What is a-minute-a-day? *

A-MINUTE-A-DAY is a series of three photocopiable books offering intensive, focussed practice of key skills – which are the building blocks of reading and maths, using precision-teaching based games.

Each game requires the child to give 30 correct verbal responses within one minute.

No writing skills are involved.

a-minute-a-day ensures that the homework is :-

• ..... a shared experience for parent and child.
• .... cost-effective in terms of teacher-time/ materials.
• .... relevant to the work currently being undertaken in school.

What is precision teaching?

Precision Teaching is an intensive method of simultaneously monitoring the accuracy and speed of a child’s responses. Although highly effective, it is time-consuming and usually only practical with an individual child, or small group.

ACCURACY + SPEED = FLUENCY

How does a-minute-a-day make use of precision teaching?

A-MINUTE-A-DAY enables teachers to offer all of their pupils systematic practice and monitoring of progress on a daily basis i.e. it retains the flavour of precision teaching.

It does however drastically reduce the amount of teacher involvement, by involving the child’s parents (and frequently, the whole family!)

IS a-minute-a-day a scheme?

The games are not sequential. The teacher decides upon the skill which needs to be assessed/ developed for an individual child and then selects the relevant game.  Both books contain their own recording sheet, which can accompany the child’s on-going school records – Useful evidence which will help avoid repetition, when the child changes class or school.

how would i use a-minute-a-day?

Identify the skill you wish to assess/ sharpen,  photocopy the relevant game and using a timer, ask the child to give you as many correct verbal responses as possible within one minute. This result will be the base-line.

The child then takes the sheet home – with an explanatory letter (ready to photocopy in each book) and practises with a parent/helper for no more than 10 minutes a night, followed by a one minute test (score entered on the back of the sheet).

The child returns the sheet  to school each day and all that is required of the teacher, is  a-minute-a-day to monitor progress.

which children could benefit from a-minute-a-day?

A-Minute-A-Day  can be adapted to suit the needs of every child.

Remember - It is unimportant where a child begins. It's how much they improve, that counts. Often the slowest children are able to enjoy the most success, because they have the room for the greatest improvement. 

Children love competition - provided that the pressure is not too great.  Let them compete against themselves.  If they can answer six questions one night, make sure they can answer eight the next, and so on.

are there any other ways I could use AMAD?

Yes. Your imagination is your only limit!

You could have a whole class competition, using of one of the 3 content free games included in each book. Just tailor the questions to challenge each child (or group), and photocopy.

If most of the class would benefit from one specific game but there are less able children who may be excluded, just blank out the questions, re-photocopy and insert more appropriate words/numbers.

The content –free games may be used to test  additional sight vocabulary or mental maths questions. The most able children will have no difficulty in reading thirty words in one minute, so……throw them a challenge -’Now try to do it in 30seconds’. If they can’t -  rest assured, they’ll be back next day, ready to show you !!! 

If you feel that to learn 30 phonically unrelated words (as in sight vocabulary) is too challenging for less able children, it may be wise to limit the number of new words to suit their ability, and to use the remaining spaces to repeat randomly and therefore reinforce, those words offering most difficulty.

Encourage the children to challenge their family – It’s a great motivator - They love to beat their parents and siblings! 

ABOVE ALL    -    Have Fun!!!

*A-Minute-A-Day Phonics (1^st Edition) used extensively throughout the UK from 1993 in main-stream, special needs schools and by home-educators.  (2^nd Edition 1999)  (3rd Edition 2018) (4^th Edition 2019)

A-Minute-A-Day Maths (1^st Edition 1999) (2^nd Edition 2018) (3^rd Edition 2019)

A-Minute-A-Day High FREQUENCY WORDS (1^st Edition 2018)  (2^nd  Edition 2019)