First Day! Question about cards 1-26

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Permalink Reply by Merry on March 8, 2010 at 7:38pm

Hi Deb,

Congrats on your first day! How fun!

Yes, it's fine to move on to level 2 before all of the phonograms are mastered. I don't know if you saw the phonogram progress chart in the beginning section of this group, but here it is if you would like one to print off.

Here’s why Marie teaches all of the sounds of a letter at once:

Let’s take the letter E. It says /e/ – /E/. The first sound is the most common, and knowing this short sound allows the student to sound out words like “men, set, and ten.” Knowing the second sound (long E) is important, too, for reading basic words like “she, me, we.” The child learns to read very quickly this way. And when he gets to more difficult words, he can quickly run through the various options for sounding out words. In the word “even,” for example, the short sound doesn’t make sense for the first E, so he can quickly and easily substitute the long E sound.

Most letters only have one sound. The 5 vowels plus y, c, g, and s are the letters that have additional sounds. Many of the additional sounds come up in 1st and 2nd grade readers, in words like: has, ice, age, my, I, me/he/she/we, go, do, put, etc… A child won’t be able to progress very far in reading without knowing the additional sounds.

Sometimes parents are concerned that kids can’t handle it, and this leads them to approach the subject too tentatively. We find just the opposite. Children are liberated from their learning problems when they know the full truth about the letters and the sounds they make.

One more thing to remember—in AAS, only four letters are taught at a time. You aren’t teaching all 26 letters of the alphabet at once. And on page 16 of Level 1, there are instructions on how to teach the sounds. Basically, you show the child the letter, tell him the sound(s) it makes, and he repeats it. Give it a try! Your child just may surprise you.

I'd recommend teaching only one letter that has multiple sounds per day though--let your son master each one before adding in more. Page 9 lists the phonograms to split up into different lessons.

Keep the lessons nice and short--10 or 15 minutes is probably plenty at his age. If he's getting overwhelmed, don't be afraid to stop for the day. Better to keep it light and fun than to overwhelm & have him end up dreading spelling!

HTH! Merry :-)

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Permalink Reply by Deb on March 9, 2010 at 12:02pm

Thanks Merry! I went back and re-read all the instructions and I think I have a better handle on the situation. It will take some getting used to, but I am really looking forward to empowering my 'wordy' boy to answer his own spelling questions!

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