Exploring the ABLE KIT
I have to say the I didn’t know that such a kit is available for teacher in elementary school. After looking at the kit – the questions I can only wish that such a kit will be available for high school students.
I wasn’t surprise to find out that the diagnostic kit deals with the important elements of learning new language such as listening, writing, and reading. The thing that is missing is the oral part which is being done only for specific students.
English orthography is highly irregular and knowing the letter is not enough and decoding does not proceed linearly. The Hickey method emphasize the importance of teaching sounds in English and not just the letters. But I didn’t completely understand the implication of not requiring specific sounds such as sh, ch, th, ng, and wh at the same time which can slow down the process of requiring English. Also, I never pay much attention to the structure of the English syllable – I knew it in general not the way it was written down it the kit itself (note to my self go over it again and again). In a matter of fact I need to go over and over thru the entire chapter of "Knowledge of Orthographic Patterns".
Another thing that I wasn’t surprise to find is that we need to pay attention to the way a student writes the letter itself – the different shape and sizes. I like the table which divided the different letters according to Curved, Vertical, slanted – that’s a nice way to divide the letters.
