Activities with SMA

Played with him using the SMA, this morning...

I brought out the sheet I made a few weeks ago. I made it with the aim of having him practice listening to the ending sound. He can identify the beginning sound of various words quite well (when I have time, I will have a separate posting on activities we played to hone that skill). Initially I didnt think it was important that he's able to identify ending or middle sounds in a c-v-c word (consonant-vowel-consonant). But I know better now.

This is the 3rd time I introduced this particular sheet. He needed help the first 2 times. Today he's able to choose the ending letters himself. But I think that's also cos I only brought out only 6 letters to choose from (3 other letters were at random but careful not to choose similar sounding phoneme). In the past he had to choose from the box (entire alphabet).

The letters I took out for him to choose from are seen in the photo below (except letter "o" which I brought out later).

After he completed that sheet, he seemed interested in playing with the letters. So I observed him. He took "g" and placed it against the letter "g" sandpaper alphabets that I stuck on his bedroom door (for photo, see earlier posting on sandpaper alphabet). He was very pleased with himself that they were the same!

Then he wanted letter "o". I was curious. Asked him why. He didnt say. Gave the SMA "o" to him anyway. He took it and did the same - placed it against the sandpaper "o". Then it struck me...I asked if he wanted to spell "go". He then placed "g" & "o" on the floor. But wrong sequence... it was "og" (read go if reading right to left). Sigh.

Looks like I've to continue reinforcing that it's "left to right". The problem of "right to left" reappeared after I pasted sandpaper numbers 0-10 on his cupboard about 3 days ago. He read them from right to left, like he was counting down for blast off.

So, showed him a few times "go" instead of "og". Then showed him other words that we could build with the letters already on the floor. I was surprised at the variety: no, on, to, for, or, on, frog...

He wanted to participate when I was building words but was making non-sense words. That's ok la for now. But eventually, he spelt "go" and grinned at me. : )

The last word he spelt? It was "gof". Uhm...did he mean golf? He doesnt pronounce his "l" so maybe to him that's how golf is spelt. Who knows eh?! Anyway, I explained "golf" has "l" in it but that the way he spelt is sounded similar. Give positive encouragement la. New skills being learnt here!