ElizabethB please help!

[Tabrett]

Please help me understand why my 5.5yo dd can read words but not sentences. We are doing 1 page of ETC 2 and one page of ETC 3 a day. We have been using PP's and have been over all the sounds needed to do the two ETC books (we have already finished ETC 1 and had the same problem). I have not taught any sight words except the word "the". I also play the games from Happy Phonics.

Here is my problem:

My dd can do all the work in ETC books just fine except the pages where you have to read 2 sentences and x the correct sentence that goes with the picture. She can spell the words, segment the sounds, read the words, but not the sentences.

WHY? I don't understand.......And I am SO frustrated!!!!

Also, she can't seem to read silent e words in a sentence. We have played games from Happy Phonics where you read the cvc word, add an e to the cvc word and find the picture that matches ( can----cane find pic of a cane). We have marked the vowel and crossed out the e with a red pencil. She can do all those things easily, but when the silent e word is in a sentence she can't read it unless I point out the e. She keeps saying the short vowel sound instead of the long vowel sound. We have camped out on these sound for over a month! How can I help her? We have stopped doing PP's and have camped out on working with silent e words, ee and ea. She does better with ee and ea word than silent e words.

Should I have her skip the sentence reading pages in ETC? Would that be ok? Is there something I could do to help her or help me not be so frustrated? Is this normal?

[FlockOfSillies]

Two things...

The long vowel, silent e thing takes a long time for many kids to master. At first, it's almost counterintuitive to look to the end of a word to figure out how to say something in the middle of it. The good news is, once they've mastered that, very often their reading skills take off like a rocket. YMMV.

Sentences... do not skip them. They are important, because our language is made up of sentences, not isolated words.

Once she's read two words in a sentence, go back and have her read everything she's read so far. For example, "The fox slaps the clam."

"The..." Good!

"f-o-x. FFF-AHHHH-XXX. Fox!" Great! Now go back to the beginning.

"The fox..." (If she can't remember what she just sounded out, just help her say it fast. My 5yo does this.)

Then she'll sound out "slaps", and you go back and have her say, "The fox slaps" and so on until she finishes the sentence. Repeating the parts she's already read will help her build fluency and strengthen her short-term memory.
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One more thing... I wouldn't have her do two ETC books at once. Let her do book 2 only. Let it be easy review for her, to build her confidence.

HTH.

[AngieW in Texas]

If she can read the words in isolation just fine, but not when they are in a sentence, it may be a vision issue.

http://www.sccoeyecare.com/visiontherapy/visualefficiency.html
http://www.covd.org/

If you mean that she reads the words in a sentence, but doesn't remember what she's read by the time she gets to the end of the sentence, that's an automaticity/fluency issue.

[Tabrett]

bumping for ElizabethB

[Wee Pip]

I agree with the first response. Both my girls went thru that (and at about that age, too!) It's a fluency issue, but it'll get there. I agree to go back and have her put words together, remind her to "say it fast", etc. If she's still stumped, just remind her of what she said, without making it an issue. Quite often, we'd get thru the 1st sentence, finally move along to the second sentence, and then the 1st sentence would be forgotten, LOL. So then I'd just read both sentences to remind her and ask her which one matched the picture. We slowed down on the sentence pages, sometimes only doing 2 sets of sentences per day, and trying to work up to half a page, and then a full page.

[ElizabethB]

I skip sentences and stories on purpose until they can decode everything fluently!

My daughter could read sentences when she was at that point, but would sometimes start guessing, so I stopped all sentences and stories.

Some of my other students have been where you are, that was part of the reason I dropped all stories and sentences during my tutoring--the other was time--since I have limited time with them, I wanted to focus on learning sounding out skills in ways that their parents wouldn't/couldn't teach them. If they hadn't learned the phonics well enough, they were concentrating on the story/sentence more than the sounds of the words.

Sentences and stories switch some students into another reading mode--reading by guessing instead of reading by sounding things out.

Silent e's are especially tricky, it took my daughter a while to get the concept, and it takes some of my students even longer.

I would definitely drop the sentences and just keep working on the phonics until the phonics is over-learned.

There is a thread way back about silent e's that I commented on, and several other people had some great ideas that I've used with some of my remedial students since. I'll try to find it, it had a lot of great suggestions.

[ElizabethB]

Yes, this is normal!

And, here's a whole thread of normal students having silent e problems:

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73087&highlight=silent+hop+hope

[ElizabethB]

One more thought after reading through the silent e thread:

I like AngieW in Texas's suggestion, if you want some ready-made pieces, you could use my game with just the short vowel and silent e words for a start, then add a few more endings of each from some blank cards in the same size:

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Phonics/concentrationgam.html

[Tabrett]

I skip sentences and stories on purpose until they can decode everything fluently!

My daughter could read sentences when she was at that point, but would sometimes start guessing, so I stopped all sentences and stories.

Some of my other students have been where you are, that was part of the reason I dropped all stories and sentences during my tutoring--the other was time--since I have limited time with them, I wanted to focus on learning sounding out skills in ways that their parents wouldn't/couldn't teach them. If they hadn't learned the phonics well enough, they were concentrating on the story/sentence more than the sounds of the words.

Sentences and stories switch some students into another reading mode--reading by guessing instead of reading by sounding things out.

Silent e's are especially tricky, it took my daughter a while to get the concept, and it takes some of my students even longer.

I would definitely drop the sentences and just keep working on the phonics until the phonics is over-learned.

There is a thread way back about silent e's that I commented on, and several other people had some great ideas that I've used with some of my remedial students since. I'll try to find it, it had a lot of great suggestions.
Thanks! I think I will drop the sentences. I think there are too many sentences for a 5.5 yo new reader to handle. We are doing SL Fun Tales readers because they are easier that what she is working on decoding. SL has her read the same book every day for a week and then you get a new one for the next week. I think ETC is probably designed for an older child.

Thanks again.

[ElizabethB]

Thanks! I think I will drop the sentences. I think there are too many sentences for a 5.5 yo new reader to handle. We are doing SL Fun Tales readers because they are easier that what she is working on decoding. SL has her read the same book every day for a week and then you get a new one for the next week. I think ETC is probably designed for an older child.

Thanks again.

You're welcome!

1851 knowledge would also think so, from a man who taught for 23 years and then was in Principal/Superintendent type positions for another 12 years. (Spelling meant combined spelling/phonics with a Speller):

I have one remark, however, to make, which, though it may seem at variance with the plans proposed and carried out by some with apparent success, I have little doubt will be found true, and that is, that it is scarcely possible to devote too much time to the spelling book. Teachers who are impatient of the slow progress of their pupils are too apt to lay it aside too soon. I have frequently seen the melancholy effects of this impatience. Among the many pupils that I have had under my charge, I have noticed that they who have made the most rapid progress in reading were invariably those who had been most faithfully drilled in the spelling book. A good hawk is better than a whole bag-full of game; and the fable of the hare and the tortoise applies as forcibly and as closely to the child's first endeavors as to any subsequent efforts. In the earlier stages of education, no better advice can be given than that which is conveyed in the quaint adage, Make haste slowly. Fruits and flowers produced by forcing in hot-beds rarely possess the raciness or the value of those which are properly and naturally matured.

(From the introduction to Parker's First Reader, 1851, full intro here):

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Spelling/spelling1851.html