I am convinced that the number of repetitions we get on target structures is never enough. Combine that with our habit of introducing too many unknown structures (no curriculum can help that), and we have a recipe for confusion in the kids’ minds. Some people say 50-70 reps is the magic number, but for me it is somewhere upwards of 300.
It could even be that the biggest reason our kids don’t understand us is not our failures with SLOW, but that we don’t get enough reps on the target structures. I have recently changed to an entire day of PQA of the structures (Monday) before starting the story, but that is just the beginning of how I plan to attack this deficiency of reps.
I plan to study not only the beginning of the year activities that I already use as described on the resources/workshop handouts page of this site (Circling with Balls, One Word Images, Word List to start class, etc.), but also a new activity that is designed to put verbs much more at the forefront of what I do all year long.
Maybe the problem is related to poorly motivated kids and how they act as balls and chains on motivated kids. I don’t know what the reason is. But I know that we need more reps than we get.