We began today's session practicing some blending drills and reviewing closed, open, and silent-e syllables by playing a few rounds of Phonics Dice to help reinforce and consolidate learning. Cade was eager to participate and remained engaged in the activity. We then continued our summer reading of 'The World According to Humphrey.' Cade was prompted to recall the characters and their relationships to one another. He read some sentences aloud during our guided reading exercise but the Lexile level of this particular book is advanced, with high sentence, text complexity, and word frequency so it is rather challenging for him. I will take out 1 or 2 of the recommended summer reading books for his grade level out of the library prior to our next session. Cade was then tasked with a cause and effect exercise. He correctly responded by stating the 'effect' that happened when given a 'cause' from the story. We read pages 25 - 32 in the book, 'The Most important Man in the World,' and Cade recalled many details when queried. He is growing more comfortable engaging in dialogue with me and appears to respond with greater confidence.
We enjoyed an effective and productive session this afternoon. I assessed Cade's understanding of silent-e and we played a few rounds of a closed syllable phonics dice game which included a vowel between two consonants; Cade read four words with ease and won the round. We continued reading the book, 'The World According to Humphrey' and I asked Cade to summarize it for me before reading chapter 3, 'The Two Faces of Mrs Brisbane,' pages 17-24; Cade recorded the time spent reading it in his reading log and participated in guided reading, following along with his finger. I stopped at several points to assess his understanding of words, developments, character analyses, prediction, and inferences. I explained and gave examples of inferences as Cade was unfamiliar with the term, and I described how one can figure things out and form conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning. We read the chapter in its entirety and I paused periodically to practice comprehension strategies which included summarizing, predicting, and making inferences. Additionally, Cade was provided with a hands-on activity using clay to make a model of Humphrey; he created an excellent facsimile using the book's cover illustration to guide his efforts. When reading, I pointed out several words to assess Cade's understanding, and commented on the irregular spelling of words such as 'gnaw.' Cade picked out the past tense of the word in a subsequent sentence when prompted to do so. He followed directives well and was responsive to intervention, contextual clues, and strategies to facilitate literacy, fluency, and decoding skills. The session went well and yielded productive outcomes.
After alphabetic awareness, I conducted visuals (all letters, digraphs and r-controlled)l, auditory (/er/, /o/, /th/, /ch/, /f/, and blending drills. To review syllable types taught (closed, open, silent-e, R-controlled) we made a Slap! card game for Cade to take home. We played a few rounds. I read Chapter 4 of The World According to Humphrey (from Cade's summer reading list), pausing to practice reading comprehension strategies. We made a bookmark with a summary of Chapters 1-4 so that Cade can continue reading the book at home. We recorded the minutes in his reading log. All of the above materials were passed on to Cade's mom. I agreed to find a decodable reading series for Cade to procure from the Palm Beach Garden's library.
