I am working with 2 boys - both in Year 8, both of whom I have taught for 2-3 years. They both have quite severe underlying difficulties with memory - remembering code etc. I used The Sound Reading System with both initially but they did not make nearly as much progress as many pupils do with SRS, so on advice from other RRFers, I have used Fresh Start with both. One (pupil a) has completed Fresh Start and the other is currently working through it. It has definitely helped pupil a to improve his reading ability. He tends to decode individual words better. He had a severe guessing habit when we started and when reading text, still slips into guessing at times, especially m-s words. This is improving slowly, with weekly practice.
My question is about punctuation. Both boys struggle to remember to use basic punctuation in their writing. For example, with pupil a, we are working through the code for spelling, focussing on a spelling variation each week. I dictate the words from the previous list and my pupil makes up some sentences or a paragraph to practise the words in context. He really enjoys this activity. He is still at the stage where he needs to think about the spelling (not usually of the target word but of other words in his sentence). He will slow down and sound out the words. This means that he usually forgets his capital letters and full stops. If I ask him to proof-read his writing, and remind him of punctuation, he does see and corrects the errors. I am wondering how to embed this skill, so that becomes automatic, even when his processing is taken up by thinking about spellings.
I was wondering about using the Fresh Start strategy of skywriting a dictated sentence - highlighting capital letter and full stop in the air. I would keep the spelling very simple so he could focus on the punctuation. It would also be a chance to overlearn spellings which we have worked on in our code work, if I include those.
The other pupil is weaker, in the sense that, if I dictate his spelling words, he will sometimes put capital letters at the start of words and sometimes even in the middle. I am wondering how best to address this. Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
