Me teach a lawyer to read!

A mother came over last night to see what this program is all about. She got so excited about it and she kept saying that her husband had problems reading. I guess she meant in the past but it sounded like the present to me. Then she said " I just wish my husband could be in on this". I said " Do you mean you want me to teach your husband to read". She just laughed and said no she was wanting him to come and see what they were going to put their boys in. Later in the conversation I found out the he is a lawyer. - Was my face red!!

Reading by Color by Helen Irlen

I have recently been introduced to a book called Reading by the Colors by Helen Irlen. She is presenting an idea that I have never heard of, that some children have difficulty reading because of the way that they preceive the written page. It is not a vision problem, it is a perceptual problem.
Some children get frustrated when they read for more that 5 minutes, they can never seem to get comfortable, they wiggle and try to get diff. positions. Reading becomes something they would rather avoid and this affects so many others things. Since they can't read, they may try music to the same end, they can't see the music score. Or, they may try sports but if it involves catching a ball they would probably miss it.
Helen Irlen has discovered that some children have double vision, dyslexia and other reading disabilites. For some the words move around on the page or look double or run like rivers. She has discovered that if the children look through an overlay of a certain colour. (different for all) the page becomes clear to them.
One of my students that will be coming to tutoring is going to be wearing a green filter pair of glasses. I will keep you posted how it turns out.

The new phonics room

I have added some pictures for you to see the transformation from a carport to a phonics room. In the bottom picture you will notice the car in the garage and the house having a purple door.
We enclosed the carport and used the siding from the now inside wall to put on the new outside wall.
My husband did most of the work himself, we bought all the windows at a garage sale (at a hardware store). The ceiling is slanted as we just put insulation , then pine boards right on the original roof of the carport. The floor is done with foam sqaures that we bought at Walmart. The floor is fantastic to work on and the kids love it. The down side to the flooring is the cats love it too, they love to sharpen their claws on it. The floor was very inexpensive ($1. per foot) and one great thing about it is that you can replace a piece very easily if it get stained or ripped. We put the floor directly on the pavement but yet it feels very warm to walk on.
I have heard of one phonics games that I think will work out very nicely with this new floor. You put a letter down on one of the squares and another letter on another square, you then say a word and the kids jump to the correct letter square of the beginning sound.
I bought the furniture at the thrift store. The long green cupboard is actually a baby change table. It works perfectly to hold my sentence strips right in the middle.
We finished the front of the house by painting the front door green and adding a flower box under the window. The door to the main part of the house is not visible in the finished picture. We didn't want to have two outside doors facing the front of the house so we put the entrance to the phonics room in an alcove so you can't actually see it from a front view.

School boards do not support home tutoring in Phonics

June 20,09

I wanted to mention that I took posters into the schools in town, I was not greeted with much enthusiasim. The principal said that I would need to get permission from the school board. I went to the school board office and the secretary was away. The girl that was filling in for her said that she would pass the request along but that it should be no problem, it looked like such a good idea.
After one week the school board phoned me and said they hadn't decided yet, this would have to go to someone with higher authority. After not hearing from them for another two weeks I finally phoned them and I was told "sorry". She mumbled something about it being part of their curriculum.
I was tempted to write into the heros and zeros in the paper to complain about the whole issue. I decided after some consultation with my family that instead of complaining about it I would be proactive in some way. I have started meeting the parents as the children leave school and handing out the flyers right to them. I think it has been quite successful and I have had a few phone calls from that.
I have put posters with rip off phone numbers on all the bulletin boards in town but I don't think I have had any calls from them.

Getting the word out.

Pretty much no one in this town has ever heard of Fun Family Phonics. How could I make at least 12 people believe in me and sign up their kids for next fall? My two students were done and I had no more leads.
I turned 60 this spring and I had already decided to take the month of August off so that I could collect CPP. I came up with the idea that maybe I should do a free phonics camp for one week, that way they would see how great the program is and then sign up their child. I think what gave me the idea is that I did a Summer camp for my first two boys last summer and at the end of one week the mom's comment was," I can't believe how much he has learned in one week."
About the same time that I made this decision, I was talking to the director of one of the biggest daycares in town and she told me that if I made up some flyers she would send one home with each of the children in her daycare.
I made up 1000 flyers and then proceeded to try to hand them out. I would like to share with you a few of the places that I passed them out. I first thought of going door to door and put them in peoples mail boxes but I realized that would take way too much time and perhaps not even get to homes that had children. Every preschool and daycare in town took my flyers and gave them to the kids. I still had a lot left so I started attending all the soccer games and tball games with my grandson and passing them out to the parents.
Because this is something free for children I have been able to advertise free in a lot of places that normally would have said "no " to me. I managed to get it on the community T.V. channel and in both our local newspapers in the free community announcements.
I only have about 200 flyers left so I have decided to go to the Canada Day parade downtown and put them in the windshields of all the cars.
At this point I have only got 2 spots left in the free camp. I have 5 kids signed up for the fall. These people have given me their $50.00 deposit so hopefully that means they will come. I have asked everyone that is coming to the free camp to come to my house and fill out a registration form. That way I am able to show them around my new room and give them a bit of a tour of the program. I then show them my fall schedule and tell them that if they want a choice time they should sign up now. There is so little time to fit kids in afterschool that I at this moment have already got 2 people wanting the same time
I will keep you posted for more ideas of how to advertise a new business on a shoestring.

Parent's Letter

This is a copy of a letter written by a parent which was published in the "heroes and zeroes" column of our community newspaper.

May 27, 2009

I wanted to thank you for making a difference in my son’s life. By teaching him to read well at an early age, you have surely opened up a whole new world for him. You have made learning to read an exciting and fun experience for him. He is very proud of himself when he can read really big words. It even surprises us, sometimes. He has never said that he did not want to go to his reading lesson. When I told him it was time to go, he’d immediately stop what he was doing and get ready. (I only hope that this would happen every time we had to go somewhere).
The Fun Family Phonics program teaches the students using multi-sensory techniques. This makes it fun for the student and they can learn without even knowing it! He enjoyed the story lines and learning the ‘stories’ behind why some letters change sounds when they are with other letters. It makes it easier for him to remember.
My son has recently told me that he wants to be able to read books without pictures. We have started reading beginner novels now and he is enjoying the longer stories he reads. Eventually, he said he wants to be able to read Harry Potter.
Learning to read has definitely been an asset in French Immersion kindergarten, too. His reading in French is also at a higher level than it would have been had he not been able to read at the level he is at. Being able to read in English has helped him read easily in French – he has already learned the ‘skill’ of reading.
He wanted to thank you for teaching him how to spell. Now, when Mommy and Daddy ‘spell’ words when speaking to each other in front of him, he will now know what they are. Mommy and Daddy can’t do that anymore – he knows what they are talking about!
We are very fortunate to have had this opportunity to enhance our son world of learning. Esther, thank you for your expertise, compassion and enthusiasm with his tutoring.

Sincerely,

This is a new blog to share my experiences in starting up a home business of tutoring in phonics.

My biggest concern right now is getting established in my community. We have recently gone through a lot of job turmoil here in Campbell River,with our major industry (a pulp mill) closing its doors. The challenge now is to get the word out to this town that I do phonics in my home,that I do a great job, that their children will love coming, and that they will learn to read, write and spell while by the time they graduate from the program. Hopefully, they will then decide that this is something very important and they should part with their hard earned money to send their child to me.

My strategies so far have been that I am undercharging the other place that does phonics in town by a considerable margin. I hope to raise my prices each year by a little bit.

Last year I had 2 students that continued through the whole year. I started with 5. One boy was a special needs boy that I tutored for 2 months. The father thought that I would be able to get paid through B.C. child day care subsidy but that never panned out. After 2 months we realized that I would never get any money from them so they stopped coming. Normally, my policy is that the children pay at the beginning of each month. I only took him without paying because he was a bit of a family friend, I didn't mind contributing a bit to his education. The second child only came for a couple weeks and her mom decided that she didn't really need it, besides she was already paying for her tuition at a private school and it was just too much money. Another boy came for a few months but when I stopped working for his mom she pulled him from my phonics. I was left with my grandson, who went free, and one boy that continued until he had completed the whole program. At the end, he could read at a grade 3 level and he was in french immersion kindergarten

What I learned from all this is that you really need to have a lot of students to actually end up with people who really take it seriously and will continue until the end. I have heard that some others will go until they feel that their child can read and then pull them, without actually going to the end of the year.