Wednesday, April 4, 2012

What’s so hard about the ow sound?

Some days teachers really earn their salary.  Tuesday Ms. H even said to the children, “You are making me really work hard to earn my salary.”  And one little boy, said “You get paid?”  That right there could be a whole blog.

The two letter sound we worked with Tuesday was ow, as in how, clown, gown, now.  The group I work one on one with could not get this sound.  Ms. H worked and worked with them.  They practiced saying the sound, they rhymed words, they suggested words with the sounds, then they read the day’s story. 

These stories are harder than the ones they read with me.  My story might have sentences that say The kids hid in the bag. The kids go to bed.  The other story would say  It was supposed to rain.  The Brown family would have to stay inside.  On TV they saw a lady in a gown with a gold crown.  They saw that Chowder the Clown was in town with the circus. Big difference in skills needed to read.

They couldn’t remember what ow said.  They struggled to read anything.  Ms. H gave me her book and asked me to work with each student.  Most couldn’t read the title  Chowder the Clown Comes to Town.  Now remember they have just read the book together with Ms. H.  I helped them sound out words.  What does ow say?  I don’t know.  We practiced saying the sound, rhymed words with ow, we said the word they didn’t know over and over.  Next sentence and there would be the same ow word.  Nothing.  Repeat the above.

I don’t know who was closer to tears me or the kids.  Major frustration.  One little girl did give me hope.  She is the Queen of sounding out words.  She reads quickly, yet every word is sounded out. Even words she really knows.   H  ow  ie  Howie, s at  sat,  Ch  ow der  Chowder.   She read quickly and after sounding out the words, she trusted herself and did not sound out repeated words in other sentences.  I gave her a huge hug.

Tough tough day.

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