#1 - The Amelia
Bedelia Baseball book is terrible (I am unimpressed with the whole series).
The book is full of words and phrases which are baseball specific 'at bat'
etc.. When trying to help a child learn to read, the words used and the ideas
they represent should be already familiar to the reader. The point is to learn
to read 1st. Until they are reading well enough the introduction of new words
and phrases (that they haven't heard and understood in their real world lives)
adds unnecessary ambiguity. They can't know whether they are having a sounding
out problem because it 'doesn't come out right' in their minds. It is of the
utmost importance to consider the reader in picking the reading materials.
Some of these books use old fashioned quaint language that just isn't in use
in the world of today's kids. When they don't yet feel confident in their
reading they will assume they are at fault in decoding when they encounter
words they don't know. This must be avoided during the on-ramp to confident
reading.
#2 - I reviewed a
number of pieces of her homework. Some were clearly spelling exercises and so
when she made an error in spelling it was quite right to point that out to
her. Others however were different. In one case where there was a page of
little images to which she was supposed to write a word description. Here
there was picture of a wig on a mannequin's head - she wrote 'hare' (meant
'hair') and she got it 'wrong' and you wrote 'wig' underneath. I think the
point of this exercise, unlike the spelling where the word is partially
written out and has blanks into which she is supposed to insert the correct
letters, is to write from scratch a description of the picture. Her answer
'hare' was correct in that the wig was made of hair. Until and unless
you explain sufficiently that the point of the exercise is to label the
'exact' thing - she shouldn't be made to feel 'incorrect' for a right answer
that is not the exact right answer. Similarly throughout the page there were 4
other 'incorrects' each of these was the right 'thing' just misspelled. I
think you MUST make distinctions about which aspects of her work are right and
which are not. For her to feel 'incorrect' when she wrote the right idea but
misspelled it is not right. Its important to get to this level of
differentiation in the feedback and correction process to not create a
condition where a child's mind is made to be wrong for having done something
that was essentially right. Spelling is spelling - thinking is thinking.
#3 - There
was an error on her Math homework sheet. It was a double column addition
problem she did the math right - the answer was 66 but she wrote it
backwards 'dd' and it was graded as incorrect - this is another version
of the spelling problem. She needs to be helped to understand that in this
case her math work was right but she wrote the answer backwards - its
important that she 'gets' the distinction between these classes of errors and
that they not be all run together.
Now I have taken
her through what I wrote you. She understands these distinctions but won't
remain conscious of them unless you meet her in them as you move from here.
Please, for her sake and the other children's go slow and careful in these
areas.
I wrote this in
haste as I am overwhelmed with things right now. I hope I haven't offended in
any way - take what I said as feedback - I think important feedback - and from
the heart of someone who doesn't want his daughter to feel ashamed of her mind
for being incorrect when she is not.
