Bannatyne Reading Program -- SHIPS AND PLANETS ACTIVITIES LIST

Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program

GETTING STARTED

SHIPS AND PLANETS ACTIVITIES LIST

ARRANGEMENT OF THE MAIN LESSON ACTIVITIES IN THE SHIPS AND PLANETS WORKBOOKS

The list of ACTIVITIES below gives only the ACTIVITY headings of the actual lessons as well as Objectives and some Notes. In the Workbooks and Teacher Guides these are expanded into a series of detailed STEPS by means of which the Activities are taught by the Teacher and learned by the students.

NOTE ON INITIAL TRAINING FOR TEACHERS: The Copper and Pink Vowel Color Sections of the Galleon Teacher Guide are very detailed so as to provide a comprehensive initial training for teachers who are new to the Bannatyne Program or who are entering the Ships and Planets Workbooks for the first time. This initial training carries over to the more condensed instructions for the Color Sections which follow in all the Ships and Planets Teacher Guides.

KEY WORDS -- ACTIVITY ONE

MAJOR OBJECTIVES (of Key Words Activity for all Ships and Planets Workbooks and Teacher Guides)

In the entire Bannatyne Program students learn to understand, read, write and spell almost every key word and word part they will encounter in elementary schools (and numerous words in higher grades) through a fully integrated multi-sensory-motor, code-breaking, psycholinguistic-based system of instruction. They also acquire a lot of other skills, content, information and enriched comprehension, most of which involves the use of complete sentences.
The Key Words Activity is the main teaching and student learning section of the Bannatyne Program and therefore it is essential to teach every new phoneme, grapheme, blend, chunk, and other material exactly as indicated in the various Steps below.
Please refer to the previous page of this Teacher Guide showing the relevant Student Workbook page as you follow the content below.

DETAILED OBJECTIVES

Students learn:

The meanings of the Key Words as well as extending and enriching both their vocabulary and comprehension, while being encouraged to use full sentences with correct syntax and grammar.
To identify and articulate the individual vowel phonemes/graphemes in the Key Words.
To link all the phonemes in the Key Words through grapheme-to-phoneme association.
To split (separate out) all the phonemes in the Key Words as they look at the linked graphemes.
To blend all the phonemes in the Key Words as they look at the linked graphemes.
To recognize auditorially and vocally the parts of the Key Words such as blends, digraphs, syllables and core (root) words.
To trace motorically the graphemes in the Key Words while simultaneously articulating the phonemes sequentially.
To print (hand-write) the Key Words so that the phonemes in them are being simultaneously articulated as the graphemes are hand-printed.
To chunk (overlearn in memory) certain common words and word parts of the Key Words.
To recognize the use of English grammar and punctuation in Key Words and sentences.
To practice and polish auditory closure skills on the Key Words as a game.
To read the Key Words with fluency until the rate of reading is efficient and smooth.

STORY WORDS -- ACTIVITY TWO

NOTE: The Story Words are the main words students need to know before they read the Story (which is Activity 8). Because there are a relatively large number of Story Words that have to be prepared for the Story, they are divided into two segments titled Activity 2 and Activity 5. In between these two segments comes Activity 3 (the Cartoon) and Activity 4 (Be An Artist). Almost all the Objectives for the Key Words (see above) apply equally to the Story Words.

CARTOON -- ACTIVITY THREE

OBJECTIVES AND TEACHING TECHNIQUES: The main purpose of the Cartoon is to enable students to realize that the printed word can be associated with humor so that their reading (for this humorous kind of pleasure) is something that can be enjoyed. This is important in a school setting where most reading is necessarily serious and humorless. Humor is a great motivator. Also, meaningful conversational skills are very important to reading for meaning.

BE AN ARTIST -- ACTIVITY FOUR

OBJECTIVES AND TEACHING TECHNIQUES: The main purpose of the Be An Artist Activity is for students to freely recall the meanings of words they see in print. This recall memory for image-meanings is very important when learning to read. Why? Because, in this complex process, the students have to first decode the printed word into the auditory-vocal inner word, and then go from that inner word to its inner visual-object meaning which, in its turn, is then illustrated by the student motorically on paper. Even when writing a word from memory on paper we have to work through the process of moving from inner meanings (a) to the auditory-vocal word (phonemes), then (b) moving to the inner symbol codes, and then (c) writing those sequential symbols (graphemes) motorically on paper. The more often students get practice moving "every which way" through these complex psycho-motor memory processes the easier it becomes, and the Bannatyne Program constantly gives them that practice in a variety of ways in its numerous Activities.

STORY WORDS (Second set) -- ACTIVITY FIVE

NOTE: The Story Words are the main words students need to know before they read the Story (which is Activity 8). Because there are a relatively large number of Story Words that have to be prepared for the Story, they are divided into two segments titled Activity 2 and Activity 5. In between these two segments comes Activity 3 (the Cartoon) and Activity 4 (Be An Artist). Almost all the Objectives for the Key Words (see above) apply equally to the Story Words.

DOT GAME -- ACTIVITY SIX

MAJOR OBJECTIVES

To review most of the previously learned words in this current Color Section.
Students also learn to read the review words in small sized print.
Specifically, students are correctly identifying the color of the first main vowel phoneme in each word as they read it, so the teacher can know (a little later) if it was correctly articulated even when not close by.
In the Dot Game, students also associate the reading process with enjoyment and fun.

Note that in the Dot Game students join dots between which words are printed. Students have to decide the color-code of the first vowel in a word and use the appropriate color pencil to join the dots. When all the dots are joined the students see a colored picture related to the Story.

SPEED READING -- ACTIVITY SEVEN

OBJECTIVES

Note that the Speed Reading Activity consolidates and enhances all the previously learned aspects of the words presented in Activities 1 through 5. In the Speed Reading Activity this is accomplished by having students practice reading the words at faster and faster speeds to develop fluency and quicker recognition skills through chunking. This chunking-at-speed can only take place after the meanings, linking, splitting, blending, reading, tracing, color coding, printing and initial speed reading of the words have all been thoroughly taught in the previous Activities.

Research shows that even in fast adult speed readers, the auditory-vocal areas of the cortex are firing rapidly, along with most of the other areas of the brain. It would seem from this and other research that there is no such thing as visual sequencing when reading, and therefore all so-called sight methods of teaching reading are not doing what they purport to do. Any student who may have seemed to have learned to read using sight words has learned to read phonetically in spite of them. (See: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS)

In the Bannatyne Program Speed Reading Activity all the previously learned auditory-vocal, motor-kinesthetic and individual grapheme-recognition processes are pulled together into an integrated cohesion, one in which their mutual functioning is "tightened" at accelerated speeds. In this Activity it is common for students to reach word reading speeds of between 100 and 150 words-per minute. Incidentally, the speed reading for fluency which occurs in several Activities in the Bannatyne Program including this one, is the answer to those who think learning phonemes causes students to read too slowly.

There are important reasons for using individual words in the Speed Reading Activity, and not prose passages. The main reason is that we want students to recognize each word for its own sake, and not to anticipate it or "guess" at it from a prose context. (Context reading and Speed Reading will be carefully taught in the Story Activity.) The Speed Reading Activity allows for additional comprehensive word review, and it also allows the author to intelligently select the words on the page and their order of presentation. Speed Reading is a far superior integrating and chunking-in-memory process than flash cards or similar methods because Speed Reading (a) trains left-to-right eye-tracking, (b) trains down the page tracking, and (c) the acceleration-of-reading process is controlled by the student--not the teacher. Besides, reading words in this manner against a stopwatch is highly motivational. All students love it.

STORY -- ACTIVITY EIGHT

MAJOR OBJECTIVE

Students will enjoy reading a story with minimum frustration because the words have been prepared in previous sections.

INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES

Students will learn:

to read and enjoy a continuous story
to develop fluent prose reading
to develop full prose comprehension in terms of recall, inference, deduction and induction--there is a lengthy Question and Answer Activity taught right after the Story to develop all these skills conversationally

NOTES:

This note applies only to the first Story in the Galleon Workbook: This Story "Odd Ox Rocks" contains only one vowel phoneme, namely Copper /o/, in each of its two graphemic spellings, namely o as in top and a as in wand.
This Story also uses only the simple consonants and the specific blends, digraphs, etc., that have thus far been taught in the Bannatyne Program.
This approach is in keeping with the basic policy of the Bannatyne Program of never presenting students with any phonemes, graphemes, blends, digraphs, or other clearly definable word parts, grammar, etc., in the Story until after they had been thoroughly taught by the teacher in a structured lesson format.

QUIZ -- ACTIVITY NINE

MAJOR OBJECTIVE

To assess, through a reading activity, whether or not Students have had a simple comprehension of the Story, and their ability to discriminate between very similar printed words.

DETAILED OBJECTIVES FOR QUIZ

Students learn:

to read and answer written questions on the content of the Story
to remember and understand the content of the Story as a Comprehension review
to discriminate carefully chosen pairs of answer words, especially the word endings
to search and locate information by scanning lengthy prose passages (if necessary)

WORD GAME -- ACTIVITY TEN

MAJOR OBJECTIVE

Students create as many words as possible by re-sequencing the graphemes in the (few) given stimulus words at the top of the Workbook page. This involves the students in a continuous, spontaneous, recall written spelling of words they create without any visual or spoken prompts--unlike dictated spelling. Dictated Spelling will be taught in Activity 12.

DETAILED OBJECTIVES

Students learn:

to sequence and re-sequence graphemes into a list of words of their own making
to spontaneously spell the words they have made in writing
to understand the graphemic structure of words (e.g., a vowel to every syllable)
that using graphemes to make new words can be enjoyable
they overlearn the stimulus words presented at the top of the page by referring to them very frequently

UNSCRAMBLE GAME -- ACTIVITY ELEVEN

MAJOR OBJECTIVE

Students come to understand that the words in any sentence have to be sequenced syntactically in a certain order for that sentence to communicate meaning.

DETAILED OBJECTIVES

Students learn:

Syntax is important in sentences
Correct word sequencing in sentences is linked with its meaning
To write (print) a sentence on lines with left to right tracking
To solve a puzzle systematically with minimal guessing by observing cues and clues.

SPELLWELL MEMORY GAME -- ACTIVITY TWELVE

MAJOR OBJECTIVE

Students learn to spell, by printing accurately, selected Spellwell Words.

DETAILED OBJECTIVES

Students learn:

To spell specific Spellwell Words accurately. (The Spellwell Words have been selected from the Key Words section.)
To print the words from memory.
To use a technique for memorizing the spelling of words.

CROSSWORD PUZZLE -- ACTIVITY THIRTEEN

MAJOR OBJECTIVE

Students learn to spell words by printing them from the deduced meanings of the Crossword Puzzle clues, and to enjoy a spelling game.

DETAILED OBJECTIVES

Students learn:

To spell specific words accurately without a dictated stimulus.
To spell the words from their meanings.
To spell the words while printing them.
To deduce word meanings from puzzle clues and to detect the word from their meanings (this is a natural meaning-to-word handwriting situation).
To enjoy the Crossword Puzzle as a game, and with it spelling.

NAME IT GAME -- ACTIVITY FOURTEEN

MAJOR OBJECTIVE

Students learn to spell words by printing them from the deduced meanings of the Name It Game picture clues, and to enjoy another spelling game.

DETAILED OBJECTIVES

Students learn:

To spell specific words accurately without a dictated stimulus.
To spell the words from their illustrated meanings.
To spell the words while printing them.
To deduce word meanings from picture clues and to detect the word from their meanings (this is a natural meaning-to-word handwriting situation).
To enjoy the Name It Game as an activity, and with it spelling.

CREATIVE WRITING -- ACTIVITY FIFTEEN (Only in Saturn and Neptune Workbooks)

NOTE: Students do NOT color-code vowels in the Creative Writing Activity. Only lead pencils are used. Have ready a good supply of lined paper sheets so that students can continue their story on extra pages.

OBJECTIVES: Students are given the opportunity to write creatively using a dramatic picture and an introductory unfinished sentence as stimuli. They will enjoy making up a story if they are told they are great writers. The whole emphasis in this Activity is on creativity and therefore errors of any kind (even though corrected afterwards) are relatively unimportant. Students can use any words they wish, and they are not limited to words in the Bannatyne Program.

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NOTE: The Teacher Guide pages always include a completed Student Workbook page as well as extra information for the teacher to use when teaching students. Remember that the students provide the color by using color pencils.

Unfortunately on the web it is not possible to show you the actual completed Student Workbook pages for the activities because the download times are prohibitive.

The Bannatyne Reading Program is a comprehensive, integrated reading program, writing program, spelling program, language program, and comprehension training program. The Bannatyne Reading Program is unlike any other reading programs currently available. This means you will find many features which are only in the Bannatyne Reading Program. In some Commonwealth countries the program may be referred to as: Bannatyne Programme, or Bannatyne Reading Programme.