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Students at Camp Sharigan Captured 120 Words Yesterday

9/20/2019

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At the Camp Sharigan reading camp yesterday in Corpus Christi, Texas, the children captured 120 tricky words. We never tell children that they missed a word; we tell them that the word is tricky and they need to capture it. When they capture a tricky word, they learn to spell it and understand its use and meaning using a 4-step process. 

 After they learn a tricky word, they write the word neatly in their best handwriting, decorate it with colored pencils and cute rubber stamps, and hang it on a make-believe poison ivy vine. Each leaf on the vine can have anywhere from one to five words written on it. Thank you to the wonderful volunteers, and to St. John's United Methodist Church, which provides space and funding to make this non-religious program possible. 
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This picture shows the poison ivy vine from just one day, yesterday's 120 captured words. Wonderful work by the children who are learning to read better and better every day.

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This is the Match the Sound station at Camp Sharigan, where students train their brains to think of words in terms of sounds. 

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Pop-up Books Help Children Learn to Read

9/19/2019

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The children are making their own book today at Camp Sharigan in Corpus Christi.  They have made a pop-up book that they are very excited about. Creating the book helps them learn to read and follow directions. They will be writing a story for their book.  Each child will work up to their ability in story writing.  

They will be reading their stories on Friday at 5:30.  We hope you will come and join us on Friday. St. John's United Methodist Church, Community Life Building. 

We are still in need of volunteers.  If you can help, please come.
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Camp Sharigan Reading Program Is in Full Swing!

9/18/2019

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We have 21 children enrolled in Camp Sharigan this week in Corpus Christi.  The ages range from 5 years old to 6th grade.  The stations are progressively arranged so that each child works at their ability level.  We are also stressing working together in a group.  As we tell the children, we are a team--not a competitive team.  We are a cooperating team; we help and support each other. 

The children captured and have been learning 112 words in the first two days. This week so far we have stressed oral reading, handwriting, spelling, writing paragraphs, three types of comprehension, oral fluency, vowel sounds, blending consonant sounds, and listening skills. 

For handwriting, we are working to strengthen hand muscles by tracing and cutting so that children will be able to improve their handwriting.  Research shows that how a child shapes their letters plays an important role in learning to read.  For the theory behind the importance of handwriting in teaching reading, see my reading blog.  The children are working hard.  The improvement in handwriting clarity from Monday to Tuesday is amazing.  

For reading, we have been working at the vowel center. We are working on vowel sounds and consonant blends.  We worked on distinguishing letters b and d yesterday.  At the vowel center, we are learning the 7 sounds for letter a.  Instead of memorizing word lists (we never memorize), we teach students to break words down into letter sounds.  We use vowel clustering. Vowel clustering is a teaching method that stresses the relationship between the written letters and the oral sounds used to form words.  Vowel clustering also teaches, comprehension, spelling, handwriting, word meanings, and working with compound and multi-syllable words.  To succeed in the classroom, students need to go beyond just recognizing that letters represent sounds.  They need to learn how to work with letter sounds.  We use a vowel center game called Match the Sound.  The vowel center (placing words on the floor game board by their letter sound) makes it easy.  Being able to visually see the different sounds helps struggling students learn to read.  However, not every student finds it easy to identify vowel sounds.  Vowel clustering teaches students to break words down into individual sounds and then put those sounds back together to read the word.  

For more information on the teaching methods that we are using, see my reading blog. 
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Do You Know a Child Who Needs Help in Reading in Corpus Christi?

9/14/2019

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Camp Sharigan Project for Reading!


The Camp Sharigan Project is looking for 1st through 3rd grade children who need help in reading. 
St. John’s United Methodist Church at 5300 South Alameda Street in Corpus Christi (phone: 361-991-4342) is sponsoring a FREE reading clinic for children in the first through third grade who need help in reading.  This is a free, non-religious program; St. John’s is simply providing financial support and classroom space. We use the latest research-based techniques, including vowel clustering and group-centered hands-on intrinsic motivation. We also use 12 different teaching techniques.  We believe that every child can learn to read, and we look forward to helping them. 

This year-long program will run on school days from September 16th to May 7th, 2020.  We start on September 16th.  All sessions are held from 4 to 6 PM in the Community Life Building at St. John’s UMC. Children must be registered by parents, and parents provide transportation.
Some of our success stories have been:
  • A student who failed for nine straight years in public school is now reading.
  • A student diagnosed with ADHD and failing in reading moved up two grade levels in one year.
  • A student diagnosed with dyslexia and whose parents tried everything, including expensive private one-on-one tutoring, learned to read and moved up to beginning chapter books in one year.
  • Six children who entered the program reading at the pre-K level ended the year reading at the 2nd grade reading level.  Only one child in the group was a first grader.
  • One student started at the pre-primer level (pre-K) and ended the year at the third-grade reading level, while a second grader started the year reading below first grade and ended at the fourth-grade level.
  • Three students moved up four grade levels in reading, four students moved up three grade levels in reading, and eight students moved up two grade levels in reading in one year. 
We invite you to contact us if you know of a child who struggles or has problems in reading or comprehension.  We would be happy to talk with you.  We mostly work with first through third graders, but if we have openings, we are happy to include fourth-graders as well. 

Sessions start on September 16th.  There’s absolutely no charge. 

Dates and Times
We kickoff with a week-long reading camp on September 16th.  The children will come each day Monday through Friday, 4:00 to 6:00 PM  for Camp Sharigan.  This is a hands-on reading camp that concentrates on reading, writing, comprehension, spelling, and oral fluency. 

After that first week, starting on September 23rd, we will settle into our year-long schedule, meeting only on Monday and Thursday from 4:00 to 6:00 PM.  We will still stress reading, writing, comprehension, spelling, and oral fluency, but the Reading Orienteering Club curriculum for this portion of the program will also stress the individual needs of each student.  All sessions are 4:00 to 6:00 PM.
 
Please register by contacting:  
 
Elaine Clanton Harpine, Ph. D. 
clantonharpine@hotmail.com 361-867-8040
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Check out my free Reading Blog 
 
If you teach a child to read, you can change the world.
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    Elaine Clanton Harpine

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