A joined up lesson - making the most of students' flashcards

Making a learning record with flashcards

I'm a firm believer of doing more with less - and a massive fan of good text books. Students need something familiar in the hands/bags, a structure they can grab onto and a bit of a routine they can enjoy diverting from...not glued to turning the next page at all, but able to thumb back through recognisable patterns, structres, chunks & lexical sets. And then have the confidence to be able to close the book, with learning internalised, push their English skills into deeper water with friends to help & to challenge.

Oxford Phonics World textbooks have a lovely set of flashcards tucked away at the back, which are a great resource to expand learning; introduce or review words (in this case CVC patterns), make sets or mix everything up! 

• Teacher tip = have each student mark each of their cards with their own favourite colour (important these are different, so you can unmix easily when you play games etc) before cutting them out. And give each student a ziplock bag with their name on, to prevent losses!

Here we went at 16 recently studied words (shoert i and e sounds). Quiet time to cut carefully = also time to recall the pictures/sounds (which are on the reverse side). Many ways to review at this stage - teacher-led or students challenging each other etc. 

Matching & categorising: Wordwall

There's a 'blank' picture dictionary at the back of the classbook, which I love, because the artwork is the same, but it is in alphabetical order (not by unit)...a subliminal dictionary skill implanted! My approach with strong students = take a card, find it in the picture dictionary, and 'do your best' spelling it (after you've sounded it out) logically. Then check on the back & high fives, noticing a consistent pattern with the middle vowel sound/spelling. Students can do this together & correct/reinforce/referee each other (including comments on letter writing/legibility!) or competitively. Either way, teacher is passive but actively monitoring output carefully & encouraging constantly :)

Using wordwall as a follow up - I love this as there are so many different formats of game you can select per set of words (in this case). The thinking bit = different images, but clearly the same item. Creating these sets, you can add audio - male/female voice, lots of dialects to chose from. Be careful that you use a consistent sound that you want your students to model/mimic (US, Kiwi or Scottish ones that bend vowel sound? Or consonant sounds that disappear into glottal stops?!). You can have wordwall 'pronounce' all your cards, both sides, or just the one. Or none. Think about what you want your learners to do!

Sound negotiating

I've found that the best arbiters in any dispute about sounds are my students themselves - their ears are as finely tuned as mine, and their 'varieties' of prounciation tend to merge towards 'an average' = where they probably need to be...provide a really good model/template first of course, and let them 'explore options' > then make sure they insist on each other complying with their consensus.

That way, it's not the teacher helipcoptering during a game (ha, a drill by any other teacher's book?!) but students paying attention when 'it's not their turn'...they're the referees. Unresolved? OK, ask the supreme authority if you need to!

I try to also apply this approach to letter writing. Coming down too heavily on an oversized/wonky/backwards/miniscule/mangled letter with the dreaded teacher's red pen can be detrimental. Instead, ask them to look at each other's output carefully...everything OK? High 5. 

My mum thinks I can't read or spell!

Refereeing each other!

Delighted to share the news that mummy is horribly mistaken, and that her soon to be 10 year old is battering all the reading & spelling challenges I can think of!

The pathway has been - not trying too hard at the start...on the carpet variety rug-rat class to get used to just doing 'different' stuff, being brave, singing out loud, jumping about & being a 'whole' learner. Making mistakes, exploring words & having fun.

Pushing on now with Oxford Phonics World (3) and Everybody Up series + Oxford Read & Imagine graded readers > sky is the limit. A 'bullet-proof" class as they dive into any & all activities beyond the predictable. Makes my Friday afternoons a lot to look forward to and always a challenge to come up with something new & challenging!

Being bold readers

Game in play today - first time my class had seen it = Chip-O

Fantastic outcome (no idea who won!) with reading skills above level; helping each other out, and also asking for help when a bit stuck (not really stuck, just unable to decode eg consonant clusters like 'truck' or 'flag' etc which we have not got to yet). When a game is not a waste of time!

Make your own game, kiddo!

Trying to make a game...the lad succeeded but I need to go back to the drawing board slightly!

I made this game!

Two ways of trying to achieve the same thing - read! Acquiring the vocab relatively 'easy' given the fun presentation tools in Oxford Phonics World...I really wanted to make sure we implement 'look at the words' and 'flip between the pages' fluency.

Personalised art work was lovely (but a week later "What's this?" had us both a bit stumped - bear?!)

Obviously, I've nicked this idea from somewhere (apologies & willing to add a mention but I've forgotten where the brain wave came from!). I do recommend it as a way to slow down a class/build in solid review (yeah, the old drill baby drill concept!). 

Game 1 was to match a word against his drawings (my writing, 1st letter in red, as I also 'edit' the class books/workbooks) from a choice of 16 word cards...intended to be unique so each card could only go in one place (top/bottom/left/right - but I messed up!).

I can do this!

Game 2 was the other way around. Match the book's flashcards to the four templates. No children were harmed making this game - but many brain cells were fired into learning mode :)

Give me a thumbs up if you like this idea?!

Smashing phonics on a desktop!

 You got the idea straight away...

You know your letter sounds, and your homework was great...letter writing is spot on and your pronunciation is just right. But the other student in the class is absent today & I really do NOT want to move on until they can also get the input to proceed. So instead of doing this at home (which is tough, because you need a parent to help you on a PC (or use their device & find the link from Google Classroom)...lets have some fun in-class, so you can read/spell/pronounce all the words you know, set a high score & gain confidence with not only your English, but peripheral tech skills too!

Check out this task (and you can choose various ways to play & also use a number of print options too) as a review 'game' for CVC words with central /e/ from Oxford Phonics World 2. Piece of cake to make (but no need, I aleady created stuff for all chapters for the first three levels!) and many ways to implement one-to-one, group work, books open or closed, asynchronous, in class or at home!

Rei the reader!

I want to read!

Adopting Oxford Phonics World as our 'go to' phonics resource/series at Luna International was a no brainer, especially with covid-induced needs for online resources/presentation tools. We love the clarity of the materials, the logical presentation & progression. I am not a fan of the North American drawl that undermines accurate pronunciation in the audio of some units...but, I am very picky.

Unfortunately, we now have little brothers & sisters not even needing to come to Luna because they've grabbed a sibling's classbook and submerged themselves into the learning!

Screen time smasher!

Big brother Yoshi I have known since kindy...and he's been learning with us at Luna as well for a quite while now. He used to hide behind his classmates & not say 'boo' to a goose, but no more - a confident reader, neat writer & speller, and almost glib with answering too easy questions! Loosing games no longer a 'problem' either :)

I've been told his five-year old brother Rei is #OPW fan number one! As you can see, he's an independent learner...and has had to have a home screen time limit for the OPW app imposed to 15 minutes (maximum!) daily. Oh my word - if only we had that 'problem' with our students :)

I blame his parents..

Not fair?

As you can see in the pic above & videos below, Rei is an independent learner already. So, dad will be out of a job soon (as well as me!). 

Just imagine if every five year old in Japan had this kind of leg-up from mum & dad before they even get to elementary school? Game changer! Goodbye 'romaji' crap & katakana cribbing. Well done mum & dad...and thank you dad for choosing Luna International again for your family...like your parents asked me to teach you & your buddies when you were at elementary school.

Turbo-charged learning like this could/should be a game-changer for Japanese children. Tragically, I doubt very many decision makers within MEXT or BoE have the first clue about how vital a grasp of phonics is...especially with the ongoing race to the bottom which is 'providing' language teaching to children in kindergarten & elementary schools (and JHS/HS) from the lowest bidder/freshest face on zoom or YouTube/flashiest app on some administrator's TikTok feed. 

Teacher says - almost nothing? Let the kids play!

Teacher said 'rip it up'!

It's been a while since I've shared our classroom activities here. My students inspire me, and I love how the simple things work best - we are more or less back face to face & done with blended zoom lessons - where we couldn't use physical resources...

Any teacher of young learners will tell you that the physical interaction of learners with their own resources, and their physical interaction with each other is priceless - and we are more or less mask free too (not a policy, just the mood).

You can see we are continuing to use online resources - really cool presentation tools & 'distracting' audio/video components. And of course you can see our students all have their own text books = physical resources we at Luna think are irreplaceable. 

You can see flashcard chaos? 

Let's get organised!

I see students managing their own stuff, sorting and saving - and helping each other. Gentle corrections and lots of unsponsored vocabulary spoken...I mean, no teacher talk time, but students prompting, checking, repeating. Teacher's job = shut up & listen! Sure, a few subtle corrections & non-verbal encouragements, nudges & thumbs up, but hey, the students are doing all the heavy lifting! All the non-involved (but attentive) teacher needs to do is a little bit of fine tuning of pronunciation/word substitution & make sure we all have the same number of cards.

Pro tip? Before you take flashcards out of the books (eg Compass's Sounds Fun or Oxford Phonics World) ask students to 'tag' their own cards with their own unique colour - a pink dot in all the top left corners, for example. Why? Well, any card game you play = they will need to unsort quickly! And give then a zip lock bag to keep their precious cards, and elastic bands if you want to save even more time & bundle sets/units together - I don't...the "sorting hat" scramble is another opportunity for learners to queitly/quickly re-process vocabulary & categorise/sort it. Another little win, sensei!

I think I'd estimate teacher talk time in these lessons at about 2 minutes/hour. As a game player - setting the standard/modelling output & answering "Jim sensei, what's this?" questions, & joking along (H told me to 'Go away!' instead of  'Go Fish!') fully involved - but as a peer & actually trying to loose the game itself. 

I have a cunning plan!

How much Japanese did the teacher need to speak? Nope, none.

How much Japanese did the students come out with? Precious little, apart from 'social'or game play reactions.

How much explanation went into the games? None - we started, and guess what, the students figured the rules/goals out for themselves & stress-tested their ideas - and then refereed when Jim-sensei tried to blatantly cheat!

 

October variety slideshow from Luna's classsrooms

I thought October was suddenly overwhelming with demands for Hallowe'en stuff, but I'm glad I was wrong and we could get on with some significant learning & laughter too!



As you can see, lots of phonics and reading, singing and physical interpretation too - every way to learn! We planted bags of bulbs too, along the edge of the car park...and forgot to label them, so spring should be a nice colourful surprise!

Workshop No. 4: Getting Maximum Results in Reading While Speaking

        My second in the series of reports I have written after completing the IIECT Teacher Training Program in Tokyo run by Ritsuko Nakata. As always feedback and comments are welcome. This workshop was presented by Naoko Saito & Junko Nakamura, entitled: Getting Maximum Results in Reading While Speaking

        The primal focus of the second workshop was how to develop the reading capability of young learners, an integral part of many young learners’ curriculum. Learning to read is no easy task, especially if you’re limited to 1 hour (or less) classes once per week, hence the significant importance of building a solid foundation by learning the English alphabet, the building blocks to becoming an accomplished reader, and their relation to sounds (or better known as phonics). From the alphabet we can build onto phonics and then progressing onto words and eventually sentences. If there is no foundation everything we build around it will crumble and fall, so it’s very important to get the basic right so learners don’t fall into bad habits early on. It’s also important to note that the students should know the meaning of the words and produce them orally before they attempt reading them. However, even just teaching the basic phonics sounds can be arduous and time consuming. This lead to the development of “MAT Phonics” so that students are able to, so they told us, learn all the sounds of the alphabet in just a few lessons. We were also told that in order to accomplish this successfully the students must already know how to say the alphabet correctly.

            The “MAT Phonics” method begins by teaching the vowel sounds in conjunctions with “MAT Vowel Actions”, these gestures helps young learners remember the short vowel sounds by replicating the shape formed by the mouth when saying these sounds. Next comes the consonant sounds. The consonants are split into four sound groups: “ee”, “e”, “ei” and “Mixed”. Once the consonants are split into their respective groups we implement something called “Phonics Math”, where we subtract the common group sound from the letter sound. For example the letter “b” belongs in the “ee” group and by applying “Phonics Math” we remove the “ee” sound to achieve the “b” phonic sound. Finally we have built our solid foundation and can move onto reading words and sentences by using these phonics sounds alongside some essential key words, some of which cannot be read phonetically (also referred to as sight words) that the students should already know such as; I, you, he, her, they, this, that, yes, no etc.

            Unfortunately I have had neither the time nor the opportunity to fully integrate these methods into my lessons. I have a habit on concentrating too much time on oral communication and not enough time on reading and writing, which is an aspect of my teaching that I want and need to change for the benefit of my students. On the other hand I have tried some of the suggested activities from the workshop, such as cutting up letters to piece together again and tracing the letters of the alphabet in the air with our eyes closed. I am very interested using the “Phonics Math” method but I am slightly weary that the concept may be a bit too difficult to grasp for some of the students. I guess there is only one way to find out.

            Although I did find this workshop useful and insightful, I am still slightly apprehensive about including more time to cover reading and writing skills during lessons. It’s something the students need to be exposed to on a regular basis so that they can progress, but I am fearful that there are not enough minutes in each lesson to cover everything satisfactorily. The MAT method mixes reading and speaking at the same time, and I believe this is the tact I must take to achieve a balance of reading and writing activities within my lesson plans. It is not enough just relying on the textbooks and workbooks as sources for reading and writing practice, I must diverge more from what I have become accustomed to by including supplementary reading resources such as the Oxford Reading Tree series or the Oxford graded readers.

Learning first letter sounds with Quizlet - on the desk, tablet, phone, online, offline, in bed....and now with your teacher's voice!

Yesterday afternoon, I spent most of the afternoon in between my kindy classes and my evening job, whipping together a series of flashcard sets for our new kindy+ class on Saturday afternoons. I did start this job on Monday, with a whole day ahead of me to scan, get creative, add audio etc...blog post coming very soon (more a rant, really) explaining why that did not go to plan! It took me an extra 24 hours to finish the job I thought would be finished by Monday lunchtime...

Quizlet, people, Quizlet. I love Quizlet. Last week I noticed I had made 666 sets of flashcards. That is a lot, but I was actually worried about the number - especially as we have recently hired Damian as well! He's fine by the way...I checked - he thinks the ceilings are leaking, but it's actually Holy Water!

Anyway, exciting new class on Saturdays needed a bunch of online support from us, especially as mums are iPhone savvy and keen to boost learning and language exposure outside of class. Each unit is now supported with a dedicated set of flashcards (our own audio being added this week, a big improvement on the computer generated default setting previously), and a number of extra sets with built in variety/increased challenges. Of course we use actual flashcards in class - and how! - and the children have their own sets...but who to play with at home?!

Here is a sample of a larger set, asking learners to match a group of images to a letter of the alphabet which has their first/initial sound in common. Easier to do than explain - take a look, have a try!



What do you think?  Here is the link to the other 'sets' in the 'class' http://quizlet.com/class/965611/ What other sets would you like us to add? Which feature do you like the best?

Why not register for a free Quizlet account for free at www.quizlet.com and join this class - or any of the other classes we have created?

We'd love to know what you think...use the comment tab!

Let's read

With a thunderstorm in the air & humidity very heavy, my super learners were not really looking like a team ready to learn. Sweaty, sleepy & headachey, we broke out one of my favourite boardgames for YLEs, "Chip Oh"

Very simply a matching game, written words on cards to pictures on the board, with the aim to connect 4 of your markers in a line. I like to play this game with 'open' hands, to stretch out the game/encourage reading each others' cards and building a strategy...Always milk your resources!

Teaming up works a treat too, takes a lot of the pressure off BUT increases the competitiveness, as learners can work off their partners' strengths etc. Lazy Jim-sensei refused to help anyone this time, as all words were within 'reach' of our reading abilities, and some realised they actually could do an awful lot better than they thought. Empowering game, unexpected winner ( Me!...but Shunta did all the work!), and relaxed kids. Win Win

WordFoto - now you can read a photo

 To be perfectly honest, I was scratching my head in a one to one class recently, with a very bright young lad wading through his (not ours) phonics book. It's a very dry affair; each page unimaginatively the same as the last, minute line art pictures as mysteriously unfathomable as they are hard to see.

There has to be a way to make this a bit more interesting, I was thinking to myself. I didn't want to make a list on the board (lazy, and just the same thing again). I thought about a mind map, but we've done that before.

Brainwave: WordFoto (find it here) app

I wrote the big 'ph' in fat chalk on the board + 'sounds like /f/' & took a quick picture. Then opened up the picture in the wordfoto app. There's a grey toolbar across the bottom.

• crop the pic if necessary; I wanted it nice & tight.
• words - tap this and then select "add a new wrod set >". add each word you want to see in the image as a new item
• style allows you to find a treatment of your picture you are happy with - pre-set transformations of your image as well as adding your word list in different fonts (compare ph set vs wh set below)
• finetune - does exactly that!

When you are happy with that, you can save to album or export to Facebook or by mail.

NB The images are not intended to be definitive lists of all the words in the English language with ph spellings as /f/, or wh with a silent h.  What posting to FB did was generate a blizzard of suggestions though (and some nice exceptions - shepherd & haphazard).

Now I can save these images to my YLs Evernote dossier too, for future reference. How have you exploited WordFoto? Would love to know!

.

We're engaged!

There's a really nice review game towards the end of "Sounds Fun 1" which our young learners have a lot of fun playing - nothing scary like words involved (to read).

In a digital era (and I am a big fan of web 2.0 and plugged in classrooms) it is nice to get retro with dice & erasers for counters! A personal philosophy is to get out of the way as much as possible - set up the activity and retreat, help out if necessary (and when asked properly!) and monitor.

Another thing I think is very important (and often missing) in kids' classes is the questioning role. Kids are asking questions incessantly in their native tongue, aren't they?! Just as important to be able to do so in English - and of their peers as much as of their teacher. In this case, asking teacher was a last resort. And as a last resort, I got to find out which vocab had gone in, and what hadn't. The nice aspect to this game is the likelihood of repetition, so players get the chance to remember for themselves/prompt each other/slag each other off if they have forgotten the same word three times over!

As you can see, the students are fully engaged with each other (actually demanding each other to hurry up & ask the question do they can answer 'their turn') and having a lot of learning fun. Student centred, loads of interaction, meaningful...

Use the same game template with your vocab, I am sure your students will enjoy!

Little readers - solving a problem

 I had a double page problem with my students the other day; we are learning first letter sounds but not reading. We are recognising a lot of pictures but still not exactly 'there' with the alphabet...and the 'review' section in our books is a minefield of words. I photocopied the pages (we used in class, copyright police, and they all have the books as well!), and chopped them up. Each student had all eight pictures of the story, with the caption. On a larger piece of paper, I made eight frames, and wrote the captions, as well as adding arrows to show the flow (not all cultures have the same cartoon reading 'rules').


In class, I wrote & read out the target words ie the caption/storyline on the board as well, and asked students to find the corresponding picute/caption. The captions were quite similar so required care. Compare "Tom is a monkey" to "Tim is a man". We pasted our agreed answers (quicker ones had to wait until every else was ready) into the appropriate frame. I deliberately do not have enough glue sticks etc to go around (at this age) because I want them to ask for things off each other & use 'sharing' language. A very good way to get 'Please' and 'Thank you' working!

The end result is in this audioboo; yes, they are mostly mimicking me I know, but this is the most they have ever 'read' in English, and they loved being able to 'do it'!

listen to ‘A very emergent readerboo’ on Audioboo

Related articles

• Using the Audioboo phone app (suesdemoblog.wordpress.com)

Quizlet - a powerful learner's tool

 Last week I wrote about this class and the importance of taking a break/blowing off steam.

This week, the flip-side of the coin = letting them get on with some powerful self-propelled learning! We have 'learned' the long /a/ sound/spelling rule, and exhausted the text book & workbook examples.

I ("Lunateacher") recently made a large set of flashcards on Quizlet featuring the long /a/ sound, and sat the boys down in front of a PC each. I was curious to see how long they would remain interested...turned out I had to drag them away before they gave themselves a headache!

They were variously challenged with the set - to match words to pictures, true/false, dictation, against the clock. Working alone and able to 'make mistakes' (I really like the inbuilt correction functions) the boys were powerfully motivated and engaged.

Why don't you try it out yourself?

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards | Study english flash cards

Word Trek - phonics game

I dug up an old game ("Word Trek" from Early Learning Centre)I've not used for a while yesterday, and my girls had a lot of success with it. Taking random cards, with common object pictured on them, the challenge is to find the two halves of the words by moving around tiles on the board. The dice only goes up to three, so a bit of strategy is required.

We played the 'harder' version, with long vowel sounds, which is just right for the work we are doing in class. After we got started there was not much need for me to get involved, other than repeating how words were pronounced. I didn't correct mistakes - they could check once they thought they had the word spelt out. Correct, move on to the next word. Wrong, start again (next time I think we'll change the card and start again).

Time to sink in

 It has been ages since we played My First Scrabble - mostly because we couldn't find the boxes!

What a difference a couple of months make! Last time we had tantrums and 'can't do it/won't do it' shenanigans - snatching, pushing, and hiding tiles.

We also had the rawest guesses about the words we were making before...today, Hinata especially literally flew through the words, choosing the correct letters regularly and begging for the next card! Sota hasn't been with us as long, but he too was putting sounds in order to solve the puzzles.

As you can see, the puzzle is colour coded, matching the tiles required. This makes scanning 26 letters much less challenging - the tiles are still in order so players get used to the run of letters without having to start at the beginning again, every time they look up. Finding a /t/ sound from 5 orange letters is much more manageable than rummaging a jumble of the entire alphabet. And the children were matching sounds to letters, saying the words suggested by the picture prompts, rather than relying on the names of the letters. A subtle but important difference!

Access our resources on and offline

In pre-school we are often using new flashcards, and sometimes mummies don't know what they are! We are going to share our materials through Edmodo this year, with each class having its own 'room'. All our classes will have exclusive access to the materials, songs, pictures, recordings, drawings, board work they have used in their class, every week.

We are making 2011 our year to share more of our materials with our students. One way we do this is through the site called quizlet. Check out the flashcards we used today with our pre-schoolers for the sound /b/ here. Notice you can hear the word if you click on the speaker icon next to the picture.


Try /d/ with this:

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards | Study english flash cards

Try this for the /g/ sound:

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards | Study english flash cards

If you want to see what else you can play with, search for sets made by "lunateacher" or "LunaJim".
If you have a smart phone, you should be able to download them to your device and play with them offline.

Full size avatars & beginner electricians

Apprentice electricians

 I was digging in boxes this morning before pre-school - you do that a lot when you've moved - looking for something or other, and instead found a cool bit of kit that I've never used. It's kind of hollow, neon spaghetti...with various kinds of connections to make interesting shapes with. I wondered if this might entice S away from mummy more easily this morning - worked a treat! He was so engrossed in it, mummy leaving was an inconvenience to his great tubing connecting plan! Boo hoo mummy!

Where's Morph?!

After a good night's sleep I knew I wanted to exploit the board some more (addicted!) - and this brilliant picture has me laughing still. Any fans of Tony Hart will recognise a "Morph" aspect to this shot. Classic moment, though I do say so myself. S was so thrilled with his life-size avatar he demanded a set, which he called his older & younger brothers. Naomi-sensei & I looked like slugs, and H drew two goats (not sure why!). On paper, S will not engage. Standing up & face on to his medium, imagination run riot :)

Wonderwall - A to Z at head height

Because we often have exams at the school, I don't want to plaster the walls with posters which we'll have to take down (and damage my fab paint job). While we were having lunch I realised I could probably just about squeeze our very nice A-Z flashcards across the wall, if they were on hooks. I was about half a centimetre short, but Y and Z are usually very close together, who will notice? I don't like big cards on the floor because if a kid jumps on one, they can squirt out from underneath and cause a nasty crash. They also get tatty very quickly. Head height is a very nice angle to work at.

H checks a vowel sound

The game we played? Matching initial vowel sounds of other words we know (and some new ones) with the samples left hanging up. Next time we mix up the order.

Consonant Clusters for pudding

I always look forward to my Wednesday lads because they bring an interesting mix of attitudes to class. Takuro wants to talk about football all the time (annoyingly Arsenal) & today he started drawing premier league teams' crests on the board; Toru is all business; Kunpei tries to avoid answering any difficult questions at all.

Boys ganging up on the teacher!

This class chuffs me to bits, because they can spell very well indeed. I like our classes to use a dedicated phonics book to go along with their regular class books; the Let's Go Phonics series is super. They are now quite confident of two and three letter clusters at the start of words (eg SPRing, SHRimp, STRipe, THRow, SCReam, CHip, SHop,) and at the end (eg biRCH, beNCH, wiTCH, piNK, wiNG, haND). No big deal? Wrong - this is a monster big deal in Japan, as katakana-isation of pronunciation usually mangles these combos hideously & terminally. These lads know they do not need to break up the sounds with extra vowels in between, or lob an extra 'o' or 'u' on the end. This avoids 'su-per-ring-u' (for spring) or 'win-do' (for wind).

So they can read, they can spell, they can roll out lovely pronunciation with stress in the right place and exactly the right number of syllables. BIG DEAL! To celebrate their great work, pudding and a quick A-Z vocab game that Jim lost at badly!