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A Brief Walk Through Lesson 1

The first item to introduce is lower case "m". (See the shaded area in the box at the right.) Upper case letters will come later. Display the letter "m" (with a stimulus card or on the chalk board, etc.) to the learners and ask, "What sound does this letter make?" If they respond by saying the correct sound for "m", go on to the unit sound. (See the below.) If they respond with the letter name, you should let them know that that is correct. But then tell them immediately that "this letter says  'mmmmm'." Point to the letter and ask them to look at it and tell you what sound it makes or what the letter says. Do this two or three times, reinforcing them each time. If they know nothing about the letter, then tell them what it says and have them repeat it two or three times, reinforcing them each time. For additional practice now or later, use the section from Book 1 Worksheets, "Circle the Letter", page 1.

We discourage the use of key words like "mom" for "m". The word "mom" is much less abstract than the sound of "m", and therefore the learners are more likely to remember "mom" and not "m". Even if they do go from seeing the letter "m" to the word "mom" and then to the "mmm" sound, an additional and unnecessary processing step has been introduced.

Do not sound out the units, particularly the vowels. Do not say "This is ‘aaaaa’ ‘nnnnn’." To do so is to tell the learners that the letter "a" says "aaaa" as in "an". But this is only one of many ways to pronounce the vowel "a". To do so defeats a major goal of the CRP, to take advantage of the natural consistency in our language that exists at the level of units but does not exist at the level of the single letter.

At this point if the learners are having difficulty remembering the letter "m" or the unit "an", you may wish to play the Picking-out Game described next. If they are doing well, proceed directly to the next section (Blending).

The Picking-out Game
Recognition (Use the stimulus cards or the chalkboard, etc.) Show them the "m" and the "an" and ask which one says "mmm"? If the response is correct, praise and go to Section 2. If incorrect, remove "an" (leaving only "m") and ask again. Now that they have recognized the letter that says "mmmmm", have them point and say "mmmmm" a few times. Then put "an" back, mix and have them find "an". Repeat this by changing the positions of the two stimuli until they are able to recognize both regardless of position.

Recall
Now rather than merely recognizing the stimuli, you want them to recall what each says. Point to one of the stimuli and ask, "What does this unit/letter say?" If they do not know, tell them. Repeat the question with each stimulus several times. If they have difficulty with this recall procedure, go back to the recognition task above for additional practice before returning to the recall task. They should be relatively competent in recalling both "m" and "an" before going on to the blending section below. 

After introducing the sound for the letter "r", review "m" and "an". If they need more work with "r", "m" and "an", use the "Picking-out Game" described earlier and/or the "Make-A-Word Game" described next. The "Picking-Out Game" is usually easier, so if you are going to use both games, try the "Picking-Out Game" first.   

Make-a-word Game
Tell them, "Now we're going to play a game with the cards or at the board, etc. Let's see if you can make the word ___ for me." At this point the only possible words for them to make are "man" and "ran". They will probably enjoy getting a chance to manipulate the cards or pointing out stimuli at the chalkboard, etc.,to make words. If they respond correctly, be sure to show your pleasure. If they have difficulty with this game, give them as much help as needed. For example if they are not sure whether to use "m" or "r" as the first sound in "man", say the word, stressing the initial sound. If this is not a sufficient clue, tell them, "'man' starts with 'mmmmm'". Give similar help if they are unsure of the second part, "an", of the word "man", i.e., stress the "an" when saying "man"; say that "man" ends with the "an" sound, or finally point to the "an" card. If they pick the correct cards but put them in the wrong order, e.g., "an m", praise them for using the right parts of the word and simply rearrange the cards in the proper order while saying something like, "You used the right cards; very good! And here's the word 'man'." In time they will pay more attention to order.

Reversals are fairly common and you should not be overly concerned about them. Merely correct them. Remember that in the three dimensional world, orientation of objects is typically not important. A car is a car whether it is viewed from the left side or the right side or from the front or from the back, whether it is right side up or upside down. The orientation of objects is irrelevant. It must take some time for a young child to learn this. But then, with little or no fanfare, the child encounters the two-dimensional world of letters and numbers, in which orientation is often critical. A "b" becomes a "d" if you were to look at it from the other side or turn it around. Turn it upside down and it becomes a "p" or a "q". We are surprised that so few children have reversal problems, since they typically are not taught that orientation in the world of two dimensions is often very important. Be patient with reversals. It doesn’t necessarily signal a problem with the learner. Research shows that italic type, as used in the CRP, reduces reversals

Interesting variations of the "Make-A-Word Game" can be played by having them tell you what word they are going to make, rather than making a word you specify, or by giving them several letters and units and having them make as many words as possible. For additional practice now or later, you can use the section from Book 1 Worksheets, "Draw a line...." at the bottom of page 3.

The first whole word you will introduce is "the". Present "the" and ask, "Do you know what this word is?" If they know the whole word, go on to the next section. If they know something about the word, acknowledge what they know but do not stress parts of whole words. Have them attend to "the" and say "the" two or three times. If they know nothing about the word, tell them the word and have them repeat it two or three times, giving reinforcement each time. Since the word "the" has little or no meaning in most situations, it is relatively difficult for children to remember. For additional practice now or later, you can use the section from Book 1 Worksheets, "Circle the whole word...." on page 4.

The "Find/Say" words at the right are also in Book 1 Stories, on page 1.  The first column is for the unit "an", the second column for the unit "ay" and the third for "ail". Have them find the unit "an" in each word. (In the early lessons they may be confused about the task, so you may wish to display the unit "an" nearby while they are finding and saying the unit in each word.) After they have found the unit in the first word, have them tell you what sound that unit makes. When going through the "Find/Say the Unit" activity, you should not expect them to sound out the words this early in the program. You only want them to point to the unit and tell you what the unit says. (If they do know any of the words, reinforce them and continue.) Next pronounce the word, stressing the sound of the unit as you say the word, e.g. landing. After asking if they heard the "an" sound in "landing", pronounce it normally. You may ask if they know what the word means. Praise even an approximation to the meaning. You may then go on to further define the word in terms appropriate for their vocabulary. However, you need not strive to give meaningful definitions for all "Find/Say the Unit" words. Proceed through the remaining four words, "mansion", "animal", "organize", and "janitor" following the same procedures used for "landing".

Although the find and say task is generally very simple for them but we have found it to be a very crucial part of the CRP. Because of this, and to insure that the learner is familiar with all of the units we teach, we suggest that everyone start at Lesson 1 regardless of their grade level. For additional practice now or later, use the section from Book 1 Worksheets, "Circle the units." on page 5.  

As they read through the story, give help in the same way that you did earlier, even by displaying individual stimuli, on cards or the chalkboard, etc., if necessary. If they have forgotten a whole word, tell them, since there is no "figuring out" to do for whole words. If they have difficulty figuring out a word made up of letters and units, have them find the parts, then tell them the parts not known and give help in blending if needed.

There are several comprehension questions incorporated in the text of each story. There are "L" questions and "I" questions. "L" questions are composed only of words that have been taught and thus are "Learner" questions. "I" questions contain words that have not yet been taught and therefore are referred to as "Instructor" questions. You should read these questions to them or at least give help with the words that cause problems.

There are three types of questions: 1)informational content; 2)opinion; and 3)inferential. Informational questions are not "marked" in any way. Opinion questions are identified by a single asterisk (*) before the question number, and inferential questions by a double asterisk (**)before the question number. The answers to the informational content questions are fairly evident in the text. The answers to the inferential questions are not in the text, but with adequate understanding of the text and sufficient "world knowledge" the readers should be able to answer them. For example, the story in Lesson 20 is about two mice. In one situation one of the mice runs off to get some string. The story reads, "Soon he (Flub) was back with the string, panting and panting." The other mouse (Glub) then says, "My, it looks like your need to work out more." The** question is, "Why does Glub say that Flub needs to ‘work out more’?" Beginning readers may not know that "working out" keeps you in shape and reduces panting and "running out of breath". So you may have to point this out to them. In another situation the mice need to throw small rocks to prevent a door from closing. The text says, "Flu and Glub were expert rock shooters...." The inferential question (**) is "Have Flub and Glub thrown rocks before? How do you know?" Again beginning readers may not know that experts have to practice. So you might ask if they know someone who is really good at something. Does that person practice? In other words, in such questions you may need to help them discover the "world knowledge" they need to understand the inference. For the opinion questions (*) encourage them to respond and praise any responses that are even remotely correct. For example in the first story the text says, "Is Ray the rayman?" The question (*) is "What is a rayman?" There is nothing in the story to indicate what a "rayman" is, so you want them to use their imagination and come up with a plausible response. You may want to give your opinion, but be sure they know that their opinion is as valid as any.

Feel free to make up additional questions as they progresses through the stories. You may also wish to call attention to details in the pictures, ask them to identify characters in the pictures, or create other supplementary story activities. 

We realize that there are many excellent activities and games that can be used to develop reading skills and to keep the learners’ (and instructors’) interest levels high. Many of these games are appropriate for use with the CRP. However we again caution against using any activity that draws attention to inappropriate word parts. Units and whole words are to be taught as entities (wholes) and are not to be broken into parts. Other than "grunting" for the schwa sound in CD-1 words, do not identify the sounds of single vowels.

Most learners progress very rapidly in the early CRP lessons. However at some point, often around Lesson 4, 5, or 6, their progress slows. It is not unusual for the similar sounding and appearing units "ack", "ake", and "ick" to be confused. Such a plateau effect is generally not a cause for concern, and usually rate of progress increases again around Lesson 7 or 8. After completing about 15 lessons, many learners "take off" on their own and become quite good independent readers.

A Word about Silly Sentences (Book 1 Worksheets, pages 1-16 and 2-14) 
Each lesson contains pairs of "silly sentences". Each sentence contains one or more nonsense words and one member of each pair also uses inappropriate word order. The reader’s task is to determine which of the sentences makes better sense or "sounds better".

May ran the ayrail.
Ayrail ran May the.

The nonsense words are used to give additional emphasis and practice on the skill of finding units in words that are not known by sight. Since the readers have never seen the word "ayrail" before, even as a part of a word, the way to decode it is to look for its useful parts, "ay", "r", and "ail", and bounce around with them. The irregular word order is used to add some fun to the sentences and also to teach some understanding of what constitutes appropriate word order in English. If the learners have too much difficulty with them, you may read the sentences to them and ask which one sounds better, or, if you deem it appropriate, ignore these sentences. 

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