[Pibe-division] Any suggestions?

[Kristen J Sims]

As Eric stated, we are big fans of BOP. I have used it with older students who already know how to read. To do the Units as a whole can be time consuming when a student already has phonemic awareness and grammar skills. If the student already knows the alphabet and whole word contractions, you could start with 1st grade. With the 1st grade BOP, I reproduce the new contractions worksheet, the vocabulary, and the story. Often I will include comprehension questions to go along with it.
 I have done it the other way, too. Using the classroom text or reading leveled books along with Mangold and teacher-made contraction sheets. Often I would need to retype the books to keep from introducing too many signs at once. Having too many contractions was very frustrating to the younger academic students who were struggling to remember everything in reg ed too. 
I found that my older students, who were already good print readers (or used to be) prefer the latter. You can move quicker and use material that they are interested in. I had a senior who read heavy metal music lyrics and Rolling Stone articles. 
I have to say though, I have a middle school student who did not have good reading skills, I tried the do it yourself way and she struggled. Her spelling lists had 16 words and all of them contracted. Now, she is decoding and is more fluent because I switched to BOP.
Kristen J. SimsTeacher of Blind StudentsVision Services OPSB318-432-5400Only the educated are free. Epictetus
----- Original Message -----
From: Cindi Eskew <cindine at yahoo.com>
To:<pibe-division at nfbnet.org> ,   <2010-teacher-of-tomorrow at nfbnet.org>
Cc:
Date: Friday, September 16 2011 01:34 PM
Subject: [Pibe-division] Any suggestions?
Hello Everyone!
I am a first year teacher, for teaching blind students and essentially for teaching period. I am looking for suggestions on how anyone out there is teaching their beginning readers.  Are you using Patterns or BOP? Are you using your own curriculum? I am working with a "fourth grade" student who did not begin braille until third grade. The entire code has not been completed yet. I am trying to figure out how to tackle this and what ways others have found to push the students along quickly.  We are working on Nemeth and she is picking that up beautifully, but reading seems to be a struggle for both of us. I am not sure how or where to begin.  She did the Patterns series PrePrimer and Primer last year. So should I continue this? Is there another series? How does BOP compare? I have been using 2nd grade reading passages, because
 she has tested that this is about her instructional level, but she is not familiar with some of the code.  Also, how much braille homework is everyone sending home? Thank you so very much to anyone who has suggestions!! I greatly appreciate any advice!!!!!

Cindi Eskew

"It is the mark of aneducated mind to be able to entertain a thoughtwithout accepting it."
Aristotle



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