What is a Typical Lesson?
What are the basic skills presented in a lesson?
What materials do I use for a lesson?
The basic skills are presented in the following sequence:
- Step 1 - focuses on the teaching and timed performance for sight words
- Step 2 - focuses on the introduction of consonant sounds
- Step 3 - focuses on the teaching of beginning consonant sounds or ending consonant sounds
- Step 4 - focuses on the teaching of the vowel sounds
- Step 5 - focuses on the teaching the vowel rule and saying the vowel sound
- Step 6 - focuses on the teaching of sound blending
- Step 7 - focuses on practicing sound blending
- Step 8 - focuses on the timed performance for sound blending
The instructions for the above steps are organized in the following sequence:
- Daily Activities: Includes Steps 1 and 2
- Monday - Wednesday Activities: Includes Steps 3 - 8 focused on Long Vowels
- Tuesday - Thursday Activities: Includes Steps 3 - 8 focused on Short Vowels
- Friday Activities: Includes Steps 3 - 8 focused on both Long and Short Vowels
- R Controlled Activities: Includes Steps 3 - 8 focused on R Controlled Vowels
- Diphthongs - these instructions still need to be developed, but will follow the same format as above.
Do I have to follow the above sequence?
My Breakfast Reading Program is easily adaptable to meet the student's needs and time limits for a lesson.
A typical lesson should not last any longer than 15 - 20 minutes. Based on daily progress, you can isolate and master a particular step. Eventually, all steps could be included in a daily lesson.
Do I have to do the same lesson all week?
My Breakfast Reading Program is easily adaptable to allow the student to progress at his or her own rate.
- Ten sight words are only introduced in a particular lesson. Therefore, the student must master these words at an automatic level. That is, words should be able to have a one second or less response.
Do you have to teach all the words if the student is only having trouble with one or two of the ten words? No. You can adapt the sight words materials to apply Precision Teaching techniques for particular words.
- The consonant sounds are repeated several times in various lessons. Therefore, a maximum of one week should be spent on a lesson.
- The short and long vowel sounds are repeated in many lessons. Therefore, a maximum of one week should be spent on a lesson.
- One of the keys to My Breakfast Reading Program is the charting of the student's performance on one minute drills (30 seconds is acceptable for younger students).
When you see a child's performance reach a leveling affect, it is time to move on to a new lesson, or rebalance the amount of time on particular steps where the student is having trouble. Examples are discussed in Precision Teaching.