Why are we doing Dwyer and All About Spelling?

I recently received a question from a reader who is a fellow homeschooler and a good friend, asking me why I would be going through the Dwyer Reading Scheme, when All About Spelling covers all the phonetic rules and wouldn't the same results be expected at the end of the AAS program?

The Dwyer Reading Scheme is exactly as the name implies, a Scheme for Reading.  To me, Reading  is a different skill that requires different thinking capabilities when compared to the Spelling skill.  In our house, the approach to learning is based on Montessori and it is widely believed in the Montessori world and I have found true in our case too, is that writing comes before reading.  So D has been in a sensitive period for writing for a long time. With all the exercises that we covered using the Dwyer Scheme, her spelling was purely phonetic.  Even with learning the spelling variations (Reading Folders work) in the Dwyer Scheme, I found that the child learns that a phonogram can be spelt differently, but the strategy of when to use what was missing.  I can give you two examples to explain this:

1. Double letters that are used to spell words like "off", "dress", "smell", etc.: Reading these words need no extra knowledge other than knowing the sounds "f", "s" or "l" makes and that two "f"s, "s"s or "l"s still make the same sound.  But while writing these words, how do we know when to double and when not to? This is the key that is addressed using the AAS program.  In this  program there are various rules that the child learns and is taught when to use them.  
2. The sound of "/k/" at the end of a word: "c", "ck" and "k" make the same sound, so while reading this does not make a difference, so nothing special is there in the Dwyer Scheme to address this.  Then again while writing and trying to spell a word which one do you use? Again AAS addresses this and teaches the rule.

There are many more examples I can give, but I think you get the point.  I personally am a fairly decent speller but my skills come from years of practice.  I don't know a lot of these rules for correct spelling and I am learning as we go along with the AAS program!  

So, since AAS seems to address all the variations and teaches all the rules, why not stick with just AAS, why go through the Dwyer scheme too? As I have mentioned before you need not know all these rules to read. It is enough if you know the phonograms, their variations and sight/puzzle words. So once you go through the Dwyer scheme, even though the child might not know all the rules to spelling, he/she can explode into the world of reading.  This is what happened in our case and D is much more open and confident in reading, now that we have gone through all the reading folders.  As for spelling, we completed, Level 1 in AAS and are now a couple of lessons into Level 2.  

Hope this explanation clears the need for use of both the Dwyer Reading Scheme as well as the AAS program.  I wanted to post my answer to the question on this blog so that it helps other parents having similar questions.  I am not paid or compensated by AAS, I bought both the levels from their site!  I just love this program for spelling as much as I love the Dwyer Scheme for reading!

I am linking this post up to Montessori Monday.

Our week

Hope everybody had a wonderful thanksgiving weekend! We had a great time sharing feasts with friends and family.  I am personally thankful to my wonderful husband and all that he does for us.  He has taken upon the full responsibility of providing for us, because of which I get to do what I want to do most, raising our beautiful daughters.

Last week was short, but a very productive week at our homeschool.  Here are some pictures of D in action.  D completed a big work last week, Reading Folders sort.  

Here she is checking her work using the control of error on the back of the phonogram cards.

In the next few shots, D is working on the cylinder blocks, monomial and binomial cubes.

Here she is working on the Writing Exercise I posted about earlier.

We've been working with Nouns and Articles in our grammar farm.

In Math, we worked on addition with carry over and subtraction with exchange using golden beads and D loved it.  Here is a picture of few of her completed problems.

She also worked on some sewing and here is her finished product.

We worked on a lot more, but I don't have pictures of everything.  All in all it was an awesome productive week!

I am linking this post to Montessori Monday.

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.

Language Preparation - Sound Games

I wanted to elaborate a bit on the "Sound Games" portion that was a part of the Step 1: Preparation of my Dwyer Approach Post.  As mentioned in that post, the preparation activities are the most important.  Whether you follow the Dwyer Approach or not, still these activities will tremendously improve language skills in your little ones.

Sound Games are "I Spy" games played using only the Sounds of the alphabets, in the Dwyer approach using all the 40 key sounds for English (25 single and 15 double).  For example, you say - "I spy with my little eye something beginning with /b/ (sound not name)" and the item could be a "box" or a "button" or a "ball".  In the case of double letter sounds - "I spy with my little eye something beginning with /sh/ (sound not name)" and the item could be a "ship" or a "shirt" or a "shoe".

Muriel Dwyer and David Gettman talk about six stages to this game.  The first three stages, gradually help the child isolate the beginning sound in any word.  The fourth stage works on the beginning, middle and ending sounds in simple three and four letter words.  The fifth stage is where the child can segment words of any length into their individual sounds.  The last stage is where the child should be able to give you words that have all the 40 key sounds in any position in a word.  As mentioned in this post, if you are working with the Dwyer scheme the child does these games without any reference to the written symbols for these sounds.

Stage 1: One object that is extremely obvious.  For example "I spy with my little eye something that begins with '/ch/' on which you are sitting" if the child is sitting on a chair.  The object should be extremely obvious that the child cannot help but guess it correctly.  This stage might take a while until the child understands what you are asking.

Stage 2: Slightly harder than Stage 1 with a choice of two objects.  For example, have a "ball" and "ship" on a tray and say "I spy with my little eye something on the tray that begins with '/b/'".

** Edited to add: In the example above, "ship" can also be referred to as "boat", so can be picked for '/b/' and can be confusing, so take care to use objects that can be explicitly identified using only one beginning sound.  In our home we did not have this issue with "ship" as we always referred to that as "ship".  The idea here is to focus on the beginning sound and see if the child can differentiate between two sounds and identify the right object.  So in your case please take care and use objects that do not have this kind of ambiguity.**

Stage 3: Make the choice even harder until the child can find the object you want anywhere in the room.

Stage 4: This is the step where you ask the child - "I spy with my little eye something that begins with '/sh/' and ends with '/p/'", if the object were a ship.  Once the child can identify the object you say "'Ship', '/sh/', '/i/', '/p/'", slowly and ask "So what was the sound in the middle?".  You do this and work with easy three and four letter words where the child can isolate the middle sound easily.

Stage 5: This the stage where the child works on words any length to break it down into individual sounds.  As mentioned in this post, we had to do something additional in some cases of segmenting.  Here is what I had written - "While we were doing the sound games with D, she had difficulty isolating the sounds when there were initial blends like "fl", "br", etc.  So she would segment "flip" into "fl", "i" and "p".  What helped us was to use tokens for segmenting.  So for "flip", I would give her 4 tokens and make her move one token to each individual sound that she segments.  Another way we tried was to simply draw 4 boxes on paper and give her an object like a frog and make it jump one box for every sound she says.  For children that learn best using physical activities the same could be done on the floor and have the child jump into a box for every sound.  These and many more ideas are available online through a search on Google!"

Stage 6: Now we ask the child to think of as many words as he/she can that begin with or contain any of the 40 sounds and continue working until the child can easily do this for all 40 sounds.

When to begin?

You can begin the sound games as soon as the child is able to talk well and can respond easily to asked questions, usually by 2 or 2.5 years old.  Each child is different and only you would able to figure out what is best for your child.  If your child is older and you haven't covered all these steps before, you can take a break and play these games as this will strengthen their reading and spelling skills tremendously.  You can play all these stages for as long as you want till your child can comfortably segment and identify all the 40 key sounds in any kind of word.

Blending Montessori and Non Montessori Approaches

I started writing a reply to one of the comments I received on the Dwyer Post and figured that I would rather write a post about it. The question was how I was blending the Montessori Dwyer Approach to the All About Spelling program that we are doing and how we are accomplishing all this with a curious 18 month old toddler in the same house!

The answer is that we are not really blending the approaches. The days that we really get into our school room during my toddler's nap time is when I do presentations as there is no way I can do presentations with constant interruptions from M. I usually plan any new presentations over the weekend and present it early in the week either on Monday or Tuesday during M's nap. Then D is free to choose the work anytime we are in the school room. The beauty of the Dwyer approach is that other than the "Reading Folders" portion there is not much preparation in terms of materials, so it was/is a perfect fit for us.

I am NOT using the All About Spelling program for phonic instruction, but rather for spelling and handwriting work. As of now, D is breezing through Level 1 of the program as this is covers all CVC words, initial blends, ending blends and use of c vs k, most of which we have extensively covered in the Sound Games and Moveable Alphabet works. We are taking it very slow and focussing on the dictation recommended in the program with D actually writing out 4-5 words that I dictate to her. We do this twice or thrice a week for 10 mins at a time. At this time we are just focussing on D listening to the word, segmenting it in her head and trying to figure out the correct symbols and translating that to actual writing. As to why I am doing this program, this is for myself. The days that we never get to the school room, we still spend 10 mins on this and this gives ME the satisfaction that I am doing something with D instead of wasting the whole day doing nothing. This is not much work for me at all, as each lesson is scripted and I just follow that.

While we are at this, I would also like to describe the Right Start Math program and how we are doing that. This program is very hands on just like the Montessori math work. The one difference is how there is emphasis as seeing numbers under 10 as 5 + x. I don't follow the scripted lessons to the dot from the manual and instead try focus on one skill try to present it the montessori way. For example, addition and subtraction under 10 is taught by means of the whole-part circle combination initially using the abacus. So after making sure D understood the concept via a presentation, I left a couple of problems and the abacus on the math shelf free for her to choose. We are still continuing with the Montessori Golden beads, I am just trying to cover any gaps (concepts like the whole-part circle combinations) through the program.

It is a lot of work and there are tons of great ideas out there. I wish we could do much much more, but I am happy that I am providing a happy and nurturing and inspiring environment for the kids to grow and learn in. We are just doing what is working for us now. Sure there are days when we don't do anything at all and there are days when we speed faster than a missile and learn so much more. If I had only one child and the time to let her learn everything by herself then I would only do Montessori based home-schooling. Since the reality is much different, I have these additional programs that we do just to make sure we are covering everything and lets face it, it is a lot less preparation on my part. I still try and follow the Montessori principles by following what D is interested in and letting her take the lead and tweak anything and everything into a Montessori learning experience!

The Dwyer Approach for English Language Exploration

I've been meaning to write a post on this topic of Reading and Writing for a while now. I wanted to outline and document the sequence of steps needed for this for two reasons: one that it is going to help organize my thoughts in a single place, so it will be helpful for my kids during their learning process and also for other home schoolers to see and get ideas from what we are doing. As I've mentioned in a few previous posts, we started of with the PBG scheme but then later switched to the Dwyer plan. The Dwyer approach is working out well for us. For homeschooling with just one or two kids the Dwyer approach seems less cumbersome. Also, personally for me this plan gives a complete picture of the whole sequence in comparatively less number of steps and is very thorough.

Resources:

Here are the four resources that served as a bible for us:

1. I owe all the credit to "My Boys Teacher" from http://whatdidwedoallday.blogspot.com/ for introducing me to this approach.  Please checkout her posts, thoughts and comparison of the Dwyer scheme and the PBG schemes.
2. BASIC Montessori by David Gettman
3. Language sequence from infomontessori
4. A Key to Writing and Reading in English from NAMTA

Before I start on the steps to this approach some of the key points that all the resources that I have read so far stressed and one should remember are:

1. Kids are not empty vessels that we dump information into (basic Montessori principle).  As far a language goes, the children start talking by themselves before school age.  All we are doing by following a Montessori approach is to provide some organization, guidance and key symbols using which the child can freely immerse themselves into reading and writing.
2. The basic idea that we one let the child deal with one difficulty at a time.  Small steps as preparation leading into a larger goal.
3. Setting up the child for success at every stage and provide just enough challenge so that the child can discover the joys of reading and writing by their own exploration.

Here is my summary of the various steps involved in the process.  For a deeper understanding and the "why's" please refer to the resources mentioned above.

Step 1: Preliminary Preparation

This step is extremely important and the duration for this step varies with every child.  It is highly important that the preliminary preparation be as thorough as possible as any gaps in this step could lead to the entire scheme being compromised.

• As the child is developing his speech skills and starts showing interest in the surrounding we can help the child expand vocabulary by pointing out the correct names of things around him.
• The one thing that most parents do, read plenty of books, make it a daily special bonding time.
• Sing simple nursery rhymes, songs, simple poetry, finger plays, etc.
• Tell a lot of stories sometimes with props, sometimes without, letting the child use his imagination.
• Once the child is able to talk well, encourage the child's story telling skills.
• Classified Picture Exercises (please refer to Gettman for the exact details): On a very high level this is a Montessori Activity where you introduce pictures of things the child encounters and help him classify those under right groupings, a very fundamental language capability that is needed for the future.  For example, pictures of basic kitchen appliances grouped under a Kitchen category, pictures of various items in a park, etc.
• Sound Games or I Spy Games using all the 40 key sounds (25 single letter sounds as well as the double letter sounds).  The basic aim of this step is to help the child segment the words into sounds and identify the beginning, ending and all the middle sounds.  There are different levels in the sound games and very good explanation is part of the Language Section in Gettman. 

**It is very important to note that in this sequence we still haven't introduced the symbolic representation of the 40 key sounds.  Dwyer stresses on the importance of starting the introduction only when the child is well versed with all stages of the sound game.**

(Unfortunately, since we were doing the PBG scheme with D early on, she already knew the symbols associated with the 26 single phonograms as we were working through the "Sound Game" levels. ) 

While we were doing the sound games with D, she had difficulty isolating the sounds when there were initial blends like "fl", "br", etc.  So she would segment "flip" into "fl", "i" and "p".  What helped us was to use tokens for segmenting.  So for "flip", I would give her 4 tokens and make her move one token to each individual sound that she segments.  Another way we tried was to simply draw 4 boxes on paper and give her an object like a frog and make it jump one box for every sound she says.  For children that learn best using physical activities the same could be done on the floor and have the child jump into a box for every sound.  These and many more ideas are available online through a search on Google!

Step 2: Sandpaper Letters

The classic Montessori Language tool, the sandpaper letters, both single and double letter ones are introduced few at a time, with the high contrast ones first.  It is important to note
that at this stage the child already knows all the 40 key sounds via the sound games and we are just introducing the symbolic representation for these.  In our case with D, since she already knew her 26 single phonogram sounds, we worked on the two letter phonograms to fill the gap.

Step 3: Moveable Alphabet

Once the child can identify the symbols for most of the key sounds we introduce the moveable alphabet.  This is a very important tool to the child as he can now express himself freely using the symbols.  We can start with a few simple words, then sentences and eventually encourage the child to use it to create stories.  Three things of importance that Dwyer mentions are:

1. Not to provide the child with pictures or objects to spell as this would limit his imagination and free expression.
2. While working with the moveable alphabet at this stage, the objective is for the child to understand how he can segment words into sounds and express himself.  Since the child only knows the 40 key phonetic sounds and NOT all the other alternatives, the spelling of words might always not be right, for example, "plai" instead of "play" or "foan" instead of "phone".  It is very important to NOT correct spellings at this stage.
3. The Moveable Alphabet can be used as tool in later writing works too by having the child first use it to express what he wants to write, have the directress proof-read and check for spelling and then do the actual writing.  This way they would not form the habit of incorrect spelling.

It is at this stage that writing exercises either using sand tray, chalk board, etc can begin and continue parallel to the reading activities provided enough preparation has been done using the metal insets as well as the sand paper letters.  You might also want to introduce "Capital Letters" at some point around this stage and try to work through it before Step 6, so the child will not have difficulty recognizing and sound those out while reading the readers.

With all of the above preparation there will come a time when the child is ready for reading.  Using the Moveable Alphabet to create writing uses a completely different skill than what is will be used for Reading.  Writing requires Segmenting a word into individual sounds which we would have practiced enough during our Sound Game exercises.  Reading requires blending sounds together to create a word which is a difficult concept for some children.

Different children develop this skill at different stages and we can only observe, wait and then encourage this.  With D, we had an issue with her chopping the sounds, so however fast she says the sounds, she could never form the word.  I researched online and found a way that worked for us.  Basically instead of saying the individual sounds, we sang the individual sounds and blended them together to create the words.  Once we find the child understands the blending concept and is ready to sound out words we move on to the next step.

Step 4: Object Boxes and Activity Words

Now is the time to use all the miniature objects that we've been collecting and sort out objects that can be spelled using a single letter phonetic sounds.  We place 10 to 12 objects in a box and play a game with the child to match hand-written labels to the objects.  Dwyer stresses that it is important for the child to see the adult writing the labels so he can make a connection to written symbols and language.  As you can see below in our Object Box 1, we have not limited to just 3 sound, CVC objects.

milk, nest, crab and can

Once the child is comfortable with reading Object Box 1 labels, we put out Object Box 2 that has objects that can be spelled with two letter phonograms.  Again the adult writes the labels and the child matches it to the objects.  We only use objects that can be spelled correctly using the 40 key sounds - example for "ai" we use "train" and never "tray".  If the child has any difficulty the adult can underline the two letter sound like this - "boat".

boy, goat, jar, shell

In parallel to Object Box1 or before or after, we also start introducing Activity Words.  This is again introduced in two sets, the first set being action that can be easily acted out by the child, like "run", "sit", "stand", "grab", etc.  The second set is slightly more difficult to enact like "chop", "crush", "shout", etc., but either way the object is for the child to see that the adult is using written language for communication and interpreting what is written as an action having fun in the process.

As you can see, so far the only work for the adult is to collect or put together a bunch of miniature objects representing the various sounds.  We've used both miniature objects as well as pictures sometimes as I could not readily find objects representing certain sounds.  D has had no problems with either and has worked through these with ease.

Step 5: Puzzle Words - Set 1

Puzzle words are sight words in the English language that do not obey any phonetic rules.  They are introduced in two sets, the more common words like "I", "me", "you", etc are introduced now.  We introduce these by just simple 3 period lessons.  What I have found useful is to collect any sight words that D would encounter in the little readers or booklets (part of the next step) and make simple paper strips to introduce.  This has been working well for us.


Step 6: Little Booklets

The little booklets are readers that have simple illustrations and use the 40 key sounds and the puzzle words introduced in the previous steps.  I had a tough time finding something with these rules but interesting enough for D to read neither did I have the patience to create booklets on my own.  I came across this post from My Boys Teacher.

She uses the book "The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading" to create little booklets for her boys and does her own illustration.  This meant I had to manually create these little booklets and illustrate those. Lot of work for a mom with a busy toddler!

So we used "The Reading Lesson" book and went through the pages that had illustrations and simple stories.  We could not use all of the pages as that book does not follow the Montessori Sequence and introduces exceptions, silent letters, etc, early on.

While I was wondering what to do next, I came across a comment from "Barbara Furst" on My Boys Teacher's blog and she graciously offered me some of the readers she had created in addition to providing me a lot of valuable advice and some wonderful materials that would have taken me ages to create.  For those of you who don't know who Barbara is, she is an AMS certified Montessori Teacher for 3-6 year olds who is a Consultant and Mentor for Montessori Teachers in the Omaha, Norfolk and Lincoln, NE area.  Here is an article at Jola Montessori based on her experience with the Dwyer Scheme.  She has also offered to make these readers available to readers of my blog, so you can download them here!  Her readers are very nice and with each she also lists all the sight words that the child needs to know and this can be made part of the Puzzle words list in the previous step.

Step 7: Introduce the Names of the Alphabets

Now is the time to introduce the names of the alphabets.  In our case, D already knew the names long back before I even knew what Montessori was, so we moved on to the next step after a brief review!

Step 8: Reading Folders

Reading Folders are the tool used to introduce the variations in spelling for the different phonograms.  For e.g, for the phonogram "ai" the alternate spellings that Dwyer lists are "ay", "a-e", "ei".  This is the only step so far in this method that requires some prep.  So, there are 14 phonograms with alternate spellings, so we make 14 folders.  Each folder has the phonogram being represented on the outside, plus all its variations as cards on the inside.  Each card has marked on the reverse side the sound of the folder to which it belongs as a control of error.  Also, little booklets using all these variations in spelling are created and stored in this folder.

I made these folder's out of construction paper.  You can use small envelopes, boxes or clear plastic bags to hold these.  You can download a printable version of the phonograms, their alternate spellings and the various little booklets here.  (*When using this please modify the phonograms according to regional pronunciation.  What is uploaded is what worked for us.*)  I made these using the NAMTA journal listed above, downloading this would save you the headache of typing all these!

We basically present one reading folder and its little booklets so the child gets the concept.  After this the child can work through at their pace the rest of the 13 folders.

There are different exercises/games to be played with the reading folders.  The first is the sorting game. We can start with two folders and mix up the cards and have the child sound out each card and match it up with the right folder.  The works through these and eventually will be able to sort all 14 folders.  This enables he child to memorize the different variations in spelling for he different phonograms.

Once we observe and find out that the child has had enough practice with the folders, we can play a game to test the child's proficiency in the alternate spellings.  The child uses the moveable alphabet or pen and paper to write down all the alternate spellings for the 14 phonograms.

Step 9: Puzzle Words - Set 2

We present the second set of puzzle words now.  It is almost the same as the first set presentation except that we point out something special in the words we introduce like silent letters, etc.  Remember that we are not trying to introduce all the sight words that ever exist, but a basic foundation to build upon.  As the child encounters more puzzle words through their own exploration in reading we help the child anytime they have difficulty.  There are plenty of examples in the Dwyer article.

Step 10: Phonogram Dictionary


To help with the child's frustration when they are into reading books but have not quite mastered Step 8 yet, we make a Phonogram Dictionary so that the child can use that to sound out words.  Luckily for me Barbara Furst sent me an extra copy that she had.  Here is a picture of the booklet as well as the inside of it.

Step 11: Dictation and further language exploration


Dwyer mentions in her booklet that giving Dictation using the words in the little booklets that were created with the reading folders, was a very popular activity among the 6 year olds.  This strengthens their spelling skills.


If you've reached this far, according to Dwyer the child should be reading fairly fluently.  Other than reading whatever books the children can get their hands the following are some language activities to continue:

• The Definitions connected with the various subjects in the cultural area.
• The Function Games
• Word Study
• Reading Analysis
• Written Question Game
• Free Composition

I am not going into details for the above as we are not at that stage yet for D.  We are at Step 8 exploring our reading folders.

There were two reasons why we switched from the PBG scheme to the Dwyer scheme.  One is that I never had this kind of clear path to take with the PBG scheme and the other fact that there are tons of materials to print, cut and laminate even though I actually bought our materials.  With the Dwyer scheme I've found that we are arming the children with the right tools necessary as far as the necessary symbols and rules and once they take off to reading on their own they can apply all these skills.  Hope these posts are useful to you in getting an overall idea of the path to take while guiding children in their language exploration.

Here are the links to the free readers and reading folder printables, again.  I would love it if you can leave a comment line if you found this post and/or printables useful.

As it is with all over the blog world, these pictures/readers/printables are for your personal use only and not for distribution or sale.  If you chose to blog about something you've seen in this blog, please link back to here.  Thank you for your understanding!