How are you feeling?
All four moves, one to focus on each session
- Wait. Say the word once, then three slow seconds of silence.
- Smallest hint first. The first sound — not the whole word.
- Praise the effort. Name what they did, never “you’re so smart”.
- Notice the slip. Say exactly what was different before you model it again.
The moves, by name
- Threebeat — gives the quiet that lets a younger child find the word.
- Firstsound — offers the smallest help that could unstick them.
- Kindword — names the effort, not the talent.
- Spotslip — catches the exact slip — and keeps it kind.
A case · you decide
Linh’s little brother
Linh — a 17-year-old whose little brother answers in English when Grandma speaks Vietnamese
At dinner, Bà asks Minh a question in Vietnamese. Minh, seven, answers in English. Bà goes quiet.
Linh speaks enough Vietnamese to get by — enough to be the bridge. Minh thinks Vietnamese is “Bà’s language”, not his.
Linh has ten minutes most evenings. The question is how to use them without turning it into homework.
How does Linh start?
Minh gets a tone wrong and laughs. What does Linh do?
The language doesn’t live in an app. It lives in who keeps speaking it — and Linh just became one of them.
A case · you decide
Threebeat and Firstsound: the word that will not come
Threebeat & Firstsound — the quiet move, in Linh’s session with Minh, seven
Linh holds up a picture of the cat. Minh knows this word, mèo. He frowns and says nothing.
Threebeat: after a question, three slow seconds of quiet. They feel long to the tutor and short to the child.
Firstsound: if the child is still stuck, offer the smallest help that could unstick them, and stop there.
Three seconds pass. Minh is still quiet. What does Linh do?
The tutor’s job is to make the finding possible, then get out of the way.
A case · you decide
Spotslip and Kindword after the tone slip
Spotslip & Kindword — the noticing move, in the review on day four
Minh wants to say “má” (mom) and says “ma” (ghost). Bà laughs. Minh’s face falls.
Spotslip catches the exact part that slipped, and keeps it kind.
Kindword names the effort or the strategy, never the talent.
What does Linh say?
Kind and specific is not a compromise between the two. It is what makes the correction usable.
Brain break
What next? Pick a door
- More like this LexForge Is it a word or not? OrthoForge How does this script write sound? DecodeDojo Can you break this long word?
- A bit harder DocentForge What story will your object tell? PhonemeForge Where in your mouth is this sound? CognateForge Which words are distant cousins?
- Something different ProvenanceQuest Who should own this object? PrimeDojo Why is un-multiplying so hard? PhoneDojo How is your phone keeping you on it?