I gave her some
hints, she remembered them.
Step 4:
I asked her to
write the capital and the small alphabets in their right order. She did
correctly.
Day 2:
Step 1:
Refreshing the memory
I prepared
some activities on alphabets to her in an attempt to refresh her memory. The
activities included an exercise where she had to match the capital letters to the
small ones. She matched them all correctly and without being hesitant. Another
exercise was also about capital and small letters where she had to write either
the capital or the small letter that corresponds to the written ones. I left
the first exercise in front of her so she could use it as a feedback that would
help her in the next exercise. That method helped her to solve the exercise
correctly and without being hesitant for the second time. The obtained results
had encouraged me to take a second step in that day.
Step 2: Using
a given feedback
On the same
paper, I asked her to write both the capital and the small letter in the right
order. I noticed that she used the given feedback in writing certain letters
and at the end when I checked the paper; I found that she had written all the
letters correctly and in the right order.
By those
results, I achieved my objectives for the second day.
Day 3:
Step 1: Using
the own memory
The exercises
that I prepared to her were different that day. There were no hints to help her
except listening to the “A B C” song at the beginning of the session. In the
first exercise, she had to fill in the blanks with the convenient letter either
the small or the capital letter according to what was written to her. In the
absence of any hints or any help, the exercise was not easy to her and that’s
why she took some time to solve it, but at the end she finished it correctly.
Step 2: Fixing
the information
In an attempt
to fix in her mind what she had learned, I got her an exercise where she had to
write all the alphabets in both forms, the capital and the small one and in the
right order, but this time without having any feedback or any previous exercises.
She started directly with the small letters and it was a good beginning, but
she stopped after some time to remember certain letters like the letters “H and
K”. Her work was not continuous, but she was writing them correctly. Then, she
wrote each capital letter above its small one and that was not hard on her
although she was hesitant in writing the letters.
Those
exercises would fix the letters in her mind so she would not forget them again.
Day 4:
I got her an
alphabet cartoon where the capital and the small alphabets are the actors. I
decided to specify 15 minutes daily for watching the cartoon. While she was
watching, I kept asking her about each letter and she was answering confidently
and correctly. I noticed that she enjoyed watching the cartoon so when it was
over, she was not excited to do any practice activities and she wanted to leave
the session. I knew I had to attract her to the session, so I promised her that
I would allow her to watch the cartoon the next day if she stayed in the
session. Actually, that way was effective so she stayed.
In addition to
the cartoon, I prepared to her some activities that were related to the
cartoon, which I had watched before. In the first one, she had to draw the letters
that she had watched in the first episode and then to write each letter below
its drawing. I was sure that drawing the letters before writing them would be
the best way to remind her by the alphabets that she had seen in the first
episode and actually I was right. She drew the characters and then she wrote
the letters correctly.
The second
exercise was the ordinary one in each session. She had to write and read both
the capital and the small alphabets in the right order. She began confidently
and ended confidently but she was hesitant in the middle.
Day 5:
That day
started with watching the second episode of the cartoon. Then I asked her to do
the same exercise that she did the day before. She was enjoying doing that
exercise because it was related to the cartoon that she loves and that is why
she was solving it confidently and correctly. When she finished it, we moved to
another room that was full of stuff (furniture, toys, food, drawings…). I
prepared that room by myself and I placed papers above most of the items. On
those papers I wrote the beginning letter of each item and I asked her to
pronounce each letter. She was a little confused maybe because the letters were
stated randomly and not in the right order so she was answering hesitantly but
most of her answers were correct.
By those
activities I aimed to test her memory and to raise her self-confidence by
placing different letters in different order.
Day 6:
We sat
directly in the prepared room of the day before. She watched the third episode
and then she did its related exercise. I noticed that she was getting better in
doing that exercise I knew it was because she discovered the aim behind
watching the cartoon.
Before the
session, I removed some papers from some items. During the session, I
pronounced the names of those items and she had to tell which letter each item
started with. I spelled “wall” she answered “w” so I asked her to write “w” on
a piece of paper and she did correctly then we fixed that paper on the wall. I
spelled “lamp” so she directly wrote the letter “L” on a paper and she fixed
that paper on the desk lamp. I spelled further words and I was satisfied by the
results I obtained.
Day 7:
After watching
the fourth episode and doing its related exercise, we got outside the house
where we started to sound out different items around the house. She was
discovering the beginning letters of each item I sound out but when we saw a
cat, she immediately said “cat” she knew it was “cat” but when I asked her
about the first letter, she turned confused because she was uncertain about it
so she said “K” she thought that “cat” starts with “k” and I was sure that she
would fall in such a mistake. We moved to the garden where I had prepared a
medium full of different items but most of them start either with the letter
“C’ or the letter “K”. There were “cup”, “cake”, “cookies”, “circles”, and some
other words. I wrote, I spelled them, and I tried to differentiate between the
words that start with /si/ sound and the words that start with /k/ sound. The
idea was not familiar to her but I was not able to discuss it more because the
discussion is not for her level.
Her
interaction with the new ideas was good according to her situation.
Days 8à15: Further
training-Alphabets training
We spent that periods
training; I was bringing the exercises and she was solving them. We were also
playing games which require reading skills (appropriate for her age) most of
them were computer games and she was enjoying them. I noticed that those games
and songs improved her abilities and raised her level; she totally memorized
the alphabets and recognized new words that are common in the daily life.
After that
period, she was done with the stage of alphabets and we could move to the stage
of words, reading a whole word.
Days 16à22: Practicing
on reading words
That week, I
decided to start reading for her because an important way to improve their
reading ability is to start reading for kids as early as possible. I brought
stories appropriate for her age and those stories were full of drawings and
characters that she loves. While reading, I allowed her to sit right next to me
so she could see all the words on the pages as well as the pictures. By that
way, she could get an idea of how I read and when I repeat the same books, she
would recognize the story more.
During that
week, I also prepared several exercises where she had to observe the picture of
certain animals and items and below each item, its name is written but with a
missed letter, mainly the first letter so she had to fill in those blanks.
Because she already knows all the items, it was not hard to fill the blanks so
she filled most of them correctly and confidently but with less confidence
towards the words that start with “c and k” I helped her a little bit to fill
them.
The third task
I was giving to her during that week was playing games “word games”. Playing
games that incorporate reading and spelling into them was an excellent way for
her to learn. It did only encourage her, but brought the two of us closer.
Her boring was
less after that week, she became engaged in the sessions more than before, and
she became familiar with the activities and exercises I was giving them to her.
That change in her altitude towards the session, led to a noticeable
improvement in her abilities, reading skills, and her understanding.
Days 22à30: Advanced
reading skills
In the last
week, I was still reading for her the same stories of the previous week and
after each reading, I was bringing her the same short-story I had read for her
but with empty blanks. She had to fill those blanks since she knew the story by
heart. She was answering my questions about the empty blanks and her answers
were right but I was helping her to write the answers. I noticed that she has a
strong memory that stores story events more than storing educational
information.
Another task
was trying to read one of the stories that I had read twice or even more in
front of her. She was confused at the beginning, but after reading the first
page hesitantly and correctly, she moved to the next page confidently. Her
reading level was good according to a girl in her situation.
In the last
day of the month, I brought the story “Puss in Boots” and I asked her to start
reading it after we saw the pictures and after we tried to guess what the story
is talking about.
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