This post will conclude the series of posts I have been doing on the weekend about phonics instruction in a preschool setting. As with all the other posts on this subject, this post will deal with the wide divergence of abilities and maturity among 4 year olds. I will look at immature to advanced and gifted children. Remember, I do one-on-one instruction at my facility. Therefore, some of my suggestions may be difficult to carry out in a regular classroom setting. Use your own judgement and discretion as to how to fit this type of instruction into your setting.
The Great Divide
As I stated in both of the previous two articles on this subject, children begin to diverge according to maturity and ability around the age of two. That becomes more pronounced at age three. At age four, in my facility, that becomes a divide that is unbelievable. This great divide among four year olds in my facility probably stems from my one-on-one instruction and the fact that I do not hold back children just because of their age. I have some two year olds ahead of some four year olds because the two year old is gifted and the four year old is extremely immature. Fortunately my set-up allows me to pull the immature four year olds up very quickly, but sometimes they never pass the advanced and gifted three year olds.
Immature 4 Year Olds
I will start this discussion with the immature four year olds. This group of children will probably be the most time-consuming bunch because often there is an enormous amount of ground to cover before kindergarten. I have had four year olds walk through my door not even knowing all of their body parts. As I have stated in an earlier post, I start all children that walk through my door at the same place. What differs from child to child is the pace and amount of instruction. When an immature four year old arrives on my doorstep we start from the beginning but work on many different concepts simultaneously. If the child also has language problems or delays, we will work the babble games concentrating on developing the tongue muscles. Some of these children pull up quickly once they are exposed to quality instruction. If these children do not pull up quickly, that is my first red flag that a developmental delay may be involved. I usually give a child six months of instruction before I recommend testing. If an immature four year old does not pull up immensely with six months' worth of instruction, there is a good possibility that something is hampering that child's development. Many of the immature four year olds benefit as much from the group time instruction as they do the one-on-one instruction. The younger children benefit from the group time instruction, but the immature four year olds seem to gain the most. Therefore, put many language activities into your group time activities if you have immature four year olds in your midst. This will help you gain more ground in the short amount of time you have before kindergarten.
The Importance of the Alphabet
With four year old children, I start the letter instruction as soon as I possibly can. As I have stated before, it is imperative that children arrive at kindergarten with a good working knowledge of the alphabet. We can argue all day long as to whether this is developmentally appropriate or not, but the fact remains that if a child arrives at kindergarten without a good working knowledge of the alphabet, they are behind as soon as they walk through the door. These four year olds need to at the least be able to recognize all the capital letters of the alphabet. It is better if they can recognize all the capital letters, many of the lowercase letters, and know most of the sounds of the letters. If you can reach this point, the child will be able to cope with kindergarten on a basic level.
Blend Instruction
Many of the normally developing four year olds in my care, learn all their capital letters before they enter that final year before kindergarten. With these children I concentrate on lowercase letters and letter sounds at the beginning of that final year. Once these have been conquered, we start putting letters together into blends and then short one-vowel words. If you have never seen a reading curriculum that is phonics-based, I recommend that you check into some of the leading homeschooling curriculums. Many of these programs have extremely well-developed teacher's manuals with CDs to help with pronunciation. Many four year olds are capable of reading short one vowel words before kindergarten. It does give these children a huge advantage to arrive at kindergarten being able to sound out words. The Common Core curriculum that is presently being pushed in the public schools is about 50% phonics and 50% whole language. Children with a solid phonics background will thrive with this curriculum.
The Advanced and Gifted
Now I come to the advanced and gifted children. These children will conquer short one vowel words either before or right at the beginning of that final year before kindergarten. As I have said over and over and over, I do not hold children back. These children can learn to read sentences and then paragraphs. If you have a good phonics-based curriculum at your disposal, it is not difficult to teach these children to read at all. One suggestion from my background as the mother of a gifted child, break the lessons into smaller segments scattered over the day. These children still have a shorter attention span than older children, but they do well with more short segments than one long session. People who oppose academic instruction for preschoolers often picture children sitting for long periods of time doing school work. However, as a homeschooler, I know that is not what it looks like at all. Academics for preschoolers comes in short bursts all day long sandwiched in between a great deal of free play time. These children can accomplish so much more than many people think doing "school" in this manner.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!!
Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
No comments:
Post a Comment