The past few months I have had lots of interest in OG tutoring and was unable to intake students. As a result, I am happy to announce that I will be offering group OG summer sessions. There will be a free assessment for applying students which will determine which level they will be placed in. There is a maximum of 4 students per class and consist of two 1 hour sessions weekly @ $40/ hour in July/August 2012. All sessions will take place at my in-home OG tutoring centre in Killarney area (E. 45th/ Earles). Please contact me via email [email protected] or call me at 604-375-8827 for details. Thank you.
Hi,
The past few months I have had lots of interest in OG tutoring and was unable to intake students. As a result, I am happy to announce that I will be offering group OG summer sessions. There will be a free assessment for applying students which will determine which level they will be placed in. There is a maximum of 4 students per class and consist of two 1 hour sessions weekly @ $40/ hour in July/August 2012. All sessions will take place at my in-home OG tutoring centre in Killarney area (E. 45th/ Earles). Please contact me via email [email protected] or call me at 604-375-8827 for details. Thank you.
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I've been revamping my OG auditory/ visual drills to incorporate more manipulatives instead of just plain old cue cards. Using a sound box is a great way to incorporate the use of kinesthetic tactile sense with the auditory and visual senses. This can be used for a group activity and it also can be personalized. I bought this treasure box from my yearly splurge at May Fair and turned it into a daily sound box. Since my boys have tons of figurines and small nicknacks around the house I just change them up daily. For the older students, I may ask them to find 2 toys with 2 letter vowel sounds or find blends or end sounds. To build vocabulary, I ask them to think of a noun, verb, adjective and adverb with the sounds they found from the box. The best part is that after identifying all the objects, they can do some creative writing. Sometimes I ask them to write a story or dictate a story for me to type out or even create a short video. You can make this sound box themed to certain topics - animals, food items, specific sound items & etc. It is nice that they can actually have a visual and this definitely creates alot of exciting and makes them involved in their own learning and reviewing. I've been working on developing an Orton Gillingham based student record page workbook. It has over 200 pages of record pages for each sound, spelling rule and syllable concepts. Unlike traditional worksheets, these are specifically created for the child to practice the concept with fun writing activities. There is an area for them to practice their spelling, blending drills, matching exercises, wordsearch and creating visuals for each sound. This will be an essential workbook for all OG students and a great resource for OG tutors, educators, parents who work closely with children who are enrolled in the Orton Gillingham tutoring program. It will be offered in hard copy organized neatly in a binder. Here is a sneak peak!
Keep your weekly ads and inserts for these fun activities. This beats from the traditional OG auditory and visual drill with a piece of paper, cue cards and listening to me say the sounds. This multisensory activity helps your students review their sounds and see and hear them in words/ pictures. The kinesthetic tactile sensory comes into play by using the ads/ foamed letters. You can have it themed such as all food items, electronics, furniture, DVD videos, games and toys.
1) Give them a 1 page ad. Have them repeat each sound and search for the sound in the ads. After finding the sound, have them point it out and record the item and sound onto their notebook. 2) Visual/Auditory Drill Collage - Cut out some pictures from the ads - give them foamed letters and have them stick them onto the corresponding pictures. 3) Give the student 5 minutes to cut out 5 pictures. Have them glue them onto a piece of paper. Create mini web charts with as many sounds they hear from looking at the pictures. They can also think of 4 words to describe each picture. 4) Give them a variety of picture cut outs. Have them create a story using all of the pictures. You can help the younger children write the story down while they dictate it to you. They can glue the pictures to the corresponding words in the story or create a collage. You can vary the difficulty depending on your student - I've done these activities with children aged 4 to aged 12. An example of varying the difficulty: for the older students, I ask them to find blends (bl, cl) or find 2 pictures with 2 vowels (oo, oe, ai). This activity keeps the child engaged by using visuals to help them review. The favorites with my students have been the DVD and food ads. Watch out !! One makes them want to go home quickly to watch movies and the other makes them hungry!
Here are some tips on looking for an OG tutor:
* teaching background, credentials and references. * ask to see a sample lesson or a students binder. This can give you an insight of how they teach concepts using OG method. Do they use a lot of worksheets? What kind of hands on experiences they incorporate into the lessons? * give them a scenario and ask how they would handle the situation. Ask them how they would deal with when your child doesn't listen to them and what they would say to them. * ask them for their policies - do they have a minimum amount of classes per week? what is their late policy? What is their payment policy? Do they offer progress reports? * personality match - do you and your child get along with the tutor? Do they have a probation period where the tutor spends about a month of tutor sessions to see if it is working out? is your child responding to the tutor? * flexibility - does the tutor create individualized tutor lessons specifically for your child? Does he incorporate your child's learning style into the OG lesson? * tutor space/ access to manipulatives - where do the OG lessons take place? if it is at an OG center then what are the extra materials/ manipulatives that are available to the student? Do they incorporate any kind of technology - ipad/computer software/ sensory boards? A teacher asked me the other day " How do I help my children in transitions? Especially for those who have a hard time transitioning from one activity to another" Here are some ideas that may help:
* Picture schedules - creating a schedule with picture cards will help them associate with the verbal cues and directions. Children can take the picture card to match up with the next activity. * Do some stand up games that may allow for large gross motor movements? - for example: Simon says, What can you do? * A fun math/vocab game folder - a folder that has laminated game boards for 1-3 players that may take 10-15 mins to play * free art space - have some paints/ paper available for children to do a quick drawing or craft in between activities * journal writing - a time for reflection or review of what they learned, can ask them to write down some questions? or about how they are feeling? * water/snack break - you'll be surprised how often when a child is hungry is when they start acting up with tantrums and become less focused on the activity. A quick snack break will help them refuel themselves for the next activity. * use songs to help with transitions - from circle time to snack time to outside time. Sing a song that helps them prepare for the next activity. Keep in mind to give warnings for transitions - " after we finish reading this book we'll be cleaning up for math time" - knowing what to expect will make transitions more manageable. Furthermore, keeping a regular schedule and routine will help in smooth transitions. I will be facilitating a workshop at the Thunderbird elementary school in Vancouver on March 26th, 2012 from 7-8pm. I will be creating some multisensory activities that you can use at home to practice reading, writing and math skills. These activities are also great for classroom use too. For more details please follow link below:
http://www.ldav.ca/programs_and_services_parent_support.shtml Here is a reusable penmanship activity that you can make yourself and have it handy in your child's notebook. I have this activity always readily available and use it to introduce and practice letter or number formations. All you need is a page protector, 2 blank papers, dry eraser marker (black preferred), green/brown/blue color pencil.
1. First fold one white piece of paper into three sections. 2. Color the creased top section blue (sky), middle section green (grass), bottom section brown (ground) 3. Cut second piece of paper into half then take one half section and cut it into another half - you should have 3 pieces of paper 4. Fold the halved section and quarter section into three sections. Repeat step 2 on these 2 pieces of paper. 5. Place the full color page into the page protector and on the other side place the other 2 sections. You have created a multisensory penmanship activity. There should be 3 different sizes for them to practice. Children should start practicing from the larger size to the smallest sized paper. We want them to master the larger movements before the smaller fine motor movements. It's fun because its erasable and they can practice using the grass, ground, sky for formations of numbers and letters. For numbers you can make a general rule that all numbers stay on top of the ground and numbers generally start in the sky. This method will help children with spacial difficulties and help them remember where to start/end the letter. Also, you can make up a song to help children with the formations and prevent reversals. You can create an alphabet list using this method and stick it onto their desk so they can use it as a reference when they forget. Also, as they learn their sounds I usually use this method to show how the letters are written - it's another way to reinforce the learning of letters/ sounds. In today's education market there are abundant of programs that offer help in learning difficulties with math, reading, spelling and writing. Teachers, parents and tutors should try to avoid if programs: 1. It offers a cure or a set amount of time for drastic improvement. 2. Does not employ a multisensory approach, with structured phonics and definite methods for teaching the dyslexic the structure of the language. 3. Requires the dyslexic to learn most words as whole units through sight-recognition. 4. Emphasizes on speed. 5. Relies heavily on spelling lists that must be memorized by rote. 6. Requires pages of unsupervised work in workbooks. 7. Promises problems will be solved by purchasing a series of reading texts. 8. Uses a reading approach that depends almost exclusively on color coding of words or sounds or uses some other code system that changes standard letter forms. 9. Attempts to improve the dyslexic's academic achievement by having him perform coordination tasks, such as creeping, crawling and walking on beams. 10. Uses eye-movement exercises. 11. Uses arbitrary and inflexible groupings of children for teaching purposes. 12. Uses punishment or ridicule to "discipline" the dyslexic when he makes an error or becomes confused. 13. Isolates children and requires them to work on their own. *Abstracted from "Remediation: Procedures for Helping the Dyslexic"; Rome, Paula & Osman, Jean* I hope this list would be a good reference for parents who are thinking or already have a child in a remedial program. I really wish my mom would have access to this kinda of information or checklist - it would have saved her lots of money and time that she spent to help me throughout my school years. My mom tried hiring over 4 different tutors which I just ended up getting frustrated and annoyed since all they made me do were worksheets. My mom spent another thousand of dollars on audio programs that proved to help my grammar by listening to them daily. She even enrolled me into Kumon math which was probably the worst year and a half. Every saturday for 2 hours was spent at the center timing myself and trying my best to get at least 85% before I could even leave. I think I cried most of the time and just ended up cheating so I could leave. It only taught me to do math FAST. My mother even spent money on buying herbal pills that supposingly made us smarter - I'm sure she was hoping that would cure our bad grades. Thinking back I can say nothing worked and the only thing that improved my writing was going through the OG training. I'm not saying that OG is the only and the best program out there but I know and experienced the reward and difference it has made in my life and the student's life. I believe a good remedial program incorporates a multi-disciplinary and multi-sensory approach- this is the key in helping children with their learning difficulties. |
AuthorDora Cheung - Certified OG Tutor, Masters of Educ. Admin., Early Childhood Education, +20 yrs of teaching experience. Married with 3 boys - 13 yrs, 11 yrs and 8 yrs old. Archives
December 2019
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