Procedure — how to proceed?
A series
Most series are built as follows: they teach a skill or a concept and contain several steps. Step 1 (or step 01) is the first step — sometimes there is a step 00, but that is rare. The difficulty of the exercises increases step by step. Within a step there are several exercises, and their difficulty increases very gradually.
If you want to teach a series to a child, you start with the first exercise, then the second, then the third, and so on. Do them all, unless it is really very easy for your child — in that case, you move on to the next step. If your child ever struggles in the next step, you can always go back to the step they were at before.
If you want to test the child to find out whether they have mastered the skill or concept taught by a series, you have them do the exercises of the last step. If the child can do all the exercises of that step, it means they have mastered that series.
What to do if the child gets the exercise right?
If they get the exercise right, you press the checkmark in the green circle and give them a token. You do not repeat the exercise — you move on to the next one!
What to do if the child gets it wrong?
If the child does an exercise and gets it wrong, you press the white cross in the red circle (this takes you back to the beginning of the same exercise), then you have them do another exercise in the same step. If, after doing the other exercises (targets) in that step, they still cannot do this exercise, you redo the previous step (in that series). If it is the first step of the series, you may need to redo one of the series that cover the prerequisites.
If you think it was just a careless mistake and they should have been able to do it, you can give them the chance to try again. But do not do this too often: they might learn that they do not need to pay attention because the exercise will be shown to them again anyway. In any case, you never repeat an exercise more than 3 times. If, in a step, the child does all the exercises and moves on to the next step only after mastering it, then they will make very few errors in each step.
There is one exception: teaching the first words. When teaching isolated words, if the child cannot do the LR-, you redo the W- (without reinforcing their response), then redo an LR- that they know (without reinforcing either), then present the LR- they could not do again. If they can do it, their response is reinforced. To test whether a child has retained the words taught with the W-, you can have them do the Q- of the same target or the LR-. For some children the LR- is harder than the Q-, so you need to test both.
Can I prompt my child so that they don't fail?
No, you may not give a physical or verbal prompt. Watch 'n Learn has been built so that the child is able to do it without any prompt from you. If the child is attentive and you wait until they have mastered a step before moving on to the next, then they will be able to do everything on their own. It is therefore essential to check whether the child has the prerequisites for a series — this information is mentioned in the learning path with the tables of all the series.
The idea behind Watch 'n Learn is that the child must listen, then hold a word in memory over time (and therefore repeat it in their head) in order to give the right answer at the end. If you give them the word as an echoic prompt, by whispering the whole word or saying the first syllable, they do not need to remember it themselves! And that is exactly what we do not want to teach them. We want them to make the effort to hold the word in memory for a long time, and to realize that if they do not, they will not be able to give the right answer at the end and will not receive a token. It is this — and not the prompt — that will teach them to stay attentive during the waiting delays. That is why we teach them to wait and to hold the word in memory for longer and longer, as with the series Appariement Objet Couleur.
Moreover, if the child needs a prompt, they will get one through certain exercises. For example, to prompt them to name the person when asked "who is it?", the exercise only offers people as answer choices.
What to do if the child gives the right answer but does not pronounce the word correctly?
If the child cannot yet pronounce words well, we obviously accept their answer when they name the object correctly — even if they say "boo" for "book" and "side" for "slide". However, you must be able to clearly hear the difference between the words your child produces. We reinforce every approximation of the words and we do not correct the child. Their pronunciation will improve over time — we have always seen it happen. In parallel, we work on echoics, alternating with gestural imitation at the table, as seen in the training.
What to do if the child does not understand what is said in the video?
Since the idea is to teach the child to learn new words in a sentence, we assume that if they cannot manage it, there are probably words (or combinations of words) that they do not understand, and we try to identify those words. Then we look for exercises where those words are targets, to teach them separately. Once learned, we repeat the exercise they could not do. If they still cannot do it, we check the exercise (maybe someone really does speak too fast or is unclear — in that case, tell us!) or we seek help from a Watch 'n Learn consultant.
What you should not do is slow down the video or repeat what is said more slowly. The goal of Watch 'n Learn is to teach the child the skills that will allow them to follow conversations in their environment, where everyone speaks fast! So they need to get used to it. Out of necessity, the first videos show people speaking slowly, then we speak faster and faster and more and more naturally.