Monday, November 21, 2011

Language/Reading update and free download

D has been going over all the reading folders and mini booklets that I made for her and now has almost mastered all of the phonogram variations. D has never been reading enthusiastically by herself up until we finished the reading folder work. The texts in most of the early reader books that she read never interested her. The problem with some of the other reader series that we could get at our library in the topics that were of interest to her were too advanced for her. Now that she has completed the reading folder work she can refer to her phonogram dictionary and read with ease!



So she has been reading through the level 1 and level 2 readers in the Real Kids Readers series, Robin Hill School readers and The Cat in the Hat readers from the library the past few weeks. I check out around ten to twelve readers at a time each week from these series and I have a basket set up for her. Now all she wants to do all day is to keep reading! I noticed that she keeps coming back to each reader several times till she masters reading the text fluently.



After she finished all the reading folders we celebrated and I presented the phonogram dictionary to her as a gift! She is getting used to it and getting the hang of looking up the spelling variations by herself instead of just asking me whenever she encounters a variation she can't remember!

Guess who else is in love with the phonogram dictionary? You are right, my one year old loves to snatch it from her sister and make a run to the nearest corner to tear it up or to decorate it with a stray marker! So for now the dictionary is restricted to our school room and I have this alternate set up on our living room high above M's reach.


As you can see, this has all the Reading Folder variations and one example for each phonogram. This works perfectly when D is reading in our living room where we hang out most of the day. I often catch D looking at this during times when she is not reading and simply go through the sounds and example words!

Speaking of Phonogram Dictionary a few of you had asked about it after my previous posts on the Dwyer series. Luckily for me, Ms. Barbara Furst sent me her extra copy!  Then she sent me another copy to make available to my readers! So here you can download the dictionary!  I also have all the downloads in the downloads page, which you can access by clicking on the "Downloads" menu item above.  The variations are grouped into four dictionaries.  Here is a picture of how the completed ones look like.


We are very excited with this new stage in reading and are moving forward with classified definitions, word study and the function of words! I will post about these as we progress through!

I am linking this post to Montessori Monday.

5 comments:

  1. I love reading about your daughter's wonderful work and progress! Thanks so much for sharing such an amazing resource ... and a big thank you to Ms. Barbara Furst as well! I'm so glad you link up with Montessori Monday! :) Deb @ LivingMontessoriNow.com

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  2. Thanks deb! I really cannot thank Ms. Furst enough for her generosity in making these resources available to me as well as others who would be interested in the Dwyer scheme!

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  3. What are you using for your word study? Does it come from one the manuals, or are you using something else?

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  4. I am yet to create work on word study, we've kind of slacked off this month due to the holidays. Come January my plan is to use some of the free elementary albums for grammar as well as word study.

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  5. This is such a wonderful dictionary to share with us:)) I am certainly going to make one for our folders:)) I can't believe I didn't spot it here earlier!!

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