300!

Tutors who are helping their learners read and write better may already be aware that 100 words occur so frequently in English that they make up half of the words you will see on any given page. According to The Reading Teachers Book of Lists by Edward Bernard Fry, Ph.D, Jacqueline E. Kress, Ed.D & Dona Lee Fountoukidis, Ed.D., about sixty-five percent of all written material in English comes from the list of the 300 most common words. Memorizing them gives a leg up to people struggling to read the language. While we usually recommend phonics for reading instruction at Literacy Network, there are good reasons to take this approach for the 300 (you can find the list by clicking here). 

Why memorize a finite list of words? First, there's the speed boost it gives readers. Second, many of the words are read non-phonetically. If you read words number 24, 25 and 27 from the list, have, from and one, they would rhyme with grave, mom, bone. Instead, they rhyme with lav, bum, bun. So, since memorization is the best way to learn them, how do we go about it? Here are three strategies:

1.    Flashcards-Cut index cards in half and tech them three or four at a time. Get your learner involved by inviting him or her to write the words on cards during a lesson

2.    Tapping out-have your learner spell the word orally while tapping out each letter on her arm, moving down her arm with each tap. So, for the word have she would tap and recite "H - A - V - E," then say "Have" as she makes a wiping motion, as though erasing the word off her arm.

3.    Oral Rhyme, Three at a Time-the strategy I employed above, actually. Write and recite: "Have, from, one rhyme with lav, bum, bun the phonetically consistent spelled words they rhyme with. This strategy might work well with learners who learn well orally.

Remember: learning to read takes patience, time, repetition, patience and more repetition. Thank you all for being tutors.

Lesson Plan Resource

As tutors and teachers we all need a little help now and then. Lesson planning is a big challenge for most of us, particularly at the beginning of our experience. A website called UsingEnglish.com gives you varying levels of help in creating lesson plans. It offers complete lesson plans on some subjects, games and activities for others. Below is one activity from the site, a game called "Responding to Requests." It gives a long list of very bluntly worded statements. The task is to try to make them more polite by making them a little less direct. Here is part of the list:

Here you go.
Grab this.
Sit down and wait while I look.
I can’t help you.
Just a sec/ Just a mo./ Wait.

Treating the activity as a competition to see who can be more excruciatingly polite could be a very funny experience. The basic idea, though, is that beginning speakers of English tend to lack phrases that make their requests or commands sound more palatable. The ability to add, "Why don't you...?" or "Would you mind...?" or "I'm sorry, but..." can help learners soften their requests, which helps native-speaking listeners to be more inclined to listen to them.  Interestingly, in this game you have the option to stop if you either cannot make make a statement more polite or if your effort sounds less polite than the one before.

UsingEnglish.com has many more lesson plans ready-to-go, worksheets and games like this one.Why don't you pay them a visit?