Phonics and Hypnotherapy

Happy New Year everyone! 

To start 2013, I have done a two day phonics course and I've just got back from my first ever session of hypnotherapy. 

Phonics

I am registered with an educational temp agency who offer courses from time to time. Before Christmas they sent an email offering a subsidised phonics course for a new phonics scheme called Read, Write Inc. As I am currently on a placement within the Foundation Phase (3-7yrs) and plan to work in this phase as well it's very useful to have experience or knowledge of as many different phonics schemes as possible. I already have experience of Jolly Phonics and of Big Cat Phonics and I now have training on Read, Write Inc. 

Although my brain is absolutely exhausted now, I have learnt a LOT. RWI is based on 100% participation, all children participate in all of the session. They work in partners and talk to one another, discussing and practicing with one another rather than the teacher/ta singling out individuals every time. There are a lot of acronyms, signs and 'cheers'. These include: MTYT which is My Turn Your Turn, the teacher says a sound, the children repeat back, this comes with a hand gesture (teacher indicates themselves for "My Turn" and the children for "Your Turn". There is also TTYP (talk to your partner) as well as Special Friends (a digraph or trigraph, two or three letters that form a sound-ay, igh), Perfect Partner Position (shoulder to shoulder), Same Sound Different Appearance (sounds like ee, ea) 

The course covered lesson plans, how to teach the phonic sounds right up to complex words. They discussed expanding vocabulary and phonical logic and so far. It was amazing. 

The scheme also 'links' their own texts to other "real" books to expand reading. If the children are being taught "The Foolish Witch" a RWI Storybook the teacher will read Hansel and Gretel to them and they might have some picture books and other fairytale books in the reading area, all to expand their understanding, vocabulary and imagination. 

A key idea of the scheme is Fred Talk. Fred is a frog (a soft toy) who only understands Fred talk, not full words or letter names. Fred talk is phonic by phonic s-a-d rather than sad. The idea behind this is that if children understand Fred talk they can encode, if they can speak in Fred talk they can decode. If children can encode, they can read. If they can decode, they can spell. Both key objectives in education. 

RWI also runs a Keep up scheme not a catch up. And they offer an adapted programme for older children who are low ability readers. This scheme follows the same schedule as the younger scheme but uses subject matter and format more appealing to year 5/6 children, they have magazine style anthologies and modular workbooks rather than Fred and the storybooks. 

As with all these things, there will be bits of it I will be able to use more easily than others, if I were in a 'RWI school' I would be using this all the time and would be getting better and better at it. 

Hypnotherapy

The beginning of this is that I'm a bit of a sumo wrestler. I have tried various diets over the last 5 years, nothing works, or if it does it's very short term and I end up gaining more weight than I lost anyway. Very frustrating. I would like to have a gastric band, but can't afford it privately and also am worried about the risks involved. Hence: no gastric band. 

I saw an ad for Hypnotherapy Gastric Band. No surgery, no infection risk, no worries. I have been looking into it for a while and read a load of reviews and so on. I found a deal on Groupon for 3 sessions. I had my first session today. I was pretty nervous because I've never been hypnotised and I didn't know what to expect! The hypnotherapist was very nice. He did an initial consultation bit asked my weight, height, bmi, past ways of losing weight, what my weight loss goal is, any medication and all that. He explained what he thought would work best for me. He explained what the results could be expected to be. He said a realistic goal is 3 stone in 6 months. Which sounds awesome to me. It's my best friend's wedding in July so if, by June, I've lost 3 stone, I'll be a happy bunny. 

So, he then did some hypnosis. Which was bizarre. I was fully awake the whole time, at no point did he wave a pocket watch in front of my face... but I was relaxed, and chilled out and a bit 'drifty'. He spoke to me and clicked his fingers and touched my head and shoulder as he was talking. I remember him counting down from ten and then I remember him saying 7, 8, 9, 10. And I felt like I'd been asleep for a week. 

We talked a bit, he asked if I felt ok, did I remember what he'd told me? (nope!) and he explained what he would do over the next two sessions. The last thing was a quick exercise, he told me to focus on my hand (held in front of my face) and clicked his fingers a few times, moving my hand away from my face and said I'd remember everything he'd told me, as and when I needed it. 

I have my second session booked next Friday morning and I will have the 'preparation for the placebo procedure'. 

I don't know if I feel any different. But I feel very focussed and bright eyed and bushy tailed (he didn't hypnotise me to feel like a squirrel!) and we shall have to wait and see. 

I'll keep you posted.