Lesson 2
By
Denise Gamm
June 14, 2010
EDU 371
Prof. Silver
Miguel has been working with me for sometime. This week lesson we began to focus on words that contain an, en, in un and on. Since his first language in Spanish it has become evident that these combinations presented a challenge for him. I wanted him to comprehend the differences between these sounds. For homework I had Miguel to provide words for these letter combinations. Instinctively he wanted to have shared first letters, but as he soon found out that would not work; therefore, he was able to pronounce words using the above combination. Towards the end of the lesson he new his sounds combination of the letters and was able to provide a series of words; for example, an became ran, en became end, in became sin, un became sun and on became fond. The last really impress me because he added an additional letter.
I was really excited to start the next lesson. We began with sounding out the ack, eck, ick, and uck. I made flashcards of these sounds and made Miguel focus on the sounds. Once I felt that he had accomplish the sounds, I ask Miguel to choose a letter, I wanted him to sound out the letter combination with any letter to see if that would make up a word. I was hoping providing a word game he would feel comfortable with the sounds, enough to make a word. Unfortunately it was a little frustrating for Miguel, because not all letters work with the letter combination. To make it easy for him I gave him four letters and asked him to come up with combination. This time he succeeded and came with these combinations: sick, back, neck and duck.
I really wanted Miguel to work on the exercises in book, so I sent him home wanting him to focus on pages 21 thru 22.
When he came back he had no difficulty pronouncing the sounds and putting them in word combinations. He was able to red them out loud, properly as well as read what was on the top page.
With many Hispanic speaking children the letter r is important in the language. The roaring r’s as I like to call it. I began the lesson wanting to teach him the sounds and difference in or, ar, ir, er and ur. I for one get confused with the ir and er. Teaching Miguel this was going to present a challenge, but with patience we were able to get through it. I found with this combination it was best to practice sounding them out and then placing a letter in front. Miguel became confused, especially when we added a f to certain sounds; for example, far, for, and fur. It was a tongue twister for sure.
Since I just got the material I decided to pick some games to work with him. We played the Vowel game. I think that helping Miguel sound out the words was helpful. I sent him home hoping that over the next couple of day he would catch on with his vowels the sounds they make, how they can change in sound by adding a letter and especially the similarity of the sounds.
I have also ask Miguel to work on the letters and sounds for the following; sh, ch, th and wh. I have asked Miguel to work on word combination with sounds he has already learn with the new sounds. We shall see what he comes up with.