As I mentioned before, Neighbor M. was ready to speed up a lot. Some students will learn in leaps and bounds, rather than a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach. As teachers, we have to be read and willing to adapt.

Because of this, the lesson plans are going to reflect a pace that is faster than before. I cut out the review day–the day where she reads the whole book all of the way through. I consider reading the book twice imperative for most of my students, but in this case it really was redundant. She was reading it fine on the first try.

But first: if you haven’t already noticed, I spent time discussing how to teach the new concepts introduced in Book Six. Please read my tips on cadence and beginning grammar before continuing. The details in that post will not reappear here in this one.

Lesson One

Review sounds: short-a, b, hard-c, d, hard-g, h, short-i, m, n, short-o, p, r, soft-s, hard-s, t

Build words: rib, can, sit, him, dim, bib, big, tap, man, pot, rob, top.

Briefly introduce the concepts of cadence and grammar.

Read Set 1, Book 6 (“Dot and the Dog”) pp. 1-4.

Lesson Two

Review sounds: short-a, b, hard-c, d, hard-g, h, short-i, m, n, short-o, p, r, soft-s, hard-s, t

Build words: din, Ron, top, sand, mad, gob.

Read Set 1, Book 6 (“Dot and the Dog”) pp. 4-ff.

I do not do a review of the grammar/cadence lesson unless I really think the student didn’t understand it the first time. From this point on, however, I work with the child on improving cadence. Some children will ask again about question marks, and answering their questions simply and briefly will help. Today, for instance, I was asked, “Why is there a question mark there?” The answer was, “Because that is the end of the question.” I traced the whole sentence with my finger and said, “See? This is the whole question, the whole thought.”

And that was all, and it was enough.

At this point, because I’m clipping along at the new, faster pace, we are skipping reading all the way through, like I mentioned before. With tutoring students, there isn’t anything I can do about this, but with my own children, when I’m moving at this type of pace, I have them review the books, if possible, with another adult (like their father) later in the day. This gives them the chance to read the whole book without spending an entire day on it.

If I had many tutoring students, I’d make sure I had a few copies of the books so that I could lend them out in instances like this one.

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Suggested Reading:
–Incorporating Practice During Read-Aloud Time