di: Lesson spacing within week

[Christopher Duss]

Dear DI List,

Thanks to Betsy and Kerry for your thoughtful replies. I agree that he will
pick up spoken Japanese from his peers and am mainly working on reading
with him at home. He receives take-home materials on a monthly basis from
school, which I use to teach this. What I can do is change the Japanese
days to Funnix after he finishes all of the materials for the month. That
will give him at least some weeks of 3-4 days. He flew through the first 10
lessons without issue, so I am hopeful that this setup can work for him.
I'll check back from time to time with questions/concerns.

Regarding the program, as far as I know it is still the 2002-3 version. I
think it could be revamped and updated somewhat easily using tools I am
familiar with in Adobe CC. The biggest issues for me are image resolution
and audio volume. If anyone is interested in discussing further, please let
me know.

Best regards,
Chris

On Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 7:26 AM Kerry Hempenstall <
kerry.hempenstall at rmit.edu.au> wrote:

> RMIT Classification: Trusted
>
> Hi Chris,
>
> It is important to note that Funnix is designed as a 5 sessions per week
> program. Presenting it at 2 sessions per week may be workable if your child
> has developed the early phonological preskills with ease and is motivated.
> If you find that he struggles during the parts of lessons that are reliant
> on the mastery of earlier lesson content, then you may need to increase the
> number of sessions/week. Either way, there is plenty of built-in continuous
> progress monitoring, so it should become apparent if he begins to struggle.
> In your favour is that the program proceeds gently, with only 10% of new
> material presented in each lesson. You will have several days between
> lessons regardless of how you schedule the sessions, so you may be wise to
> revise that new material presented during the previous week before
> commencing the first new lesson of the week.
>
> I'm unsure which of your scheduling options is better. You could do, say,
> Mon-Tues, or Mon-Thur. Perhaps you could try the first option and see how
> it goes, and go to the second if he struggles. The downside of the
> consecutive days option is that it's a long time before the next lesson for
> him to retain what has been taught.
>
> For those unfamiliar with the program, below is some information:
>
> Funnix is a Direct Instruction beginning reading program designed for use
> within the home. It is based largely upon the work of Engelmann, who
> achieved significant success in reading instruction with earlier programs
> in a variety of education domains, including reading (Adams & Engelmann,
> 1996). Funnix is presented on CD-ROM, providing explicit training in
> phonological awareness and the alphabetic principle (blending and
> decoding), and is paired with written exercises to emphasise the connection
> between reading, writing, and spelling (Funnix, 2003). All skills are
> delivered in a cumulative and carefully sequenced order, and the active
> presence of a parent or other tutor is required throughout the program.
> About 10% of each lesson involves new concepts – the remainder reviews and
> applies familiar content. One objective is for children to build oral
> reading fluency to about 60 words-per-minute by the end of the first level
> of the program (120 lessons), and 90 words per minute by the end of Funnix
> 2 (100 lessons) (Engelmann & Engelmann, 2003). The program is designed to
> be presented 5 days per week.
>
> The parent’s role is to navigate through the 30 minute lessons, and to
> provide feedback and corrections when errors are made. The program is
> available for purchase from the Funnix webpage; thus, most parents can be
> expected to buy the program online, and employ it using the parent
> instruction disc with the included parent guide to assist them.
> Additionlly, there are various resources and demonstrations at
> https://www.funnix.com/funnix2012/download.htm#
> <https://www.funnix.com/funnix2012/download.htm>
>
> “Provides specific guidance for corrective feedback. See the Funnix
> Teacher’s Guide Rules for Presenting the Lessons, Basic Correction
> Procedures on page 15 for information regarding appropriate feedback; and
> see Sounds and Letters, Word Reading and see Story Reading, Correcting
> Story Reading Errors on pages 25–27 for information regarding corrections.
> Also see the following sections and subsections in the Parent Disc: Sounds
> and Letters: Correcting Sound Identification Mistakes; Reading Words:
> Correcting Sounds When Reading Words, Blue-Letter Corrections, Correcting
> Whole Words; Story Reading: Correcting Story Reading Errors, Reading the
> Fast Way, sub-subsection Correcting Story Reading Errors.” (Engelmann &
> Engelmann, 2003, p. 45).
>
>
>
> Few studies have been conducted to evaluate Funnix. However, the Oregon
> Reading First Center included it in a broad-scale evaluation of beginning
> reading programs. In a rating scale to evaluate a program’s theoretical
> adequacy, Funnix received a very high rating of 93% for its instruction of
> phonemic awareness, 81% for phonics, and 80% for fluency (Oregon Reading
> First Center, 2004). Jordan (2004), in a favourable review of the
> theoretical adequacy of the program for the Florida Center for Reading
> Research, also reported on a study in which Funnix was provided to 10
> pre-school children. Their scores on basic reading, letter-word
> identification, and story recall tasks increased from their pretest scores,
> but the study’s methodological limitations allow only that the results were
> promising, and further rigorous evaluation of the program’s effectiveness
> is required. For links to existing studies, see
> https://www.funnix.com/funnix2012/research.htm
>
>
>
> For further program information:
> https://www.nifdi.org/programs/reading/funnix-reading.html
>
>
>
> Details of purchase at http://store.funnix.com/
>
>
> <http://store.funnix.com/home/fnx/page_21_1/page_21/funnix_beginning_reading_funnix_2_dvd_package.html>
>
> *Funnix Beginning Reading & Funnix 2 DVD Package
> <http://store.funnix.com/home/fnx/page_21_1/page_21/funnix_beginning_reading_funnix_2_dvd_package.html>*
>
> A two-level comprehensive reading program that takes the non-reader to a
> beginning third grade reading level in 220 lessons. This package includes *Funnix
> Beginning Reading* and *Funnix 2.* We provide a printable version of the
> workbook for *Funnix Beginning Reading* and the reader for *Funnix 2* in
> this package. Other components are also included. The program is delivered
> to you on a DVD. See details for more information.
>
> Works on either a *Mac* or *PC.*
>
> *Computer requirements:* DVD drive. 2 GB of free space. *PC:*Windows 7,
> Windows 8, Windows 10
>
> *Mac:* 10.7 and above through 10.14. Not compatible with 10.15
> (Catalina). Program must be installed on computer. Cannot be installed on
> external hard drive.
>
> *Price:* *$38.00*
> ------------------------------
>
> Adams, G., & Engelmann, S. (1996). *Research on Direct Instruction: 25
> years beyond DISTAR*. Seattle, WA: Educational Achievement Systems.
>
> Engelmann, S., & Engelmann, O. (2003)*. Funnix reviewer’s guide: A
> consumer’s guide to evaluating supplemental and intervention reading
> programs*. https://www.funnix.com/funnix2012/PDFs/Reviewers_Guide.pdf
>
> Engelmann, S., & Engelmann, O. (2002). *Funnix 2: Reading*. Eugene, OR:
> Royal Limited Partnership.
>
> Engelmann, S., Engelmann, O., & Seitz-Davis, K. (2001). *Funnix: A tutor
> in your computer*. Eugene, OR: Royal Limited Partnership.
>
> Jordan, G. (2004). *Funnix Reading Programs*.
> https://www.funnix.com/funnix2012/PDFs/FCRR.pdf
>
> Oregon Reading First Center. (2004). *Oregon Reading First Supplemental
> and Intervention Programs* *Review*.
> http://oregonreadingfirst.uoregon.edu/downloads/instruction/curriculum_review/si_reviews/funnix.pdf
>
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Kerry
>
>
> Dr Kerry Hempenstall,
>
> Senior Industry Fellow,
>
> School of Education,
>
> RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* di-bounces at lists.uoregon.edu <di-bounces at lists.uoregon.edu> on
> behalf of Christopher Duss <duss.christopher at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, July 2, 2020 12:16 PM
> *To:* DI List List <DI at lists.uoregon.edu>
> *Subject:* di: Lesson spacing within week
>
> Dear List,
>
> I started Funnix for my son's 5th birthday this week. He loved the first
> lesson, so it is a good start. I do a morning lesson on a variety of topics
> with him 6 days a week (Mondays off as I go to work early that day). Since
> he is in Japanese school and we speak English at home, he needs more help
> with Japanese to keep up with his classmates. So I currently do 3 days of
> Japanese, 2 days of Funnix and 1 day of piano.
>
> Regarding lesson spacing, I had thought it was better to evenly space them
> during the week, so every 3-4 days for Funnix. Then I heard in the Funnix
> tutorial that it's best to do lessons on consecutive days if time is
> limited to reduce how much is forgotten (at least between the consecutive
> lessons).
>
> What is the community's view on this? He has a formal piano lesson on
> Thursday, formal Japanese lessons on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and no
> other English lessons. In this case what is my ideal schedule if I keep 3
> Japanese, 2 Funnix and 1 piano?
>
> Consecutive days would say Tuesday Thursday Sunday Japanese, Friday
> Saturday English, Wednesday piano. Then he has Japanese Sunday through
> Friday, English Friday and Saturday, and piano Wednesday and Thursday. That
> sound like a good plan? I usually let him pick which lesson he wants on
> Saturday (weekend after all!) but don't need to do that.
>
> Thanks for your input,
> Chris
>


-- 
Chris Duss
PicLily YouTube Channel <https://www.youtube.com/PicLilyEducation>
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