I began this lesson with an Alphabet Assessment Checklist. I asked Nicholas to identify all lowercase letters. Although we have not studied all the letters, I wanted to see what he may know from his regular school day. We then reviewed the name and sound for all the letters we have looked at in depth: Nn, Ss, Ll, Pp, Aa, Tt, Ff, Cc, Kk, Mm Nicholas located the foam letters K, C, and M on a strip of capital foam letters. He "punched out" these letters. He did the same with k, c, and m. He then took all the (foam) letters we have studied and matched the uppercase letter to the correct lowercase letter. This gave him an extra chance to identify letters and sounds. I asked Nicholas to print the uppercase letters mentioned above. I did not provide a model. Since "M" and "K" are new letters, we worked on printing them together. I asked Nicholas to print his first name. I then printed "Nicholas" and asked him to identify each letter.

I started today's lesson with an Alphabet Assessment Checklist. I asked Nicholas to identify all capital letters and to tell me the sound for all letters except e, i, o, and u. Although we have not studied all the sounds, I wanted to see what he may know from his regular school day. We then moved on to a review of the letters and sounds we have studied. We then looked at "Kk" and /k/, noting that it makes the same sound as (hard) "C." We watched a short video of "The Song Kookaburra." I printed this out and Nicholas highlighted all the "K"s and "k"s he saw. We looked at the letter "Mm" and the sound /m/... "mmmmm," as when something tastes delicious! Nicholas then drew a "treasure map" and sounded out the word "map." He printed this on his drawing. He watched a short video of "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" He then took the printed version and highlighted all the "M"s. He remarked that there were no small "m"s in the text. He was right!

Since this was the first session after a period of some absence due to holidays and illness, the bulk of the lesson revolved around reviewing previously learned letters and sounds (Nn, Ss, Pp, Aa, Tt, Ff, and Cc, specifically). He was first tasked with writing his name on construction paper using multi-colored chalk and did this well, although he hesitated and required a prompt before writing the letter 'o' in his last name. Nicholas performed well when recalling other letters he previously learned, but gave the 'n' sound for the letter 'p,' and struggled a bit recalling the sound of the letter 'f.' Nicholas was also tasked with writing the letters and sounds on paper and performed well doing this. The letters and sounds that Kk and Mm make was introduced, with Nicholas correctly repeating the sound and words after they were initially modelled for him. 'The Song of Kookaburra' was viewed on YouTube to stimulate interest and reinforce the 'k sound. Though off to a slower start when he first arrived at school, Nicholas grew more animated as activities and varied modalities engaged his attention, sustaining concentration and attention and responding favorably to the varied methods and teaching techniques employed (song/chalk/visual and auditory modalities) to assist in skill acquisition. For example, he greatly enjoyed first singing 'The Muffin Man' song, and then performed very well circling all the 'M' letters he saw in the written lyrics, achieving 15/16, or 94% accuracy in this visual discrimination task. Nicholas freely demonstrated his affection to this tutor, hugging her a few times sporadically throughout the session. He is spontaneous and genuine in his display of affection as well as candor, which is quite refreshing. We concluded the session with Nicolas requesting me to draw a picture of him after I commented on his nice smile and bright-eyed expression. I took a few minutes to pencil sketch him and he helped cut out his name that he had written at the introduction of the session and attached it to the sketch, asking me to hold it in order to show his mom the next time he came to school. All told, it was a productive session and Nicholas demonstrated a good ability to follow multi-step directives and recall skills of learning acquired in prior sessions.

Nicholas used his "take-home" cards to identify the letter and sound for Nn, Ss, Ll, Pp, Aa, Tt, Ff, and Cc. He then read the "environmental print" card for each of these letters...for example, "S is for stop." He matched each of these "environmental print" cards to his "take-home" cards. We then concentrated on the letter "Cc" and the sound /c/ as in "cow." I read the poem "C is for Crooked." Nicholas "echo" read the poem with me a few times. He highlighted each letter "Cc" in the poem. Nicholas then printed a large "C" on a piece of white construction paper. He cut out "cookies" and glued them on the outline of the "C." He then added "chocolate chips" to each "cookie," using a marker. He counted the "chips" on each "cookie." Modeling my printing, Nicholas printed "C is for cookie," on his paper. We then looked at some treats I brought, all of which began with "Cc" /c/... cupcake, cookies, candy cane, cocoa Nicholas got to take home these treats.

Nicholas knew the name and sound for all the letters he has studied: Nn, Ss, Ll, Aa, Pp, Tt, and Ff. We sang "Jingle Bells" using the /f/ sound-- Fingle Fells Fingle Fells Fingle fall the fay... Nicholas then matched pictures to the letter heard at the beginning of each word/picture. In the past, I would have to "stretch" or "bounce" the first letter of the word to help Nicholas "hear" the beginning sound. Today, he was able to "hear" the sound a few times without assistance from me. I read two stories to Nicholas that have the letter "Ff" and the sound /f/ in them-- Frosty the Snowman" and "Froggy's First Christmas." We also looked for words in the stories beginning with other letters studied. Nicholas began a look at the letter "Cc" and the sound /c/, as in "cake" (on our large alphabet card). We then looked at the small "take-home" card with a picture of a "cow." We "bounced" the /c/ in "cccccake" and "cccccow." We watched a short video on the letter "Cc." Nicholas knew that the letter "Kk" also makes the same sound as "c." He was able to find the alphabet card with the letter "Kk."

Today was a most productive session with Nicholas. We began by using alphabet cards and asking Nicholas to identify seven letters and articulate the sound of each. We reviewed which letters made the bounce sounds ('P' and 'T') and those that made the stretch sounds 'N','S','L''A'and 'F'. He particularly enjoyed emphasizing the staccato-sounding bounce sounds. Nicholas was next tasked with matching pictures to the name of their corresponding (7) letters, with improvements noted over the past few sessions. Nicholas succesfully accomplished this task, but needed prompts for "tiny turtle'- growing a bit frustrated when we could not find "lazy lion" amongst the pictures in the batch. We then moved on to environmental print pictures for the letters 'N,' 'S,' 'L,' P,'A,'and 'T'. Nicholoas was able to match and articulate 6 stretch sounds (such as 'Sssssstop' and 'Lllllucky Charms,' and 2 bounce sounds ('Pppppizza Hut' and 'Ttttttelevision'. He did well on all, but questioned and hesitated before matching television to the picture of a Target store. Please note that Nicholas was permitted to indulge in short bursts of elective activity in between tasks to facilitate his attention, which helped him to sustain it for the duration of the session. Next on the agenda, Nicholas was asked to match capital and lower case letters. He enjoyed punching the letters out of their foam-based template and was asked to match environmental pictures with their corresponding letter mates. Nicholas achieved this task with 85% accuracy, which included success with the letter'f' for the very first time. He did, however, require prompting for the letter 'N', asking "is it the letter that my name starts with?" before committing to identifying and matching it. Despite his initial reluctance and prefacing performance by saying, "I don't know how to do this, or "I never did this before", Nicholas did as instructed with good accuracy and success. Overall, he enjoyed matching upper case letters to their 'best friend' lower case letters and having the magnets stick together more than he did the decoding activities or tasks having him match words to their pictorial counterparts, including the environmental print words (signs, labels, and trademarks). Next, to consolidate the recently acquired letter 'F' sound, we used a fun little song in which the letter sound was exaggerated, or stretched. Nicholas enjoyed piping in the 'f' words after hearing it and singing it together a few times. We also sang a Jingle Bell song, in which we substituted the letter 'f' for the beginning letters of each word. Nicholas had a bit more difficulty with this activity, but got a huge kick out of hearing this tutor singing "Fingle Fells, Fingle Fells, Fingle fall the fay" - trying to chime in as requested, but reverting to the original, and laughing at our dual comedic performance. It was a delightful way to end a most productive session. We enjoyed a good laugh and ate some popcorn to celebrate gains made in on-task performance, sound-letter correspondence, and increased phonemic awareness.

Nicholas reviewed the name and sound for "Nn," "Ll," "Ss," "Pp," "Aa," and "Tt." He then matched pictures beginning with these sounds to the correct letter. We began the letter "Ff" during our last session, identifying the letter and the sound. We had also watched a short video focusing on this letter. Nicholas needed to be reminded of the name for the letter "Ff" and the sound /f/. I then read/sang "F is for Firefighter" and "F is for Flower." Nicholas highlighted all words with "Ff." He then worked on a project focusing on "Ff" /f/. He glued "firewood" to a piece of construction paper and then he tore pieces of red, yellow, and orange construction paper to represent "fire." We also noted that the "firewood" can also be called "logs," "Ll" being another letter Nicholas has studied.

Nicholas reviewed the name and sound for "Aa" and "Tt," the two letters which have been a bit more difficult for him. We then used our small "take-home" letter cards and matched them to the larger alphabet cards. Nicholas was extremely tired today, so I "bounced" and "stretched" the name of the pictures on the "take-home" letter cards while Nicholas just listened. I then used pictures beginning with each letter Nicholas has studied... Nn, Ll, Ss, Pp, Aa, and Tt. The object is for Nicholas to say the name of the picture, listen to the first sound in the word, and match the picture to the correct letter. My goal is for Nicholas to independently "zero in" on the first sound of the word and match it to the correct letter. I then introduced the letter "Ff" and the sound /f/. One clue to making the sound is to feel your breath on the palm of your hand. We then watched a short video about the letter "Ff" and the sound /f/.

Nicholas reviewed the name and sound for "Nn," "Ss," "Ll," "Pp," "Aa," and "Tt, using our large alphabet cards. He then matched our smaller "take-home" cards to the larger cards, once again reviewing the name and sound of each letter. Nicholas and I read the poem, "T is for Teddy Bear." He paired the appropriate action with each line.
He then used his yellow crayon to highlight all the letter "Tt"s in the poem. We then "bounced" each word beginning with "T' or "t" --- ttttteddy ttttturn ttttouch I then gave Nicholas what looked like a blank white sheet of paper. (I had actually made an uppercase "T" on the paper with a white crayon.) Using a cup of water and one selected color of paint, Nicholas discovered the hidden letter on the white page. As Nicholas painted, the "T" appeared like magic. The next activity asked Nicholas to match the capital letters to the lowercase letters that we have studied, using our foam letters. I then asked Nicholas to draw a big sun with his crayons. We then worked on sounding out the word "sun." Nicholas printed "sn" on his paper.

Today's session was very productive. We reviewed the prior work Nicholas has in his folder, and Nicholas explained the letters and the sounds they make using his own work from several activities compiled for him. We sang the 'N' song, which is sung to the tune of 'Skip to my Lou,' and both acted out the parts, emphasizing the "n" sound, followed by a rousing rendition of the 'Sing Sing Sing' song, which was sung to the tune of 'Row, Row, Row your Boat.' Nicholas was encouraged to trace letters as a means by which to facilitate his recognition of the letter using visual perceptual and tactile sensory modalities; he also used chalk to draw the letters on various surfaces to further consolidate gains. Alphabet cards were used next and Nicholas told me the name of each shown, although he intermittently asked me to act as the student as he wished to be the teacher and relay instructions. He had a bit of difficulty correctly identifying the stretch sounds ( the letters N,S,L,A) but was able to identify 'P' as a bounce sound, given visual and verbal prompts and using a pumpkin worksheet obtained from his prior work. Environmental pictures were used for the letters N, L, S, P, and A, while stretching and bouncing the word on each card after reading it aloud. Foam letters were used to address letter recognition, and Nicholas punched out the capital letter "T" and the lower case letter 't' and then matched each with its "best friend" when it was mixed in with 10 other letters while reviewing the sound each letter made. We used songs to emphasize letter sounds and Nicholas was happy to sing me the Paradise Song he created and volunteered information about why he chose those lyrics. It appear that music is a good modality by which to connect with Nicholas and engage him in task-oriented activities. It is recommended as a way by which to engage and sustain his attention as well. Before it was time to leave, Nicholas asked to create a project using two paper plates and writing several letters in marker that he knows. We stapled the plates together to form a tambourine, and Nicholas was proud to present it to his mother upon leaving. We walked out to the car together, singing one of the favored songs of the day, alternating lines and making stretching and bouncing sounds where indicated. Nicholas is looking forward to returning on Friday and working on a paint activity, where letters magically appear after water is applied to the paper, which will likely be on the agenda.