Parents of Kids K and Older....

[readyin07]

Please help me before I lose my mind.

DS has been breezing through sight word lists. Until we hit kryptonite. The list contains this and that. It is an 8 word list and we've been working on learning it for a week. The other words are fine, he absolutely CANNOT get THIS OR THAT correct. We've tried writing it a bajillion times; saying it, then spelling it and then saying it again. Every time he sees those words it's like he's seeing it for the first time. He wants to sound it out, but he is just not getting that it starts with a blend (But he had zero problems getting "THE" and other blends like "WHAT") despite the fact that I (my mother and my DH) have told him the sound the word starts with about 1,000 times.

I've tried Sight Word bingo, having him shoot the word with a nerf gun (desperation), writing it on our window, pointing it out in books. When he sees all the sight words laid out, he can easily point to the right one (so the games are pretty ineffective) but there is some kind of block with it when he has to "read" it. Any suggestions? Should I email the teacher?

Also, did your kids start spelling in K as well? DS has gone through quite a few sight words which he knows on sight (obviously lol) but if I ask him to write them himself without help, he can't do it and I don't think they are working on that in class. Some of my friends' kids in different schools are spelling.

[hopecounts]

I'd do sensory writing, do a tray/cookie sheet/tupperware top of pudding/shaving cream/sand and have him do the letters of the word from a index card with it written on it.
Sometimes making a physical connection can help it click.
Check what your school is doing, our local area doesn't do spelling until 1st, they do kindergarten writing in kindy so sound it out and write how you think it should be written to encourage writing and phonics and gradually phase it out as sight words are learned.

[MrsAxilla]

He's in K? I'd just chill. He'll get it eventually and it *probably* won't keep him out of Harvard.

[youbetcha]

One of the things I did in my son's K classroom as a volunteer last year was quiz the kids on sight words. MANY of them struggled with MANY sight words, including this/that. This sounds very normal. He will get it, especially as the teacher does activities with the words in class.

Based on this post and the one about toughening up the other day, I feel like you need to take a step back and look at what kind of pressure you are putting on your son to achieve/be perfect. I'm sure you don't mean to do that, but in your posts it reads like you are very easily frustrated when he is not meeting the expectations you have. Honestly, he will be just fine. It's only September!

[readyin07]

Sept 17, 2014 15:53:29 GMT -5 youbetcha said:

One of the things I did in my son's K classroom as a volunteer last year was quiz the kids on sight words. MANY of them struggled with MANY sight words, including this/that. This sounds very normal. He will get it, especially as the teacher does activities with the words in class.

Based on this post and the one about toughening up the other day, I feel like you need to take a step back and look at what kind of pressure you are putting on your son to achieve/be perfect. I'm sure you don't mean to do that, but in your posts it reads like you are very easily frustrated when he is not meeting the expectations you have. Honestly, he will be just fine. It's only September!

I understand why you say this, but they are tested weekly on the lists. To "move on," you gotta pass at 100%. Do I care if he doesn't pass every time? I actually don't. However, when we're stuck, we're stuck. When he is sick and tired of looking at the same list (which he already is, test is tomorrow) then it doesn't put him in a very good frame of mind to do his homework, which in turn makes for a really long afternoon for both of us, which is why I am looking for new ideas.

[readyin07]

Sept 17, 2014 15:43:40 GMT -5 hopecounts said:

I'd do sensory writing, do a tray/cookie sheet/tupperware top of pudding/shaving cream/sand and have him do the letters of the word from a index card with it written on it.
Sometimes making a physical connection can help it click.
Check what your school is doing, our local area doesn't do spelling until 1st, they do kindergarten writing in kindy so sound it out and write how you think it should be written to encourage writing and phonics and gradually phase it out as sight words are learned.

LOL. This must be what his teacher suggested as well b/c he was pitching a little fit this afternoon about having to keep looking at these words and he was like, can't we write them in shaving cream? We have done that with letters before so I guess I know what I need to get at the store tomorrow.

I don't really care if he is spelling or not, I was just kind of curious what the norm was.

[cjeanette]

Time. Eleanor had a couple sight words that she could not get. By the end of the year she had them.

She is in first grade now and can magically read. It's like it happened overnight.

[bittybomb]

My son is in first grade and he struggled with this and that too (and some others).

We use the BOB books, and really its just practice practice practice.  I try not to stress him out too much because I want him to like reading, and his teacher says he's doing fine so I'm good.

[dragonfly08]

Definitely time. And keep trying new things. When I got desperate enough, I wrote letters on sheets of paper, laid them randomly on the floor, and had DD jump from letter to letter to spell her words. I used Bananagram tiles and had her choose the right letters (Scrabble tiles or Boggle cubes would work, too). We also had a lot of luck with Spellingcity.com...you can do basic games for free, and once DD really got into spell checks and was hitting roadblocks we found the paid subscription VERY worthwhile (I wouldn't buy it for a kindergartener learning sight words, though). Here, the kids have to recognize the sight words in K but don't start actual spelling until 1st grade (and they call it "word work" with the focus supposedly on learning the blends/rules/etc. rather than straight memorization...of course the kids still just memorize their lists anyway, but whatever).

ETA - The BOB books a pp mentioned helped a lot with early reading and word recognition, too.  I bought a boxed set at Costco for cheap.

[youbetcha]

Sept 17, 2014 16:14:51 GMT -5 readyin07 said:

Sept 17, 2014 15:53:29 GMT -5 youbetcha said:

One of the things I did in my son's K classroom as a volunteer last year was quiz the kids on sight words. MANY of them struggled with MANY sight words, including this/that. This sounds very normal. He will get it, especially as the teacher does activities with the words in class.

Based on this post and the one about toughening up the other day, I feel like you need to take a step back and look at what kind of pressure you are putting on your son to achieve/be perfect. I'm sure you don't mean to do that, but in your posts it reads like you are very easily frustrated when he is not meeting the expectations you have. Honestly, he will be just fine. It's only September!

I understand why you say this, but they are tested weekly on the lists. To "move on," you gotta pass at 100%. Do I care if he doesn't pass every time? I actually don't. However, when we're stuck, we're stuck. When he is sick and tired of looking at the same list (which he already is, test is tomorrow) then it doesn't put him in a very good frame of mind to do his homework, which in turn makes for a really long afternoon for both of us, which is why I am looking for new ideas.

I see. That sucks...DS's teacher would let the kids move to the next one while still working on the last few on the previous list.

Could you try having someone completely different try it with him? The kids would get ones with me they wouldn't get with their own parents because they didn't care what I thought. Lol. Maybe a friendly neighbor or older friend/cousin he looks up to?

[imojoebunny]

Sept 17, 2014 16:14:51 GMT -5 readyin07 said:

Sept 17, 2014 15:53:29 GMT -5 youbetcha said:

One of the things I did in my son's K classroom as a volunteer last year was quiz the kids on sight words. MANY of them struggled with MANY sight words, including this/that. This sounds very normal. He will get it, especially as the teacher does activities with the words in class.

Based on this post and the one about toughening up the other day, I feel like you need to take a step back and look at what kind of pressure you are putting on your son to achieve/be perfect. I'm sure you don't mean to do that, but in your posts it reads like you are very easily frustrated when he is not meeting the expectations you have. Honestly, he will be just fine. It's only September!

I understand why you say this, but they are tested weekly on the lists. To "move on," you gotta pass at 100%. Do I care if he doesn't pass every time? I actually don't. However, when we're stuck, we're stuck. When he is sick and tired of looking at the same list (which he already is, test is tomorrow) then it doesn't put him in a very good frame of mind to do his homework, which in turn makes for a really long afternoon for both of us, which is why I am looking for new ideas.

I hate this for you, and especially for your child and other children who are subjected to this.  I would talk to the teacher.  

Sticking a child on words they can't get is counter productive to the learning process.  It took my daughter two years to learn some sight words, she still has trouble with some in third grade.  I can't imagine having to dwell for weeks on the same 8 stupid words.  That's not sane.  The only idea I have that you haven't tried is making "puzzle" pieces so one piece with TH, one with I, one with A, one with T, and one with I, so he can move them around and see he difference.   Also, writing the letters on a cardboard in large letters and having him trace them 3 times, while saying the word, then writing the word.  The tutor does that sometimes when DD is really stuck on a word.  You could also try apps like  Dragon Diction or Spelling City.  Dragon diction allows the kid to say a word, and it will type it.  My kids use it to figure out how to spell words they don't know.  Spelling city allows you to put in your list, and then has several games they can play with the words.  

[SpartanGirl]

Honestly time is what worked best for us. DS has had a mental block on the words where and here for a good 6 months. I've just taken a break from working on them. It just leaves him frustrated. It sucks that his teacher will hold him up until he gets them. Can you talk to her and ask for suggestions?

Our school doesn't do spelling lists. They do word studies instead. I'm not 100% sure I get what that means, but I know they don't have spelling tests. DS didn't work on it last year in Kindergarten.

[UMaineTeach]

try teaching him the sounds of th - like in the sentence "this pig is thin" (focus on the /th/ in this/that first to get unstuck), just like he learned the sounds of the other letters, he can learn that "the letters t-h work together to say /th/. State it to him as a fact, just something else we have to learn and remember!

Th is actually a digraph, not a blend. In a blend the two letters retain their sounds, but are said quickly together so you have to slow down to hear all the sounds. In a digraph the two letters take on an entirely new sound that must be learned and memorized.

write out some other words that have th and have him put a "smile" under the th linking them together as one sound and then go back an read the words. this, that, then, with, bath (words that you can sound out given that you know th works together to make one sound, so not a word like thaw, where you have to know what 'aw' says).

try getting out 3 objects (bottle caps, slips of paper, cubes) that are all the same (or if you really want, make consonants and digraphs one color and vowels another color). Have your son sound out the word 'this' pulling down one object for each sound he hears /th/ /i/ /s/ then read the objects quickly to say the word. It will reinforce that even though there are 4 letters in the word, there are only 3 sounds. th makes one sound by working together/being a team! Isn't that neat!

dictate some sounds to him and have him write the letter(s) that make the sounds, use ones he knows and then throw in a few /th/

last dictate some words to him, the same ones that were on the paper where he found the 'th' in the words. This will give practice in forming all kinds of words with th and then you can give him the "big test" take away all other materials and have him write the 2 spelling words.

*most of this is taken from SPIRE, don't do it all in a marathon* google more 'teaching digraphs' for more ideas.

[stephm0188]

I found word families to be helpful when he was stuck on "that" and "this" in kindergarten. So we focused on one at a time. That, hat, cat, mat, bat, rat. At at at. That.

This is his.

They're so similar that a lot of kids get hung up on them. They focus on the first part of the word, like "th-" and tend not to follow through with the last parts.