Letter Sort

Methodology
1:30pm
Episode
This afternoon I re-emphasized the letter K with my 1st graders. Yesterday I introduced this "tongue scraper." Yesterday things seemed to be going okay with our "K" activities. Today I started things off with a review of P/T/K, the first three letters in the LiPS program. We did our Tucker signing along with our review. I then gave my students a large piece of newsprint paper, which had the three letters written on them. I had the many different fonts of those letters printed out and cut up. Each boy had their own pile and they sorted and glued their letters in the correct category. The boys were laughing because some of the pictures were silly. I repeatedly asked the boys what letter they were holding or what color the "blank” green letter was. All three kept responding appropriately. My teacher came in after finishing up ISTEP testing with a couple of students who had been absent last week. She asked the boys individually which three letters they were learning. One of the boys (who is generally more consistent) correctly named the letters. The next boy also correctly named the letter; this is surprising because he has generally been the low one of the group, due to his short-term memory loss. The third boy, who generally does fine, responded by telling us these letters that he was learning: B/L/R (Instead of P/T/K).

Analysis of Episode
Sigh of agony. After 6 weeks of working on these letters with a million different alphabet activities and then to hear this little one read the wrong letters was disheartening. It seemed as if things were going along pretty well, then he couldn't tell someone else his three letters. Each day we have emphasized the LiPS pictures/letters, Tucker sign, Herman pictures, hand-on activities, various literacy groups and centers, and art projects to correlate with the letters. Yet, this had not seemed to work. Sigh again. I guess I will just keep pressing on, and maybe the letters will eventually sink in to his long-term memory. Hopefully the repetition will help secure these letters in his head.