A Treat in Your Mailbox

Have you received your 2012 Sonlight Catalog in your mailbox? For many years, eager Sonlight users have written poems about their anticipation of the new catalog and tracked its arrival across the nation and around the world. If you attended a convention last year, purchased from Sonlight within the past two years, or requested a catalog on our website, yours should be arriving shortly.

What will you find inside? That's where the treat is located ... a vast collection of literature-based programs that come with great books and an Instructor's Guide that walks you through those books page by page, chapter by chapter, as you or your child read them and discuss them. Talk about a world-wide adventure from the comfort of your couch!

Why real books instead of textbooks? Because textbooks skim the surface details in their predigested narratives of the people and places in history, while real books immerse you into the history by letting you live it through the characters in the story. Whether real historical figures or fictional characters based on history, your child will be drawn into the events of history and the lives of people in a way that imprints it on their minds. Real books produce real learning, with real enjoyment.

Give it a try ... you'll be oh-so-glad you did!

Kelly

How to Correct Spelling Mistakes

There are different approaches you can take when your child misspells a word. Some would simply show the child how the word should be spelled, but that would not provide explanation for the correction to enable the child to learn from the mistake. Instead, I would recommend that you follow the steps taught by the folks at All About Learning Press to help your learn.

If your child misspells a word during a spelling lesson, follow these steps:
    1. Ask your child to slowly read exactly what he has written. Often the student will see his own error and be able to fix it.
    2. Take a look at the cause of the spelling mistake -
          Did you and the student pronounce the word correctly?
          Is he unclear on a particular spelling concept or rule?
          Did he segment the word correctly?
          Do you need to re-teach something?
If you need to review a phonogram or spelling rule, do it now.
    3. Have the student spell the word again, preferably with letter tiles or magnets first, and then on paper.

When your child misspells a word outside of the spelling lesson, such as during dictation exercises or other written assignments, only hold his responsible for writing the word correctly if it includes concepts you have already taught. If that particular word, or words with a similar spelling pattern, have been taught, ask the student to segment the word and write the letter or letters for each sound. If he has misspelled a word for which you have not taught the pattern or rule, simply show him the correct spelling and have him write it himself, so that he imprints that spelling into his brain. When you cover that pattern in a future spelling lesson, he will likely remember what he has already practiced.

Why not encourage inventive spelling? First of all, it can imprint an incorrect form on the child's brain, which will require more "unlearning" later. Secondly, this approach can be counterproductive to teaching students the right way - they may use the first option that comes to mind (figuring that's what the teacher would allow) and not make an effort to spell correctly. My brother was taught this way in his early elementary years and had to work very hard in later years to overcome the incorrect imprinting and bad habits this approach established.

It is also not recommended to direct younger students to "look it up" in the dictionary. This can be a very frustrating process if the student does not know what basic phonograms are used, since the dictionary is organized by the proper spelling. If the student has not yet been taught a spelling pattern or rule for the word in question, simply tell (or show) the student what the correct spelling is.

The manner in which you correct mistakes can significantly impact your student's progress.

Kelly

Why Dictation?

When I began using Sonlight's literature-based approach, I asked this question. I was working with mid-elementary students and part of the Language Arts exercises was to dictate a passage taken from their Readers. Thankfully, I persevered through the early weeks, and then it dawned on me what we were gaining through the use of dictation exercises.

What is the whole purpose of studying Language Arts? To learn to effectively express yourself or to take what is spoken and record it in writing for another to read and comprehend later. One of my students was the type of child who doesn't like to spend extra time doing what he has already mastered, but even he began to see that through dictation he was practicing all aspects of Language Arts skills - capitalization, punctuation, spelling, grammar, and handwriting. Writing from dictation allows your student to concentrate on the writing process without having to compose original sentences. An added benefit was that he was learning about sentence structure through examples from skilled authors. This is actually one of the methods that Ben Franklin used to improve his writing skills.

There is an added benefit for you, the parent - you will improve your skill in reading aloud. When giving dictation, you must use your vocal intonation to help your students hear the punctuation.

Sonlight encourages younger children - those who have not yet mastered handwriting comfortably - to do copywork, rather than dictation. This gives them the same exposure to all aspects of Language Arts skill while removing the pressure of taking auditory information and transforming it to written. As they become more skilled in spelling and handwriting, you can begin to wean them off copywork and into dictation.

Dictation can also benefit your child's spelling skills. When you dictate a passage to your child, present it in phrase lengths that are appropriate to his age and readiness. Have your child repeat the phrase and begin writing. Do not offer help in the writing process - let your child commit his own mistakes. I recommend not even watching what your child is writing as this can cause him to focus on your body language for signals about his performance, rather than concentrating on what he is doing. Allow him to pause when spelling an uncertain word to consider various alternatives or recall the spelling rules he has learned. He should feel free to think through the spelling process. When the full passage has been dictated, have your child read his writing aloud to determine whether he is satisfied that he has spelled everything correctly, as well as using capital letters and punctuation properly. As soon as your child has completed proofreading, compare his work with the printed sample from which you gave the dictation. Make note of any misspelled words and discuss any punctuation errors.

I'll provide some guidelines for correcting spelling mistakes in my next post.

Kelly

Help Your Child Make Connections to Improve Learning

Last fall I posted a series of articles about the brain and how it collects and stores information. Today I'd like to revisit a concept that I first posted as Wired to Learn. The learning process involves the addition of new information to what is already known. Each day of our lives, our brain is continually reorganizing, adapting, and restructuring itself to expands its ability to connect information and thereby retain it for future retrieval.

You could envision a child's brain as a large wall, and each concept to which he has been exposed can be represented by a hook on that wall. As further information is added, it is hung on a corresponding hook, and often connected to several hooks on the wall. The more information hung on each hook, the more complex the child's understanding of that concept becomes. These "hooks" could be referred to as schema, defined as an underlying structure, or conceptual framework. When we organize our educational efforts to work in conjunction with our children's existing schema, we can expand their ability to retain the information ... and to learn effectively.

Another way to 'picture' this concept is to consider how a color printer works. The printer requires cartridges of black, yellow, blue, and red ink (yes, the official color names are different, but let's keep it simple). When you tell the printer to produce a color picture, it will use a combination of these four ink colors, and produce a much more intricate picture than if you were to print it in black and white or grayscale settings. Our brains do the same thing with information - the initial concept gives us a black and white framework, and additional related information adds the color variations to create a beautiful picture that excites our senses. You can add "color" to your child's learning process by following some basic steps as you teach.

1. Make connections to things your child already knows. When teaching history, expand your child's connections to the information by utilizing maps and timelines to help your child "see" where and when the events happened or the person lived. If they are already familiar with the time period or another historical person, show them how the new information fits with what they already know. For example, if your child has already been introduced to George Washington, he can connect Thomas Jefferson to several points of reference - both lived in Virginia, both had plantations, both were political leaders and U.S. Presidents, etc. And Justin Morgan developed his Morgan horse breed during their lifetimes - I wonder whether Washington and Jefferson had Morgan horses on their plantations?
2. Use analogies. An analogy is a comparison between two things that are otherwise dissimilar. Enlist your child's help in developing analogies by selecting symbols for different events in time or historical figures. You may want to color code entries on your timeline (see my last blog post), or use symbols to indicate parts of speech that words hold in a sentence. There are a variety of ways you can connect information by attaching symbols or analogy comparisons, and link that information in your child's brain.
3. Provide content with unifying themes. This is already done for you when using Sonlight Curriculum. Sonlight's Core programs are organized around 3 themes - World Cultures, World History and American History. These themes are reviewed 3 times in the span between Kindergarten and High School studies, beginning with introduction of information (setting the hooks on the wall, or creating the black and white framework) and then adding greater detail and complexity to the information as they visit the themes again.

When you are selecting educational materials, look for programs that are designed to help your child build organized schema. If you are creating your own materials, keep in mind how you can add to information your child already knows. By doing so, you will help him build long-term memory with a lot of interconnected information, and your teaching will be more effective.

Kelly