Target Feedback

This week I have to feedback on my a Target Student. Although we don't have any official targets in our class we have several children who we know are on track to be target students if they do not make accelerated progress this year.

In writing we have
Kingston, Tamati, Azaria, Achilles, Jade and Austin who are all low year 2s. For my feedback I am going to focus on Austin as we have had him from a NE 5 year old (most of the others have all come to us as year 2s) and still doesn't seem to be making significant progress.

Austin has real trouble with confidence. He has realised that many of his peers have overtaken him. (Some of our Year 1s who started in Feb are writing better than him already) He has trouble articulating his thoughts and ideas and when it comes to writing he often cannot remember what his story is as he writes, however this does seem to be improving. He doesn't use spaces between his words or record more than the initial sound without 1-1 support the whole way through the writing process. He has trouble hearing sounds beyond the initial 1 or 2 even in simple CVC words. e.g. he may segment cat as c-a-n. His formation is tidy and careful. He is a good kid with no behavioural issues or concerns at school.

Austin tells me what he is going to write about and completes his picture plan independently. He comes to me when he has done this plan and tells me his story. I repeat it back to him and ask him to say it again. He then begins his first word. If I don't remind him he will jump straight into the next word with no space and only 1 letter. We are putting a huge focus on phonological awareness this year using the SEED spelling programme as a base. We have daily phonological awareness sessions focusing on rhyme, syllables, hearing, blending and segmenting sounds. We have daily "spelling" where we work on a particular sound and say count and write the sounds in simple CVC words that include that sound. e.g. the sound today is /t/ so we write top, tin, net and circle the t in each word. His big steps are to be able to hear all the sounds in words and to put spaces between words. Then he will need to develop his ideas.

In 10 weeks I'd like him to be able to write 1-2 simple sentences, recording most sounds, with spaces between his words.

Suggestions from Pam - iPad app Montessori
Jill's idea - phonemic awareness programme