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by Sheila Crompton (Author)
A-MINUTE-A-DAY HIGH FREQUENCY WORDS. 40 Photocopiable One Minute Challenges to Improve Reading Skills. A TEACHER TIMESAVER. In order for children to become fluent readers, it is essential that they are able to read words both in and out of context. It may be possible for them to decipher unfamiliar words using phonic skills but phonically irregular words may disrupt the flow of the reader and thus hinder fluency. *Research has shown that the 25 most common words make up about one third of all printed material and in addition, there is a group of around 100 words which comprise approximately 50% of all the words likely to be encountered. These are known as high frequency words. Mastery will provide a firm foundation upon which reading competence may be achieved. In addition to the first 100 high frequency words, for a child to be fluent reader, it is recommended that mastery of a further 120 words be included . A-MINUTE-A-DAY HIGH FREQUENCY WORDS supports this approach to reading and in addition to focusing upon the first 220 essential words, further widens the pupil's sight vocabulary by including groups of words based around specific themes.* Source: The Reading Teacher's Book of Lists, Fourth Edition, (c) 2000 by Prentice Hall Authors: Fry, Kress & Fountoukidis. A-MINUTE-A-DAY is a series of 3 books, which aim to improve basic reading and mental maths skills, in a challenging yet fun way.Each book contains a number of photocopiable games, each one focusing upon specific groups of letters, words or numbers. The aim of each game is for the child to give as many correct verbal answers as possible within 1 minute. NO WRITING SKILLS ARE REQUIRED. Each page or worksheet can be used repeatedly by the child for practice both in school and at home, and progress assessed by the teacher in just A-MINUTE-A-DAY. Included at the end of each book are three content free games, which may be used by the teacher to create additional questions to suit an individual child, or to offer a game with high repetition for children who learn more slowly.A-MINUTE-A-DAY has at its roots, a method known as precision teaching, which, since its inception in 1964, has been adopted by an ever increasing number of teachers, and its proven success in both mainstream and special needs education is indisputable. The value of precision teaching lies in identifying a specific area of need for a particular child, followed by a daily period of teaching, testing and evaluating progress. Normally, this process can take around 10-15 minutes of completely undivided attention for a particular child. Whilst this can be considered a short enough period to offer any child, for a teacher without ancillary support and with multiple children requiring similar help, it can often be impossible to achieve.A-MINUTE-A-DAY offers a new methodology, which enables teachers to offer their pupils tailored systematic practice and monitoring of progress on a daily basis, whilst drastically reducing the amount of teacher involvement.
