Dragon Eggs Series, Workbook

Dragon Eggs series
I have a ‘weak’ student, who finds focus difficult, but is improving. We have moved onto Dragon Eggs series, from Magic Belt. Really like that the main character is female and her Dad trusts her to go off on a quest, on her own, while he stays to help Bella, the dragon.

With ‘weaker’ children, I often make each book last 4 weeks, so the child reads the book in first week or two and then does some activities from the corresponding workbook. Week 3 and 4, I model reading the book and pointing out pauses and punctuation features. It also gives us a chance to return to vocabulary and recap, so important with emerging readers. Parents seem really happy, when I slow down the process, as they can see exactly where their child struggles and the improvements each week. For me, as a teacher, what is really nice is that often the child’s teacher will start commenting on the progress they are making.

Workbook
Activity; Is it true?
Brilliant, as really works on working memory, good thinking task.

Activity; Timed reading.
Excellent, as competition element is fun for kids. Also my student is a ‘slow’ reader and we have been working hard, on reading to the punctuation, which really helps with her understanding, as if too slow, she often can’t remember the meaning of the sentence, as concentration is focussed on breaking down each word. Timed section helps her to realise she can read words faster.

Activity; Spellings.
Love the sectioned and multi syllable approach, as can remind students of the vowel rules and then teacher correctly fills out the blank space at the end section and the child is keen to see, if highlighted green, for correct, or orange, for errors, and can go back and correct own errors. As multi-syllabled sections, one section may be right, so pupils can often see that most of their spelling of the word is correct, which boosts their confidence.