[LauraLiz]

One of my students is reading at a level A and is still stuggling to learn her alphabet and the sounds. She receives learning disabilities servicing, but is not making progress. Nothing seems to stick with her. What is most concerning is that she is starting to give up and her attitude is changing for the worse. We have done gross motor activities, texture work, listening to audio tapes, etc. and all have had some affect, but have fizzled out.

I need ideas. What new ways can we practice and try to get her re-engaged? I appreciate any ideas, resources, activities, anything that I can try. THANK you.

[loggerteacher]

I have a firstie that was really, really struggling as well. I have been using alpha friend cards and that has made all the difference. He knew 5 letters at the beginning of the year and today he only missed 3! http://www.smbsd.org/uploaded/readin...phafriends.pdf

http://www.edina.k12.mn.us/cornelia/...phafriends.htm


Check out those sites for more info.

Also, do you use starfall and raz-kids? I love both of those sites and the kids love using the computer.

Have you tried Handwriting without Tears? I had a CI student a few years ago that found success when using that program .

Good luck!

[kattlyn]

One of my favorite (and the kids I work with) is to use an alphabet arc and then tell tongue twisters - some are very funny - they have to guess which letter it is concentrating on. Some can guess the letter, but don't know what THAT particular letter looks like--then we say the alphabet from 'a' til we get to the right letter. Other times we listen to 'jolly songs' from jolly phonics - i just bought the music cd - they are very short songs - easy to listen to - do same thing with the arc.
I've recently used carl's corners font sorts as well, concentrating on only 4 letters at a time. I pass out even # of cards, then (after we go through ea. letter thoroughly) - they have to tell me which letter it is before they place in correct column-if can't name letter, they keep it till end of game - one with fewest cards, wins.

[Ima Spedtcher]

I just started using zoo phonics this year and it works as advertised! My sped students went from not knowing any letter sounds to knowing 90-100% of the sounds in 2 weeks!