I’ll share more exercises like this some other time – doing these will help kids with phonemic awareness when they are learning to read.

Help – hope – success – Read!

Goodbye until next time!

Cook, sock, classic - the answer is /k/

Notice that in the 2nd example the /k/ sound is spelled differently – with a k, ck or c – the way it is spelled here isn’t important now. The focus here is listening, to make sure they are able to hear that the words end with the same sound.

Start by saying 3 words that start with the same sound for example, dog, donut, door and ask them what sound they all start with.

What they should say is /d/ – the sound is written like this

You can do the same thing with words that end with the same sound for example:

In Barton, the digraphs are on blue tiles (like the other consonants) and both letters that make the sound are on the same tile.

A blend is two or three consonants next to each other that each make their own sounds. There are over 75 of them in English. A few examples are: fl, pr, st, str and spr.

A digraph is two consonants next to each other that make one sound, for example: th, sh, ck, ch, and wh.

Part of the problem is it doesn’t address foundational skills. Instead it focuses on using context and pictures that results in kids resorting to guessing at words, rather than using an explicit, systematic phonics approach

You can read more about it here: dyslexiahopetutoring.com/why-is-readi...

- misreads or leaves out small words such as: an, a, from, the, to, were, are, of

- difficulty spelling even common sight words

If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s reading or spelling, feel free to DM me!

Help – hope – success: Read!

Goodbye until next time!

- reading a word then not recognizing the same word when they see it on the next page or next sentence even simple words

- instead of reading a word correctly they say a word that is pictured on the page. For example they might read bath time as bed time if the book has a picture of bed on the page

In English there are a few one syllable words that are open syllables:

me, we, she, he, no, so, go

Other open syllables are part of multisyllable words.

They tend to be better at big picture thinking and seeing patterns and connections that others might miss. As well as having brilliant artistic talent. In addition they often excel in problem solving and critical thinking skills.

Read more here: dyslexiahopetutoring.com/tag/advantag...

For in person students, I also let them have a little toy and a piece of candy after each tutoring session. (If its ok with their parents for them to have a piece of candy!)

Help, Hope, Success – Read! Goodbye until next time!

Eventually they use them when they are learning how to break words into syllables too.

Levels 2 and up have student pages, which I keep in page protectors to use with dry erase markers for in person tutoring. The sheets include words, phrases, sentences and short stories to read.

There are 10 levels total. Each level comes with a book for the tutor like these. Barton also comes with wooden tiles to read and spell with so it’s multisensory, which makes it easier for kids to learn. The blue ones are for consonants and the yellow ones are for vowels.

Typical kids might only need 4 to 14 repetitions of a word to achieve automaticity.

Students with some reading challenges may need 40 or more repetitions.

But kids with dyslexia may need over 400 repetitions before reaching automaticity with a word.