Nessy??????

[mystery]

Know anything about this computer based package? My year 5 child is going to be doing it once a week during literacy lessons. I do not know how long for.

I am wondering what she will gain from it and what she is missing from the lesson as only part of the class have been selected to do it she tells me.

The school tests reading age and spelling ages regularly. Before Christmas at the age of 9 years 7 months she had a reading age of 12 years 7 months and a spelling age of 12 years plus.

I do not know which tests they used.

[berks_mum]

Quickly googled for it and the message on their website says -

'Nessy has a different approach to learning that is ideal for those who have fallen behind and lost confidence. Since 1999 Nessy strategies have been helping children to succeed. Research has proved that strategies which develop understanding are more effective than memorisation '

Your DD is clearly much ahead than her age. You may want to check with the school to get a better idea.

[mystery]

Thanks. I have enquired about how she is doing in spag etc as this is never mentioned on our reports. After she has done one session of these computer games I am going to ask a bit more. It is striking me as odd in some way.

[KS10]

I think it depends on how it's used. If she's only playing games I'd be concerned, but if the school is using the accompanying worksheets it's quite good. Have they given you any indication as to why your DD is part of this group? We used Nessy with our 1-1 students who had a poor grasp of phonics.

[mystery]

No they haven't - but I only know about it because my dd has been gazing at the different children using me each day and telling me it says words out loud and they type them in - like pan search pocket.

She liked the look of the monster.

It all sounds very promising.

No mention of worksheets.

I looked at the demo version and it doesn't look great for synthetic phonics either - full of stuff about "when two vowels go out walking the first one does the talking", magic e, silent letters, words ending with the er sound etc. None of it looked that logical or thought through to me.

I wouldn't buy it for my work and I don't really want my dd doing it. She'd learn more reading a dictionary for 20 mins!

[KS10]

I wonder what the rest of the class will be doing. It does sound more than a little odd.

[bexamy]

My daughter does nessy fingers because she is dyslexic and apparently being able to touch type helps. Whether this is the same thing you are talking about or not however, I don't know.

[pheasantchick]

I thought this was going to b a thread about Nessie, as in Scotland's lake monster!