My work with struggling readers helps them to use the information contained in letters, particularly but not only the phonic information, by reinforcing each word they find difficult through further, similar examples. I found Professor Usha Goswami's discovery, in the early nineties, that pupils find it easier to note similar patterns at the ends of words rather than the beginning, extremely helpful, and the effect seems similar to that of the worked examples in geometry in the posting below.
A teaching assistant took up my offer of free advice last week, and sent me this, two working days later:
Hello John,
Thank you for your time on Friday. I've run your ideas past the head and deputy and they are very happy for me to adapt ......... (existing scheme) to whatever I think will work, rather than feeling I need to stick exactly to the prescribed course.
I had my first trial run today. I've been thrilled to discover lots about how these very individual children read that I didn't know before and to slow down the reading so there is time to look properly at words they don't know.
All of them can 'get' an unknown word through looking at known words, although I sometimes had to go backwards eg but/butter/flutter. I'm lucky enough to have an i-pad at work - so we could look at pictures of muesli, pliers and people fencing and the etymology of the word 'electricity'.
They only have 15 minutes twice a week with me, but it is surprising what we packed in. They worked very hard and seemed to enjoy this new style of learning. Sometimes just writing the unknown word on a card was was enough. I'm ordering your book and some blank cards too.
It feels much more comfortable to me, as it is tutoring rather than literacy intervention. So thanks again for your help and your website. I'm quite excited for them!
Best wishes,
Update - after a week.
It was good. The children had remembered an impressive amount of what
we covered in their previous session. Only two (out of the dozen or so
that I have) had enormous trouble in blending adjacent letters together,
often inserting letters that aren't there in the word at all or taking
letters from the end of a word and inserting them at the beginning. For
those two I'm going to go very slowly.
There are such surprising gaps in their knowledge. One was perfectly
happy with 'although' but couldn't do anything with 'spoil' and had to
be taught 'oil'. So I think I'm giving them the rest of the pieces to
the jigsaw. I'm really enjoying the fact that I can tailor each session
so precisely to each child. I can't wait for your book to come. I'm not
trained in phonics and have learnt lots this week. I have noticed that
some of the words they have trouble with are French - 'saucer' and
'voyage' or difficult - 'aught' endings have come up a few times.
Fifteen minutes is just about enough time for each session.