Step 4

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Permalink Reply by Merry on October 12, 2009 at 1:27pm

Your daughter is ahead of herself! (In a good way). Later on AAS will introduce the doubling rule that your daughter already knows. I would praise her for her knowledge, and let her know that while it's USUALLY true that we double the consonant to protect a short vowel, these particular words are rule-breakers. (Another way to look at it if she understands open vowel syllables--usually habit and finish would be open-syllable, long vowel words--ha-bit, fi-nish. In level 2 she'll learn that we USUALLY divide words with only one consonant before that consonant--but in this case the words are rule-breakers because they are divided hab-it and fin-ish.). Either way, have her put them in jail. Naughty words! She can also write or make them with tiles on the whiteboard, and circle the single consonant that is not following the rule. I think habit and rabbit are particularly confusing since the words are so similar!

You could tell her that habit has a bad habit because it didn't double the b. And that finish didn't finish because it didn't double the n. While you don't want to over-use memory devices like these, sometimes they are helpful to kids in remembering tricky words.

I would keep them in her daily review for a long time until they are cemented for her, and then I would bring them up from the mastered review every month or so for awhile if you think she needs additional review.

A friend of mine put her jail on the wall and keeps a permanent list of rule-breakers that her kids can see and review when they walk past it, that might be another idea for you.

Step 4 and 6 of Level 2 have some trickier words in them, so don't be discouraged if these steps take a bit longer. Both have some vowel sounds that get muffled and that she might need to pronounce for spelling in order to remember them.

I hope this helps! Merry :-)

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Permalink Reply by Darlene McCullough on October 12, 2009 at 2:24pm

Merry,

Those are wonderful suggestions which I definitely will use. One question thought - does AAS not call these words rule-breakers at this point because the rule for doubling the consonant has not yet been covered?

Thanks again,
Darlene

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Permalink Reply by Merry on October 12, 2009 at 3:49pm

Right :-).

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