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This is the best description of fluency I've seen thus far.
I'm curious about the SAFMEDS idea. I've had such bad luck with flash cards....but obviously SAFMEDS are a different mode of using flash cards than anything I've tried.
I have a scheme afoot to see whether I can incorporate fluency teaching the homework given for C's Earth Science course next year. Earth Science will be his first Regents course; he'll need to pass a Regents exam at the end.
I'm now hearing that kids in the high school hire tutors to help them study for Regents exams; I've also heard that kids who don't hire tutors pass Regents but not with Honors (Honors level is 85% correct, iirc).
I seriously don't want to be hiring tutors for Regents practice - but beyond that, I seriously want C. to be remembering what's been covered in Earth Science as he goes along.
I'm gearing up to try some kind of fluency teaching with me, too - possibly a SAFMEDS arrangment, assuming I can figure out what that is and how it works.
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3 comments:
Hi Catherine,
This reply may be late, but if you are still looking for SAFMEDS info, maybe this'll help.
Say-All-Fast-Minute-Each-Day-Shuffled=SAFMEDS
("Saff-meds")
These are similar to flashcards but differ in specifics, such as construction of the cards, that the practice emphasis is on speed and accuracy, that they are practiced at least daily, etc.
A more detailed description of those differences and links to further information and references can be found here:
http://precisionteaching.pbwiki.com/SAFMEDS
I've always used flashcards this way with anything that has a lot of content. I did this because I knew the school wasn't doing that.
My youngest is in Spanish. From the beginning he made his own flashcards and religiously added to them. He's aced most tests and quizzes and finds it all very easy. At this point, flashcards feel like a game to him and are easier to get basic content "in," rather than study from a book or notes. This won't always work, but for classes like a foreign language, it has.
His friends, however, are struggling. One parent asked me if my son studied all of the time and I told her about the flashcards. None of the strugglers had thought of it. The teacher had mentioned it would help, but I don't think she pushed it very hard.
We got the idea from a gifted high-schooler who aced her AP Spanish test. She told us her secret was her homemade flashcards.
It makes sense. It's a lot of content and rules to get in before any real thinking is required.
Susan S
I depended on homemade flashcards to memorize entire glossaries of technical vocabulary in Spanish: forensics, legal, firearms, medical, etc. Many of these terms I was understanding for the first time in English and I also had to learn the Spanish equivalent (I'm an interpreter).
I think the process of making the flashcards myself helped me retain the knowledge. Even still, it's not the perfect solution. Before interpreting in a specific matter, I always review the terminology right before so that it's accessible in the short term memory bank.
Over the course of my interpreter studies, I am certain I learned thousands of words in a relatively short time. Flashcards were a big part of that.
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