Barry read in his school assembly this week, and we moved to reading some words that required more than blending the sounds of individual letters. He did not know what the alphabet was, but when I started writing it down, could recite the letter names in sequence. He did not, though, know which letters were associated with the names, thinking, for example, that i represented the name of the letter e. This was one for practice. I explained the effect of i or e on c, as he was interested in science and wanted to become a scientist. I explained then the need to use all of the information contained in letters, to see the difference between science and scientist. We worked on other two-syllable words that occurred in conversation - eg pencil and radio, after which I introduced, as a very difficult word, ratio. We moved to the word information, which Barry could read after I worked on it with him, and read his previous words cranium and stadium, both of which required prompts at first, though he later added crane. Barry's spoken language showed marked improvement, from his more formal greeting of "Good morning, Mr John", to his improved use of sentences in communication. The lesson lasted 30 minutes, and Barry concentrated well throughout.
As always I noted every word or item we worked on, and here is today's note: