My student’s regular teacher asked me to check his spelling of the following words:
said, little, find, and must
He got the last two words correctly!
Even though he remembers the mnemonic silly ants in dresses, he was unable to use it to spell said correctly. I realised it was because he wasn’t familiar with dresses in the first place! Hence, the mnemonic wouldn’t be totally effective for him.
I know that students with dyslexia need images and sounds to help them learn better. Thank God for AI technology these days.
I immediately wrote a short story and got him to read it aloud. I then turned my story into a video. I even uploaded it on YouTube. #shorts, anyone?
I hoped that making the video would help him remember said because he spent some time studying the word.
I repeated the process with little. But I switched it up. I used different words so that he could practise reading them aloud.
Instead of lost, I used disappointed. Instead of luckily, I used fortunately.
Actually, his oral reading fluency was not bad. I think he would improve his English very fast when he learns all these sight words.
I have one gripe about the AI website I used, though. It doesn’t come with audio inputs. Alas! I already used up my quota of free videos with Pictory.AI.
I need to ask if the school would grant me permission to use my training funds to subscribe to the premium version of Pictory.AI!
Homework: learn the spelling of said, little, and disappointed.
I was just talking to my wife about responding to really ignorant antagonistic replies.
She was recommending that I just call the person a "muggle" and move on.
I explained that I want the person to know precisely why they're dumb, though,
To which she replied "Well, you are a teacher at heart."
reply
It’s very satisfying to read this comment. Because we interact every day, all the bits and pieces that I know about you are kinda falling into place:
  • the fact that your dad taught Maths
  • you were a professor before
  • your grave concerns that young people are receiving misguided advice / messages (and probably a source of motivation for you to wanna teach to provide an alternative voice)
  • why you keep zapping your sats away to support us in alternative tech haha
Your motivations n values come across clearly
I’m sure teaching your daughter is your life project
reply