[senco-forum] any advice please...long rambling...

grandson's <<<

>>>grandson's <<<
>>>He is a year six student,<<<
>>> due for SATs in May.<<<
>>>I need to ....get him sorted out<<<

>>>The main areas of concern<<<
>>> are his short-term memory,<<<
>>>speed of written processing,<<<
>>>spelling,<<<
>>>reading<<<
>>>and maths.<<< 
>>>Not a lot to work on is there?<<<

Whoa, whoa, whoa....sorry folks
and pax vobiscum an' all that... BUT...but....

Cassandra here remembers many moons ago
the dreaded words: "You are my Dad, not my teacher."
Sorry, Ruth... sucking egg land emerges here....
are you Granny or teacher? Will he let you? 
Aye, there's the rub...as the main man once said.

Will he let Mum and Dad act as LSA?
Some will, some won't. "Won't" and you'll have to work
via school and real teachers suggesting home stuff
and class based stuff. That's real delicate country
to negotiate.

Best Daddy tip...get school even semi on your side.
Find that saint with a whiteboard who believes you
at the minimum.

Get your admin sorted out .... and do the letters.
Make jolly sure all teachers and staff are aware of the prob and
have read what they should have read re EP recommends.
Are they geared, willing and happy to support keyboarding in
lessons? If so...happy land awaits; if not...think real hard what
you'll do. Delicate country number two.

Y6... you have a rather small window of opportunity before
the hormones hit and all bets are  possibly off. Oh, Another but....

Major concern now is that Primary school accept the EP
conclusions and start to react to them.
The window for KS2 SAT provisions is rapidly
closing...get the EP to give written recommends and
insist, tin hat on and tread on toes if need be, that
school submit that to get the provisions.
You could hit "far worse with no such thing" country
...... miserable old curmudgeon writes here.... and
no, I'm not accusing this forum.... but are all sencos reading
this? 

Talk to Brendan. & Believe.

Right, outa bitter and twisted Daddy mode and into the fun bit....
Run L1 and L2 Spelling made Easy as your structured phonic
progression and bang in the Lipscombe stuff as she follows the
SME progression. Sand tray and wooden letter it etc and you're
in multi-sensory country. Desperately emphasise visual if poss
but multi mode not at your peril. SME + Lipscombe used thus
will give you great TRTS. And constantly use the freebie THRASS
chart to show which letter pattern is being used for the sound of the week.
(one letter pattern per week... not speed boating but oil tanker speed.)

Then, should you handwrite teach? 
Should you use a predictive writer?
Should you go Word + super spellchecking?

Spelling prog;
touch typing prog;
mind map prog;
Reading per se mprog;

If he's v forgetful he'll hate constant new thing and flourish
on structure. I hate Wordshark as it confuses and distracts me
..... Star Spell much 'quieter' and visual. I saw beloved daughter
re touch type progs do same..... the gamey progs no.
7 weeks via Mvis Beacon at x10 mins a day.
You sussed him out on this possible confusion yet?
Think carefully about gamesy programs.

Reading... Eddie's your man to talk to here. That's great reading progs.

Inspiration.... yep... 'cos you're teaching structure and form
in writing. But it is not fast and for ideas generation as opposed to
'remembering' writing it is faster to post-it-note and transfer to
Inspiration. ( Oh, anyone got v8..... magic, I've just upgraded.)

Keep to as few as possible programs. He must, has got to,
it is imperative that, he touch types before entering computer
magic wand wonderland else all goes s-l-o-o-w and looses
the advantages of computing.

Then consider your add on progs.

Oh, the Franklin spelling machine is my friend.

Maths.... the calculator is my friend.
Any mathematicians out there?
V luckily with the daughter a Maths Advisory Teacher
set it out what was to be done with my now quantum
theorising daughter. The prob is what to teach as
oipposed to what to learn: A mathematician knows
a litericist tends to think they know. ( Pax, pax,
I'm not attacking, just stating as a litericist myself
and one who bluffs real good.)

Oh, liddle machines...screens...eyes...glare.
Tiny screens can confuse. Glare on Franklin's can make them
unusable?

Ah, when does he play, chill out, eat, wash and sleep?
Eh, he needs a PDA and time management software! < VBG >
(Sorry, v naughty but I couldn't resist even in so serious
a situaion. )
That's my last point... much more success if he enjoys all
the extras and the teacher/student have fun doing it.
How's the tech support being provided?
Magic unbreakable wands they just ain't.

Oh, eat fish oil. Check out overlays/glasses, etc.
( A young man and I were discussing glasses
last Wed when he was handwriting  with me
.... long ago I taught him when he was Y5/6
.... now both fly fishing afficiandoes we agreed polaroids were
great for glare. Mine are magic green. )

My heartfelt good wishes.

John.

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