Trying out Yolanda programme

After going to Yolanda's training. I really wanted this to be my inquiry to see how effective it will be for me and the children.
As I was waiting for the resources to arrive, I have found a good site for pictures with alphabets. I cut out just pictures to use for the Stage 2 programme.
I have gone through Yolanda's video and wrote down some steps of the Stage 2 and Stage 4 so that it will be easy for me to read as I go through the steps with the children.
Stage 1 and 2 
Stage 4 

So far I have been trying the stage 2 with the whole class and it is working really great. With my target children for the inquiry, I see them every week to see how much they have retained the letter sound knowledge.

I do feel that it makes children to feel successful as it is very achievable for the children. I felt that organising and managing the whiteboards/pens/eraser were a bit chaotic in the beginning, but I used Velcro to attach a pen and an eraser for each whiteboard and this seemed to work better so that I am not spending too much time giving out the items in the beginning.

I also feel that in the beginning, I needed the script for me to go through the steps of the Stage 2 properly but now I have done this for the last 2 weeks that I have felt more confident at doing the Yolanda programme.

Yolanda Soryl Phonics Training

How to teach phonics.

7 stages of phonics.

Page 14-61

Phonics:

Shinderbell

Blending the sounds -essential for reading

Segmentation-breaking down the sounds

Avoid writing, writing safe stories (they know how to write these), they dont know how to break the sounds

Blending and segmentation are really important

1, how to hear

Decode- make sense- read

Look at the word and know the word

Graphic knowledge -memorising the shape  (h( sound) and is, his)

Phonics

Grammar

Word recognition and graphic knowledge

Context/meaning

Lowest reader - phonics knowledge

“Get the words” first step for comprehension

Grammar search light -reading their own writing, reread their own writing (checking what they are writing

Good writing re read , poor writers dont

Context-looking at the pictures/ rereading own writing/ does this make sense?

Best readers and writers (connecting levels)

Components of reading

Decoding

Comprehension

Fluency-reading and effortlessly (slow reader- losing meaning) Working hard at decoding-not getting the meaning. If they are able to read fluently they can attend to comprehension.

Look at the words and know just like that (brain training)

Brain activity

Good reader- left side of brain

Struggling reader- both sides

Phonics can turn the left side brain on

Our brains are not wired for reading

Dyslexia or learning needs-Genetic

Deficiency and lack of repetitions

Teach it again and again until we dont need to

“How my brain learns to read”

Teaching phonics makes a big difference later on in their life- reading

Boys- advantage to teach phonics, children with english as a second language

Hear them read out loud everyday.

Phonological awareness

Spoken language dev

Letter/sound knowledge

Importance of phonological awareness at school entry

2 sounds (stage 3)

3 sounds (Stage 4)

Stage 1

Stage 2 -they know the first sound (do they know the first sound? ) 6 weeks to teach it 1 week to test it and again

Stage 3 - last sound (one week to teach it)

Stage 4 -middle sound once  (dont teach stage 4 twice) - blending and segmentation (confusion with vowels)

Stage 5 -how to hear in every sound in a word Diagraph- sh two letters for one sound (hands on the hip)

Digraph is not a sound (a way of spelling a phoneme)

Make sure they can hear every sound of a word to move onto 6

By one year after starting school (phonics is finished by then)

Stage 6-7 - Year 2 long/short vowels (2 years after school entry)

Play  train

Late   they

So many ways to write (8 ways to write)

Page 13- system -school needing to have one system

Use phonics and graphic knowledge and ticks

The child needs to be able to read it by themselves -structured approach

Stage 1

Little and often through out a day

1 Close eyes-what can you hear?  (conversations about sounds -rain, dog barking) Tuning into sounds

Is it motorbike or truck? Teaching them to how to hear

Sound track game

Using instruments -bells/shakers 4, 6, 10 instruments Similar shaker sounds (sounds table set up) boxes with different things inside to shake

Ability to hear different sounds (feeling it in their tongue) moving tongue activity

“I say, you say”

Make animal sounds -fluency faster “On your marks” make them think faster

Naming children in the line

How quickly can they tell you, give it to them faster

Alliteration

“I say you say”  “what did you hear?” holding hands with children with learning needs

Animalia (3 words)

Starts with g with a pointing finger

Reading aloud to children 5 times a day

Rhythm coping rhythm (children not able to hold structure) children giving it back differnetly

All the things we do in music/movement -phonological awareness

Ability to hear sound breaks (sylable break, clapping with sylables) 3 times (one, two, three)

(Overcoming dyslexia)

Before the guided reading clapping

Voice loud and clapping

Robot arms sounding out and finger to blend

Rhyme -hear and generate

Nursery rhymes (make handouts to parents) Good book of nursery rhymes

Some off by heart (choose 5)

Missing word in rhyme

I like rice, it is nice.

5 rhyming families (do it faster) rhyming strands (mat, rat, fat… ) can they generate?

Phonological awareness book

Start at Stage 2 and sprinkle Stage 1  (10 minutes extra phonological awareness) Little and often

Stage 2

Letter sounds/graphine

N m s long sounds

Revising with the children who forget

Revising on their own- and getting them to wordshark and steps “what is this sound? “ toileting, duty time, every hour show the card to get them to say the sound

Stepping in before failing- keep them in the class (write the letter on the back of their hands, pointing and say the sound)

Letter/alphabet cards

Side of the teachers are the lowest

Composition :Talk to the neighbours about what they want to write about -come up with one sentence

Holding structure: clapping hands and say the sentence (teacher writing down the sentence)

Tell the children to use the sounds and words

Tell me again your story (your story is …..)

Point to the word I use bluetac next to the word I 2 hands for writing

Game-sound first sound for game g g g g game, point to it and bluetac, full stop  

And pictures next

Exactly the same next day

Everyday for 2 weeks (word by word support)

Taking the support away (giving her choices M or n?)

4 weeks later (pointing to the row of the alphabet)

One sentence everyday

Writing is your voice written down

The vowels

Practice with clapping three times combination of them

Maintenance (a e i o u strip) random order then without pictures free from the website

Copy the student say the sounds -have a look at the you tube video

Heavy duty letters

You have to go right to left so the children can do the the other way (video on site)

Smart kinds poem

Assessment

Letter name/sound/ the words start with the sound

Teach stage 2 and test

Stage 3

Nip flip grip pencil holding

Puppet fish-fit what is the sound he cant hear.if he is right  give him a round of prouse

That is called the last sound

Using pictures

First phoneme - go back and revise

First sound, last sound, last sound with a puppet

Stage 4

Non sense words -decoding words best decoders

Get to the word the fastest way

Phoneming words

Fingers and blend after

Sounding and spelling

Grapheme is written form of phonemes Shock 3 always the same

Satage 4 words

Hog

Chop

Shock

Stage 5

Frog  f r o g 4 dont need to teach the blends need to hear phonemes

Hear every sounds

Smack

Frog

Stage 6

Way 2 sounds ay

W eigh

2 sounds no matter what

Rocket

D augh t er

Phonics manual

Ask a 5 year old

Fluency

More time reading

Anyone reading aloud to them

Tuakana teina

As many opportunities for them to be reading out loud

Read faster

Train them to read faster

Stage 4-reading the cards faster

             Read the funny sentence with expression

             Letter cards

             Word cards

Give your children opportunities to know what word it is  

Stage 2 writing quickly (is my go) without thinking about it

           

Shared writing

Everybody writing

Children give the children what they can do, and teachers fills it in

What will I need? Question mark

Spelling

Take a word from a shared writing

Like touch each letter

Louder, whisper, write it on your palm, silently, sing it (L, I, K, E)

Close your eyes

Write it on your whiteboard

Stage 5 hearing every sound in a word

Get them into writing using the words they are learning

Go up a stage and revise with the previous stage

Hear every sound

Wh ck

Q u 2 phonemes (qu)

Stage 6-7 long volwes

Key words  

Learning NZSL alphabet with children

As a part of my teaching inquiry, I have been adapting the use of New Zealand Sign Language alphabets to increase my target group's letter identification knowledge. I developed a video where I am signing the alphabet incorporating the use of big alphabet butterfly cards. I play this video everyday in the morning to watch with the children and sign together.

With the target group, they would watch this video everyday on the Ipad accessing from the QR code that I developed. Sometimes, I found it easy for the children to access it on the desktop computers as they could hear better with the headphones.

I am quite surprised about the results that the children have developed through the use of NZSL alphabet.
Here is the data result

Student Name	Start Date	Baseline Data	End Date	End Point Data	Improvement	Comments
Child A	11/6	LD- 4	10/8	LD-17 Sign-14	13
Child B	11/6	LD-9	10/8	LD-17 Sign-2	8
Child C	11/6	LD-28	10/8	LD-45 Sign-39	17
Child D	11/6	LD-5				not collected the data yet
Child E	11/6	LD- 21	10/8	LD-37 Sign-23	16

I am happy to say that there has been a significant increase in children's letter knowledge using the sign language alphabet and their actual development in letter signs. 

One of the main issues that some children face is that it is really hard to transfer this letter ID knowledge in reading or writing. I have been doing some work as a class using NZSL alphabet to emphasize how a word is made up of letters. 

When I am reading a big book of shared reading, and I see the word 'Cat', we talk about the letters C, A, and T in sign, and how the each letter makes sounds. When we put these sounds together, it makes the word 'Cat'. I think in general, there has been a better understanding on this as a classroom as after this discussion, some children go away and come back with the word they made. They are interested and are using their knowledge to explore. 

I would really like to see where it would go using this strategy in reading as well as some children find it really hard to look at the first letter of a word and sound it out. 

In writing, one of the target children has done really amazingly using the developed letter ID knowledge. The child was able to write down all the sounds he heard/sounded out and wrote a sentence on his own. This was his first time to do this. 

I really believe that there is a benefit in using the sign language alphabet. It provides visual support that children can rely on. Some of the letters of the alphabet resemble the shapes of the letters. We often talk about this. 

Using New Zealand Sign Language is beneficial for hearing children. Dr Sutherland from University of Canterbury talks about the benefits of bilingualism (spoken and visual languages) and describes its educational benefits, cognitive development, economic benefits, and growth of communities.

Our children have been learning New Zealand Sign Language since Term 1 and it has been amazing to watch them acquire a new language. The children feel really proud of using this language and understand why we use sign language. Using sign language also helps children develop their fine motor skills and planning of their movement which essentially links to cognitive development.