The Caves at Eagle Ridge

Part Two

Parents: Please be patient of the following reading guidelines that I have provided for those parents new to helping their child to strengthen basic reading skills. The format for Part Two will be similar to that of Part One for The Caves at Eagle Ridge but with added exercises that are designed to enhance your child’s problem solving skills and strengthen your child’s vocabulary development.

'Understanding to remember' is how every reading lesson is structured. It is important to help your child realize that when errors are made, correcting these errors will be part of the learning process. Your responsibility will be to re-teach every lesson to a level of automaticity. Each exercise requires 100% comprehension in order to make future reading concepts more easily understood. Explain to your child that every repeated exercise brings them that much closer to understanding and remembering.

You may have to re-teach a lesson more than twice. It is my belief that if you stay on the path that I have set before you, it will result in your child achieving reading literacy. The Part Two reading exercises are a basic review of earlier phonological reading concepts such as prefixes, blends and digraphs, along with consonant endings. I have introduced vowel sounds in the 2nd and 3rd syllable. Your child’s comprehension of syllabication and vowel sounds will be tested.

To start, assess your child’s ability to syllabicate the words in column one of the word list. For example, treach/er/ous, cas/cad/ing and plum/met/ed. I recall watching an old Sesame Street program where Ernie was explaining the word plummeted to preschoolers as they watched one of the Sesame characters plummeting from a balloon. My four year old exclaimed when a water glass fell and broke, “The glass broke into smithereens!”

I am absolute in my belief that your child is capable of decoding every word on the word list. If not, they failed to acquire the basic skills needed to complete the exercises that I have designed to strengthen your child. I don’t wish to make words such as plummeted, precipitous, outcrop and undertow too difficult and possibly too challenging for your child to manage; it’s only that I wish to make my storytelling that much more exciting and to provide the mental imagery that I experienced when I first began to read.

Every reading lesson from now on is designed to broaden your child’s vocabulary skills and auditory memory development. I don’t wish your child to just manage these exercises, I expect them to excel with every exercise.

My program won’t work for your child because of what I ask in these skill development exercises but because of how much time and patience you are willing to invest to help your child grow. By now, I expect your child to breeze through all vowel sound exercises. All multi-syllable words such as plummeted, precipitous and courageous that are found in the first column will be expected to become part of your child’s everyday conversational speech. If your child can't syllabicate these words, then your child may need a review of syllabication or it’s possible that your child is not ready for my reading program.

You may have to teach the meanings of embankment, original and unwittingly during oral reading using vocabulary pictures, videos and/or personal one-on-one explanations meant to help your child follow the story outline. Keep in mind the RULES for the prefixes be, de, and pre as having short ĭ, first syllable vowel sounds.

I have included words with regular first syllable short ĕ. It will be up to your child to discriminate which words have short vowel sounds in the second syllable of the Short Vowels-First Syllable review. I have included several words that will challenge your child’s ability to identify the various vowel sounds from words in the story.

Many adults are unaware of the correct pronunciation of words such as remind (rĭmind) and review (rĭview) where the first vowel is short i and not long as in words such as pre-cip-i-tous, and prĭpare, prĭserve, dĭfine , dĭmand, rĭmember, rĭmain and rĭmove. Remember (rĭ), I didn’t make up these rules, I only teach them. Few, if any teachers, know how to teach the pronunciation of the following vowel sounds correctly.

Story Word List

The Caves at Eagle Ridge

Part Two

Claude let out a scream of terror as he plummeted backwards toward the rocky floor of the cliff. Neil, our school’s strongest gymnast, saw Claude just as he was about to fall. Anchoring himself to the nearest tree root with his left hand and with both feet planted firmly onto the side of the chute, he reached out and somehow managed to grab hold of Claude’s belt with his right hand. Both of them slammed into the wall face of the cliff but both were safe. After a brief time out to recover, Neil and Hugh went ahead to reconnoiter the trail. They came back with the news that our path had divided into a Y and there was zero indication which path would lead us to the Canyon Falls River. Barry noticed the sun’s position had moved westward which helped us to decide to choose the path on the left. After three hours of hiking, Mary hushed us to listen up, “Listen,” she exclaimed, “I hear the echoing sounds of falling water.” Somehow we must have hiked past our original destination of the lower falls and unwittingly stumbled our way to the top of Canyon River Falls.

By now everyone was hungry and my suggestion for an early lunch of freshly caught fish sounded better than what most had packed to eat. I searched my kit for my wooden handheld fishing line and baited the hook with a dragonfly lure. Twirling the baited line in a wide arc, I flung the line almost halfway across the river. After several failed attempts, I hooked my first fish. My next cast was unsuccessful, resulting in my line being hooked on a sunken tree limb at the edge of the fast flowing current. Since it was my only fishing line, Neil decided to free the line and dove into the shallows at the river’s edge. He was almost to where the line was snagged, when without warning, the river’s undertow pulled him under. He was being dragged toward the falls and certain death. Our attempts to save him from being swept over the falls were in vain.

Between the river’s banks, at the very crest of the falls, was a tiny outcrop of land with several trees. Mary and Claude began hollering for Neil to swim toward the outcrop. I left the group and ran upstream and grabbed the rope Neil had suggested we bring on our trek. I wound it tightly around my waist and dove into the water in an attempt to save my friend. The current grabbed me as soon as I got near to where Neil went under. I spotted Neil in the middle of the current, he could barely keep his head above water and was losing his fight against the current.

Everyone kept shouting for Neil to swim toward the only place that could save him from being swept over the falls. As luck would have it, the current actually saved his life by bringing him close enough to the island’s edge to where he was able to climb to safety. As soon as he was able, he began looking for a long stick or branch that he could use to help save me. The current didn’t bring me any way near to where I could reach the safety of the outcrop. Neil saw that I was losing my battle to swim against the fast moving current. He waded dangerously close into the river’s rushing clutches.

I used all the energy I had to swim toward the tree branch. I made a lunge for its end but missed. Missed my last chance to keep from being swept over the falls. Then I felt Neil’s strong grip on my arm as he hauled me to safety. Death for the time being, would no longer have me in its savage grip as it continued its momentous, precipitous journey to the rocks below.

Neil had saved my life, even though I thought I was the one to save him from a similar fate. Now we needed to figure out a plan to get both of us off of the outcrop and to join our friends who were screaming with relief from our scary escape. I still had the rope wrapped around my waist and once we rested, we began to plot a plan to cross the raging river’s rush.

There was only one tree at the edge of the outcrop that was close enough to attempt our plan to swing by rope in a wide arc over the falls to the side of the river where our friends were waiting. There were only a few small branches above the main branch on which we were perched. Our main worry was whether the branch was strong enough to support our weight as a launching site that was less than eight feet above the swirling river’s rush. The branch began to sink close to the grasping waves that were reaching out at me as I climbed out to fasten the rope’s end to a sturdy knot closest to the tree’s trunk. Neil said he would go first because he weighed less. He secured the rope over his right shoulder and with both bare hands clutching tightly, he said he was ready. No one spoke a single word as Neil signaled for me to push him toward the crest of the falls. If the rope broke or if Neil let go too soon he would fall into the current and be swept over the falls. Just as planned, Neil soared over the falls and continued his courageous flight toward the shore. He let go of the rope as soon as he was safely to the side of where our friends were waiting to slow down the momentum of the swing.

Now left alone and clinging firmly on my perch, I noticed the bobbing end of the rope at the crest of the falls, my chance of joining my companions seemed remote. I worked my way along the anchoring branch only to find that the rope had slipped its mooring while Neil was arcing his way over the falls. As I moved toward where the knot had attached itself, the branch began to bend toward the raging rapids. Any equipment I could use to fetch the rope was in the cache of supplies on the other side of the river. Any quick movement and the rope would slide off and float over the falls. If I lost the rope, I had no way of joining my friends. My weight lowered the branch to where I could feel the splashes of the water as it cascaded over the falls. If I were to retrieve the rope, I would have to crawl another two feet of narrow branch with the raging current below and its precipitous journey to the rocks below.

...To be Continued....

Girls and boys! “Tune in next lesson, same time and same website” to find out whether Frank will manage to stay alive to be able to finish the story!

Exercise # 1: Short Vowel Sounds in the First Syllable

Every word to be hand-written

Exercise # 2: Long Vowel Sounds in the First Syllable

Exercise # 3: Irregular Vowel Sounds in the First Syllable

Exercise # 4: Synonyms

Words with the same word meaning

Place the letter of the synonym on the left in the brackets to the right:

Exercise # 5: Short Vowel Sounds in the Second Syllable

Exercise # 6: Long Vowel Sounds in the Second Syllable

Exercise # 7: Homonyms

Words that sound the same but are spelled differently

Find the matching homonym, then place the letter that is the matching homonym in the bracket beside its description. Write the matching homonym from the word list in the space provided.

Exercise # 8: Vowel Sounds in the Third Syllable

Exercise # 9: Antonyms

Words that mean the opposite

Find the word that means the opposite. Place the letter of the word in the bracket of the phrase:

Exercise # 10: Meanings of the words purchase and perched

Write a sentence, using both the words purchase and perched in the same sentence:

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Exercise # 11: Consonant Sounds of C and G

Exercise # 12: Questions and Answers

Answer all questions in sentence form using your very best handwriting skills. Parents, teach your child to use the words in the question as part of answering the question.

1. Who was the first hiker to hear the roar of the falls?
   
   

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2. What were Neil and Hugh doing when they reconnoitered the path above the cliff?
   
   

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3. Who saved Claude from falling from the cliff?
   
   

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4. Describe how he was able to save Claude from injury.
   
   

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5. What kind of fishing equipment did Frank bring on the trek?
   
   

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6. Why did Neil dive into the river?
   
   

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7. What caused Neil to go under the water in the middle of the river?

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8. Who saved both Claude and Frank from harm?
   
   

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9. In your own words describe the plan to get Neil and Frank.
   
   

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ANSWERS: For parents for the above exercises

Exercise # 1: Short Vowel Sounds in the First Syllable

Every word to be hand-written

Exercise # 2: Long Vowel Sounds in the First Syllable

Exercise # 3: Irregular Vowel Sounds in the First Syllable

Exercise # 4: Synonyms

Words with the same word meaning

Place the letter of the synonym on the left in the brackets to the right:

Exercise # 5: Short Vowel Sounds in the Second Syllable

Exercise # 6: Long Vowel Sounds in the Second Syllable

Exercise # 7: Homonyms

Words that sound the same but are spelled differently

Find the matching homonym, then place the letter that is the matching homonym in the bracket beside its description. Write the matching homonym from the word list in the space provided.

Exercise # 8: Vowel Sounds in the Third Syllable

Exercise # 9: Antonyms

Words that mean the opposite

Find the word that means the opposite. Place the letter of the word in the bracket of the phrase:

Exercise # 10: Meanings of the words purchase and perched

Write a sentence, using both the words purchase and perched in the same sentence.

For example:

• I purchased a pizza by phone while perched in my tree blind up a tree.
  

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Exercise # 11: Consonant Sounds of C and G

Exercise # 12: Questions and Answers

Answer all questions in sentence form using your very best handwriting skills. Parents, teach your child to use the words in the question as part of answering the question.

1. Who was the first hiker to hear the roar of the falls?

   The first hiker to hear the roar of the falls was Mary.

2. What were Neil and Hugh doing when they reconnoitered the path above the cliff?

   Neil and Hugh were looking for the best path to take.

3. Who saved Claude from falling from the cliff?

   Neil saved Claude from falling from the cliff.

4. Describe how he was able to save Claude from injury.

   Neil was able to save Claude from injury by anchoring himself on his left side and then reaching out with his right hand, he caught hold of Claude’s belt.

5. What kind of fishing equipment did Frank bring on the trek?

   Frank brought a wooden hand-reel with a fishing line on the trek.

6. Why did Neil dive into the river?

   Neil dove into the river to unhook the snagged fishing line.

7. What caused Neil to go under the water in the middle of the river?

   Neil was caught by the undertow in the middle of the river.

8. Who saved both Claude and Frank from harm?

   Neil saved both Claude and Frank from harm.

9. In your own words describe the plan to get Neil and Frank.

   Something similar to this:

   Neil and Frank planned to use the rope to swing in an arc over the falls to the side where his companions were waiting.

Next:

The Caves at Eagle Ridge

Part Three