Hi Dan, 
 -=> Quoting Dan Triplett to Erica Long <=-
 
 Year 1 in Qld includes all children who will turn six the calendar year
 in which they commence school. Some parents choose to keep their children 
 back a year and guidance officers and others can recommend another year at 
 preschool but ultimately the parents have the choice. All ch are expected 
 to have started school by the year they turn seven. We have preschool, 
 which is state government-funded but not compulusory. Most children attend 
 half a week. Prior to that is kindergarten which is of a more private nature 
 but subsidised by the fed. govt.
 
 DT> This is so very true.  And the children whose parents continue to read
 DT> to them regularly learn to decode so fast.  Sadly, those children who 
 DT> don't have as much language experiences and whose parents don't read
 DT> to  them much struggle all year long.  (Not in all cases but in most). 
 DT> I  send home a monthly "Read Aloud" calendar and have parents and
 DT> children  record the books they read together.  I send home a monthly
 DT> reading  certificate as well.  At the end of the year I return their
 DT> monthly  lists.  
 Our librarian does this and we borrow every day. Not all children but at 
 least half change their books every day or two.
 
 DT> Parent will ask me what they can do at home to prepare their children 
 DT> for kindergarten.  I tell them to do 3 things:  Talk to your child; 
 DT> Listen to your child; Read to your child.  
 Absolutely!
 DT> Please share more of the Quota program.  And how do you approach the 
 DT> teaching of phonics?  
 Quota was a program invented by a couple of teachers based on sounding-out 
 words, sight words and the most common necessary words. The list gets harder 
 as you go down the page. On Monday you pretest the list. The children take 
 home a small activity sheet for homework. On Friday you test the list and 
 if you get your Quota right you may go up the the next number. If a child
 starts on a quota of six they would probably be learning sounding words 
 like rat mit run and some common words like the and etc. They have a good 
 chance of getting their Quota right. The more able kids may be on ten words 
 and may have to spell words like doll girl boy. The beauty is that it 
 focusses on their strengths and allows them to built confidence. I will be 
 starting this with about 14 of my 25. Most will have quotas ranging from 5 
 to 9. The others are just not ready yet.
 Phonics - I do not just teach a like an apple on a twig. I try to teach the 
 children decoding skills and show then the pitfalls. Many parents tell the 
 ch to sound it out when they don't know what else to say. I try to teach 
 them that there are sounding out words, chunk words (glass clusters) and 
 that there are words that you just have to learn.
 We talk about tricky vowels and how w and y like to pretend to be vowels, 
 what happens when they join together like ay, ch, tricky silent letters 
 like knee (This week I told them to forget about the h in wh. Have you ever 
 noticed how the strugglers really balk at wh words?) Basically I try to get 
 them to be aware of the pitfalls. I call them word detectives and tell them 
 they have to watch out for tricks, look all the way to the end etc. If they 
 realise words can be tricky they are not so shocked when they get some wrong 
 when they move on from memory to more complex texts. Sometimes I tell them 
 why letters say the things they do if I know the historical reason and I try 
 to encourage them when they start self-correcting mistakes - a sure sign 
that 
 they are almost readers. Now I can't wait to let then move onto peer 
 reading - reading together with their friends beacuse that's when they 
 really develop confidence.
 
 Basically where I am I just get through the 26 letters. I usually focus on 
 one a week. If we are doing a bear theme then the letter will be b and we'll 
 make a word bank and do some formal activities but we may focus on other 
 phonics in the literature that week. For the Olympics we kept a medal tally 
 and grouped acc to G S B etc. We did a mouse theme this week and had
 ch and sh word lists because that came up in the main story along with j
 etc. I also tell them the difference between voiced and voiceless words and
 we check to see if our vocal chords are moving. This helps when they want to 
 write waz for was etc. Also I guess when you do a lot of literature and you 
 point out the interesting sounds and rhythms and excellent examples (one we 
 had today) then its all immersion isn't it? A lot of it is playing with 
 language. 
 DT> made.  I think it's important for them to see themselves as readers 
 DT> (because that is what they are).  
 You bet.
 DT> Thanks again for sharing....
 That's ok!
 ooroo, 
 Erica.
... Frog philosophy: Time's fun when you're having flies!
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