I hesitate to write a new post because I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but I'm afraid it can't be helped. As long as the education system continues to use the same methods to teach reading I will continue to sing the same song. Now I know you're asking yourself what set her off this time? It is unfortunately, the same thing that has been setting me off for the last 16 years.
I have just started with a new student who is 16 years old, and attends grade 11 at a local private school. Now one would think that the education would be better in a private school, if for no other reason than the parents are paying for it, but unfortunately, one would be wrong in that assumption. The results of his "Word Attack Skills Test" clearly indicated that he had absolutely no knowledge of how words are constructed. After the test I showed him the first "Word Pattern" card that I use to teach all my students. The pattern was _ o _ which demonstrates how an "o" would sound when placed between two consonants. When I asked him what the "o" would say in that postion he couldn't tell me and he had no idea how to figure it out.
Is there any wonder why a country like Canada, where we are about a spoiled as people can be, has an iliiteracy rate of 45%? That means that almost half of this country cannot read well enough to function day to day. Please tell me how anyone can justify that! DO NOT TRY TO TELL ME THAT MOST OF THAT FIGURE REPRESENTS ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE students because that is not what my 16 years of experience tells me. That 45% represents every day people who have attended school and worked as hard as they could, and yet they still cannot read or write successfully. Did you know that when a student enters the first year of university he/she has to write an english placement exam because the professors cannot be sure that the student will be able to read or write at the required level? These are young men and women who were born here and educated here.
Do you have any idea what it is like to be a teenager (which is tough enough ) and to be told that your reading level is below grade? Thankfully this is a very bright young man who has already recognized that he is struggling and just wants to find a solution to his problem. When I spoke with his mother she told me that he was excited and anxious to get started. He's got a great attitude which is going to allow him to progress quickly.
This young man is also dealing with idiocy that was foisted upon him when he was young. At the age of 5 it was determined that he had a weak eye and the doctors had him wear a patch over his strong eye so it would force his weak eye to work harder. The problem with the prescription was they patched his dominant eye. To explain further; as you know we are all born either right- handed or left- handed, but what you may not know is we also have a dominant eye which is usually the same side as the hand. This is because the larger side of our brain determines our dominance. In his case because his dominant eye (right) was patched his dominance was switched and his left eye became the dominant one.
There are many complications which can arise when someone's dominance has been switched. Having a dominant side helps us to define which is right and which is left, if the dominance is changed it can be difficult to tell left from right. It can also create problems in reading left to right across the page. When dominance is switched the brain tends to react by deciding that direction is not important so left to right or right to left is all the same. These can be the kids who flip "was" and "saw" "b" and "d" etc. The brain sees the difference in the letters, it just doesn't recognize the importance of the direction. These are also the kids who are told they have a "learning disability" and are treated as if there is something dreadfully wrong with them. The system needs to be able to recognize the difference between intelligence and programming (or in this case mis-programming). Remember reading is all about perception. If the perception is changed the abiltiy to read is changed, but the intelligence doesn't change.
So what more can I say! I'm also anxious to get started teaching my new student. I'm anxious for him to discover how wonderful the english language is and how easy it is to read when he is taught in the manner his brain wants to process information. I'm anxious to help him succeed in his ability to read and write. I'm anxious for him to learn the history of the english language and how the spelling of a word does make sense if you know the origin of the word. I'm anxious for a whole new world to open up for him and I'm grateful that I can be a part of that process of discovery.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Doing Their Best
Just when you thought it was safe to come back to the blogosphere, I'm back! It's been a few weeks since I posted anything. I was occupied with an unrelated issue, which unfortunately, has been resolved unsatisfactorily.
Did you watch the Olympics the last few weeks? I certainly enjoyed watching the athletes do their best for their countries. I don't know about you, but I've been going through a bit of a with-drawl the last couple of days. For two weeks there was something worth watching on T.V. Now we're back to the same old drivel.
Speaking of doing your best, wouldn't it be nice if the education system encouraged our kids to do their best? Even better it would be nice if they would equip the chidren with the tools they need. Now you have to know that I'm leading to another anecdote.
During my hiatus from the blogosphere I started working with a new student. She's 15 years old and in grade 10. The sad thing is she's barely reading above a grade 7 level. She's lovely and intelligent and she was beginning to get extremely frustrated with her inability to succeed when writing a test. In fact that's why she was referred to me. She was told that her struggle was "test anxiety". Text anxiety my great aunt Fanny, how are you supposed to successfully write a test on a grade 10 level when you're reading at a grade 7 level?
Her results quickly revealed that the reading method used to teach her was (yep you guessed it) Whole Language. When reading the words on the test she was fine until she came to a word she had never seen before. When that happened she was completely stymied. She couldn't even try to figure out the word, in fact it never ocurred to her to try. She would just pass on word after word until she came to one she recognized. When I told her the results of her test she was disappointed, but when I explained why and that we could improve her reading she cheered up.
Through the perceptual tests we also discovered that she is dealing with scotopic sensitivity which makes it difficult to read black print on a white page. When I placed a coloured overlay on the page it was much easier for her to see it. She also has cross dominance which may or may not be affecting her ability to read a page left to right.
We've only had two sessions to date, but I can tell that her reading is going to improve quickly. But now I'm back to the same old question. How was she allowed to get in this predicament in the first place? Why does the education system insist that it's psychologically harmful to fail a student, but refuse to see the psychological damage caused by continually passing a student from grade to grade when they haven't acquired the skills needed to pass?
Before I finish my latest diatribe I want to talk about one more pet peeve. This is for anyone who has attempted to teach a child to read. Please stop telling students to look for words inside words. It does not work and in fact makes it more diffecult to read. For example one of my students was trying to decode the word "moped". Now you would think that it would be a pretty easy thing to do, but his first response was to say "mop" because he had been taught to look for words inside words. Instead of using the "word pattern" to decode the word he fell back on the method he had been taught by the education system. It's been my experience that using this method causes more frustration than anything else. It all goes back to the same thing I've been saying over and over,which is you can't read successfully if you don't look at every letter on the page in the order it is written on the page.
Well it's now 1:30 in the morning and I've run out of things to say for now. But you know I'll have much more to say next time.
Did you watch the Olympics the last few weeks? I certainly enjoyed watching the athletes do their best for their countries. I don't know about you, but I've been going through a bit of a with-drawl the last couple of days. For two weeks there was something worth watching on T.V. Now we're back to the same old drivel.
Speaking of doing your best, wouldn't it be nice if the education system encouraged our kids to do their best? Even better it would be nice if they would equip the chidren with the tools they need. Now you have to know that I'm leading to another anecdote.
During my hiatus from the blogosphere I started working with a new student. She's 15 years old and in grade 10. The sad thing is she's barely reading above a grade 7 level. She's lovely and intelligent and she was beginning to get extremely frustrated with her inability to succeed when writing a test. In fact that's why she was referred to me. She was told that her struggle was "test anxiety". Text anxiety my great aunt Fanny, how are you supposed to successfully write a test on a grade 10 level when you're reading at a grade 7 level?
Her results quickly revealed that the reading method used to teach her was (yep you guessed it) Whole Language. When reading the words on the test she was fine until she came to a word she had never seen before. When that happened she was completely stymied. She couldn't even try to figure out the word, in fact it never ocurred to her to try. She would just pass on word after word until she came to one she recognized. When I told her the results of her test she was disappointed, but when I explained why and that we could improve her reading she cheered up.
Through the perceptual tests we also discovered that she is dealing with scotopic sensitivity which makes it difficult to read black print on a white page. When I placed a coloured overlay on the page it was much easier for her to see it. She also has cross dominance which may or may not be affecting her ability to read a page left to right.
We've only had two sessions to date, but I can tell that her reading is going to improve quickly. But now I'm back to the same old question. How was she allowed to get in this predicament in the first place? Why does the education system insist that it's psychologically harmful to fail a student, but refuse to see the psychological damage caused by continually passing a student from grade to grade when they haven't acquired the skills needed to pass?
Before I finish my latest diatribe I want to talk about one more pet peeve. This is for anyone who has attempted to teach a child to read. Please stop telling students to look for words inside words. It does not work and in fact makes it more diffecult to read. For example one of my students was trying to decode the word "moped". Now you would think that it would be a pretty easy thing to do, but his first response was to say "mop" because he had been taught to look for words inside words. Instead of using the "word pattern" to decode the word he fell back on the method he had been taught by the education system. It's been my experience that using this method causes more frustration than anything else. It all goes back to the same thing I've been saying over and over,which is you can't read successfully if you don't look at every letter on the page in the order it is written on the page.
Well it's now 1:30 in the morning and I've run out of things to say for now. But you know I'll have much more to say next time.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Grade 3 In 21 hours
Rather cryptic title isn't it? Let me explain. One of my students (formerly referred to as the little hockey player) did a reading test for me yesterday and his skill level has risen from grade one to grade three. This was accomplished in 21 hours. Hence the title of this post. When he started working with me he was only able to decode words at a grade one level. You can imagine how he felt about himself at that point. But yesterday, after succeeding far beyond his goal, he sailed out of here on cloud 9. He couldn't wait to tell his mom and show her his certificate of achievement and his prize. What he doesn't know is I feel ten times better than he does about his accomplishment. I know that now that he has been able to reach this one goal, he's going to reach higher and higher knowing that he can do anything he puts his mind and effort to.
I think that's all that I want to say on this post. I just wanted to celebrate this wonderful success with all of you.
I think that's all that I want to say on this post. I just wanted to celebrate this wonderful success with all of you.
Monday, February 1, 2010
"Frank" "Phonics" and FSAs
I was watching a great old musical about Annie Oakley last night. (Yes, I know most of you don't have the faintest clue who she was, but bear with me) In the movie Annie doesn't know how to read and is being taught by her younger brother. When she comes to a word she doesn't know her brother tells her to "sound it out". She pronounces "Fuh er a n kuh and then says, with frustration, "I did what you said and I still don't know what it says." This is a perfect example of one of the problems with "Phonics" ( I told you I would get around to "Phonics".) "Phonics" proponents believe that each letter has its own sound. In reality there are quite a few consonants that have no sound at all. They are nothing but mouth movement combined with air. Let's take a really simple word, like cat, for our demonstration. A "c" is nothing but air so if I were teaching how to "sound out" cat with "Phonics" I would instruct the student to say "cuh" then "a" and then the "t" would be sounded out as "tuh". Now there are some students who could say "cuh" a "tuh" over and over and their brains would never translate it into the word cat. Remember this has nothing to do with intelligence, it is , however, about perception. The space in time created by the false vowel sounds makes it difficult for the brain to perceive a real word.
One of the other problems with "Phonics" is when sounding out a multi-syllabic word it takes so long by the time you get to the end you forgot what you said at the beginning. "Suh tuh er u cuh tuh er a uhl" so do you know what the word is? I was just about to tell you what it is, but I think I'll wait until the end of this post. Now admittedly some of you will be able to decode it, but at least 30% of the population won't. For that 30% "Phonics" is a nightmare that does not make any sense.
The worst thing about "Phonics" is it gave us "Whole Language". If "Phonics" had worked for every student the academic geniuses would not have had to look for another way to teach reading. So for that reason alone "Phonics" is responsible for a myriad of crimes against struggling readers.
So you're probably asking yourself by now; she doesn't like W.L and she doesn't like Phonics (From now on I'll just use the letter P) so what does she like? That's a fair question, but before I answer I have some more information for you. The debate between W.L and P is really a debate about a right-brain approach to reading versus a left-brain approach to reading. To explain further W.L is a global, spatial right-brain reading method and P is a logical linear left-brain reading method. What is really needed for successful reading for everyone is a whole-brain reading methodology. That's what I like and that's what I teach.
I'll tell you more about that in a later blog. Right now I want to get to the third part of my title; FSAs. It is that time of year again when the teachers start complaining about the Fundamental Skills Assessments for the grade 4s and 7s. These tests are designed to assess the ability of students in those grades to read, comprehend and do math. Teachers say they are unfair and are not a true example of what the kids can achieve. They also say that the results of these tests should not be used by the "Fraser Institute" to grade schools.
No bloody wonder they're not a true assessment! When I looked at the reading test one of "my kids" had completed I was shocked at his work and I told him I knew he could do better. He informed me that he knew that, but his teacher had told the students that they really didn't need to do their best on the test because it did not count toward their report card. Have you any idea how angry I was at that moment?! The one thing I strive to drive into "my kids" heads is YOU ALWAYS DO THE BEST YOU CAN DO! Now some teacher is telling them it's okay to be mediocre because it's not important. Please explain to me why teachers complain about these tests and then tell the students they don't have to try. Is that logical?!
Why is it so bad for a child's knowledge to be tested? Why is it so heinous to assess whether a teacher is doing his/her job? Please please explain this to me. Real life is full of tests every day. What other employer is not allowed to assess the work of their employee? Believe me the parents of "my kids" expect me to assess their progress constantly,and there had better be an improvement or I lose a student. Those parents are not going to pay me to teach their kids to read if their child is not improving and why should they. Successful teaching is all about results. It has to be. I love these kids and their success is the most important thing in the world to me.
So the title of this post is Frank Phonics and FSAs and I think I've said what I wanted to say, although you have to know by now that I have more to say on these subjects. So I'll say good night for now. Please keep reading and as usual I would love to see some comments. Oh and by the way, for those of you who couldn't decode the word, it's structural. (Now do you see why I dislike "Phonics almost as much as I hate Whole Language?)
One of the other problems with "Phonics" is when sounding out a multi-syllabic word it takes so long by the time you get to the end you forgot what you said at the beginning. "Suh tuh er u cuh tuh er a uhl" so do you know what the word is? I was just about to tell you what it is, but I think I'll wait until the end of this post. Now admittedly some of you will be able to decode it, but at least 30% of the population won't. For that 30% "Phonics" is a nightmare that does not make any sense.
The worst thing about "Phonics" is it gave us "Whole Language". If "Phonics" had worked for every student the academic geniuses would not have had to look for another way to teach reading. So for that reason alone "Phonics" is responsible for a myriad of crimes against struggling readers.
So you're probably asking yourself by now; she doesn't like W.L and she doesn't like Phonics (From now on I'll just use the letter P) so what does she like? That's a fair question, but before I answer I have some more information for you. The debate between W.L and P is really a debate about a right-brain approach to reading versus a left-brain approach to reading. To explain further W.L is a global, spatial right-brain reading method and P is a logical linear left-brain reading method. What is really needed for successful reading for everyone is a whole-brain reading methodology. That's what I like and that's what I teach.
I'll tell you more about that in a later blog. Right now I want to get to the third part of my title; FSAs. It is that time of year again when the teachers start complaining about the Fundamental Skills Assessments for the grade 4s and 7s. These tests are designed to assess the ability of students in those grades to read, comprehend and do math. Teachers say they are unfair and are not a true example of what the kids can achieve. They also say that the results of these tests should not be used by the "Fraser Institute" to grade schools.
No bloody wonder they're not a true assessment! When I looked at the reading test one of "my kids" had completed I was shocked at his work and I told him I knew he could do better. He informed me that he knew that, but his teacher had told the students that they really didn't need to do their best on the test because it did not count toward their report card. Have you any idea how angry I was at that moment?! The one thing I strive to drive into "my kids" heads is YOU ALWAYS DO THE BEST YOU CAN DO! Now some teacher is telling them it's okay to be mediocre because it's not important. Please explain to me why teachers complain about these tests and then tell the students they don't have to try. Is that logical?!
Why is it so bad for a child's knowledge to be tested? Why is it so heinous to assess whether a teacher is doing his/her job? Please please explain this to me. Real life is full of tests every day. What other employer is not allowed to assess the work of their employee? Believe me the parents of "my kids" expect me to assess their progress constantly,and there had better be an improvement or I lose a student. Those parents are not going to pay me to teach their kids to read if their child is not improving and why should they. Successful teaching is all about results. It has to be. I love these kids and their success is the most important thing in the world to me.
So the title of this post is Frank Phonics and FSAs and I think I've said what I wanted to say, although you have to know by now that I have more to say on these subjects. So I'll say good night for now. Please keep reading and as usual I would love to see some comments. Oh and by the way, for those of you who couldn't decode the word, it's structural. (Now do you see why I dislike "Phonics almost as much as I hate Whole Language?)
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Perception, Perception, Perception
So it would appear I have discovered that blogs can be somewhat difficult at times. I spent hours last night and again today writing my latest post. Unfortunately, for me, when I went to press the publish button, not only did it not publish, but I was told the page was not accessbile. Of course when I finally got back to my post it was gone. So here I go again.
Perception is everything when it comes to reading successfully. It's not what the eyes see, it's what the brain thinks that the eyes see.
There was lost of candy in the dish so I told the kids to help themselves.
The little boy looked for the lots puppy in the park.
How many of you thought the third word in the first sentence was lots?
How many of you thought the seventh word in the second sentence was lost?
If you did, then blame your perception. You most likely saw the correct words, but because of the surrounding words your brain may have perceived something different.
Here 's another example I use with "my kids": smile limes miles slime
Now the question is; how many words have the same letters? If you said all of them, congratulations, you're right. You would be amazed to know how many of my students did not recognize that all the letters were the same. Again the culprit is perception. It's not that the students don't see all the letters, it's the fact that their brains have not been programmed to pay attention to all of the letters in each word.
In the study of learning there is the concept of figure/ground. Figure is whatever the brain needs to pay attention to and ground is the background stuff that is not as important. Now imagaine that you're trying to learn to read and you are taught with a method that teaches you to memorize words, but you are never given a method of decoding the words yourself. You are taught that you don't need to look at every letter on the page. You are taught to look at the shape of the words instead of the letters themselves. You are taught that little words are not important. You are also taught that if you don't know the word just guess.(If you're new please read earlier post to discover why this is so harmful) So in other words you have been taught with a method which basically tells you everything that your brain should be recognizing as figure is ground. Is it any wonder why a third of every classroom is reading below grade level?
There are some students who are natural born readers and they would learn to read successfully no matter what you did.(Fortunately I'm one of them) But please remember that the students who are not natural born readers are not lacking in intelligence. (Some of these "natural born readers" have trouble putting their pants on one leg at a time. Fortunately I'm not one of them. Please understand I am not trying to be insulting. I am, however, trying to point out that some people, who some would consider to be highly intelligent, are not necessarily successful in day to day living.) They need to be taught in manner that will successfully program their brains to recognize what should be considered figure and what should be deemed ground.
As an example of how harmful it can be for a student to be taught incorrectly let me share what happened yesterday with my little hockey player (please see earlier post). He was learning a new "Word Pattern" card and he was reading words across the page. When he came to the word "notches" he immediately said "notices". Now ask yourself how can you get "notices" out of "notches"? It's easily done if you haven't been taught to look at every letter on the page. He simply saw the first three letters and guessed the rest by using a word he knew. Do you have any idea how frustrating that was for both him and me? It's really difficult to reprogram the brain when the missprogramming is being constantly reinforced by the education system.
Well time is flying and I'm getting extremely paranoid about the possibility of losing all of this writing so I will pray and hit the publish button. Please remember if you visit my blog I would love to get your comments. Signing off for now, but you just know I'll be back.
Perception is everything when it comes to reading successfully. It's not what the eyes see, it's what the brain thinks that the eyes see.
There was lost of candy in the dish so I told the kids to help themselves.
The little boy looked for the lots puppy in the park.
How many of you thought the third word in the first sentence was lots?
How many of you thought the seventh word in the second sentence was lost?
If you did, then blame your perception. You most likely saw the correct words, but because of the surrounding words your brain may have perceived something different.
Here 's another example I use with "my kids": smile limes miles slime
Now the question is; how many words have the same letters? If you said all of them, congratulations, you're right. You would be amazed to know how many of my students did not recognize that all the letters were the same. Again the culprit is perception. It's not that the students don't see all the letters, it's the fact that their brains have not been programmed to pay attention to all of the letters in each word.
In the study of learning there is the concept of figure/ground. Figure is whatever the brain needs to pay attention to and ground is the background stuff that is not as important. Now imagaine that you're trying to learn to read and you are taught with a method that teaches you to memorize words, but you are never given a method of decoding the words yourself. You are taught that you don't need to look at every letter on the page. You are taught to look at the shape of the words instead of the letters themselves. You are taught that little words are not important. You are also taught that if you don't know the word just guess.(If you're new please read earlier post to discover why this is so harmful) So in other words you have been taught with a method which basically tells you everything that your brain should be recognizing as figure is ground. Is it any wonder why a third of every classroom is reading below grade level?
There are some students who are natural born readers and they would learn to read successfully no matter what you did.(Fortunately I'm one of them) But please remember that the students who are not natural born readers are not lacking in intelligence. (Some of these "natural born readers" have trouble putting their pants on one leg at a time. Fortunately I'm not one of them. Please understand I am not trying to be insulting. I am, however, trying to point out that some people, who some would consider to be highly intelligent, are not necessarily successful in day to day living.) They need to be taught in manner that will successfully program their brains to recognize what should be considered figure and what should be deemed ground.
As an example of how harmful it can be for a student to be taught incorrectly let me share what happened yesterday with my little hockey player (please see earlier post). He was learning a new "Word Pattern" card and he was reading words across the page. When he came to the word "notches" he immediately said "notices". Now ask yourself how can you get "notices" out of "notches"? It's easily done if you haven't been taught to look at every letter on the page. He simply saw the first three letters and guessed the rest by using a word he knew. Do you have any idea how frustrating that was for both him and me? It's really difficult to reprogram the brain when the missprogramming is being constantly reinforced by the education system.
Well time is flying and I'm getting extremely paranoid about the possibility of losing all of this writing so I will pray and hit the publish button. Please remember if you visit my blog I would love to get your comments. Signing off for now, but you just know I'll be back.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Cancer, Courage and Reading
For all of you who may be wondering why the blogosphere has been suddenly blessed (?) with my presence. Let me fill you in on a few things. In July of 2008 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. At first I was told that it wasn't too serious. The tumour was small and all I would need was a lumpectomy. Well, as is the case with this sort of thing, it wasn't quite that simple. The surgeon told me after the lumpectomy that instead of stage 1 cancer, it was stage 3 and that it was not the kind of cancer they had first thought it was and it was also attached to the muscle on the chest wall. On Sept 4,2008, I had a full mastectomy of my left breast and opted not to do chemo or radiation or hormone therapy or anything elso that was guaranteed to harm my body. I did, however, find a more natural way to prevent the cancer from returning. It is now January 2010 and I am still here and kicking. (Some would say literally!)
Now you may be asking yourself why I have chosen to share all this with you. The answer is that this event in my life has created such a sense of urgency within me that I can no longer keep my mouth shut about issues that I feel are affecting a great percentage of our poplulation. Nothing is scarier than cancer. So if I can beat it, how scary can it be to write this blog about a subject that is near and dear to my heart?
As I stated in a previous post, I have been teaching people of all ages to read for the past sixteen years and during those years I have met the most extraordinary people. I met a man who was 45 years old and had graduated from high school, but still couldn't read above a kindergarten level. He was brilliant with mechanics, but couldn't read. I ended up teaching, not only him, but his step-daughter and step-son. All of their lives changed. I met a young man who told me he didn't need to read because all he was going to be was a farmer like his father. After he discovered that he could learn to read successfully he shared with me that his real dream was to be a veterinarian. I met a teen-age girl who had been "diagnosed" (There's those quotation marks again. You just know I have more to say on that subject) with ADHD when she was 7 years old and had immediately been put on Ritalin. At the age of 12 they had to take her off of it because she had become anorexic. When I met her she was 14 and hated herself, the world and everything in it. She wore nothing but black and didn't care about her personal hygiene. She constantly fought with her mother and school was something she endured. After testing her I discovered that she did have some perceptual distortions that were easily dealt with. Her mother drove two hours once a week so she could attend two one-hour sessions. Within weeks of starting she became a different kid. She was clean and neat and wore pastel colours. She started to care about herself and others around her. She even began to organize my sticker box because, according to her, it wasn't organized enough. Oh and her reading also improved. There are so many more stories that I could share with you, but the point is all these people had fallen through the cracks. The system had failed them and because the sytem had failed they were failing at life.
Please remember I am not condemning all teachers, I am condemning the system they work under. Speaking of teachers, I invited a friend of mine, who is a retired teacher, to visit my blog. Her response was to give me an English lesson (the their/they're thing and the difference between was and were). Then she informed me that they weren't teaching Whole-Language in the schools any more and that it had been done away with years ago. My answer to her was that they may have changed the name, but the methods and the results were the same. I can tell you within five minutes whether a child has been taught with Whole-Language ( or whatever they're calling it now). When I start with a new student I have a list of words that I ask them to read. The child who has been taught with W.L ( I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of writing Whole-Language so from now on I'll just use the initials.) will rip through the list until he/she comes to a word he/she has never seen before, then it's full stop. They've never seen the word before and they have no idea how to figure out (decode) what it says. (By the way for those of you who believe that "Phonics" is better your turn is coming.) They usually want to stop at that point because the frustration level is about to go through the roof.
Another teaching I just love, (Can you sense the sarcasm here?)which is really popular with speed reading programs, is little words aren't important. My way of disputing this theory is to ask the question: ( I used to love doing this when I lived on the prairies and it was 40 below outside)Is on the house the same as in the house? I don't know about you, but I'd rather be in the house on a cold winter day. The point is there is only one letter difference between the two words, but what a difference that one letter makes.
Let me give you an example of how detrimental this can be to a person's ability to read and comprehend. Quite a few years ago I was introduced to a young man who was in his third year of university. He was struggling to get through and, indeed, had given up because he couldn't keep up with his studies. When I tested him it quickly became apparent that he didn't pay attention to little words. To demonstrate this to him I wrote two sentences on the board. One said, "I got some money from Don" and the other said, "I got some money for Don". I asked him what the difference was between the two sentences. After studying them for some time he announced that one of them had a period and the other didn't. I informed him that was not the correct answer. I then circled the from and for with red marker and repeated the question. He still could not tell me the difference between the two sentences. I literally had to explain to him why the two sentences were different and the meaning of the words for and from. Now please understand this young man was not lacking in intelligence by any means. His brain had been so programmed that it could only do what it had been taught to do. After realizing why he was struggling to read he decided to attend sessions with me. In about five months he went from reading at a grade six level to a university level and he went back to university the following semester.
I am not sharing these stories to make myself look good and to pat myself on the back. (Although I must admit, in all honesty, that it does feel good to think about all the lives that have been changed.) I am sharing these stories because I know for the hundreds of people I have met and whose lives have been improved, there are thousands more who are struggling with no help. As I stated before this blog is for them and for anyone who knows them. If you appreciate what I've said (or even if you don't) or you can relate to it, please let me know. I think it's important to start a dialogue on this and so many other subjects. So bear with me and let's see where we go from here.
Now you may be asking yourself why I have chosen to share all this with you. The answer is that this event in my life has created such a sense of urgency within me that I can no longer keep my mouth shut about issues that I feel are affecting a great percentage of our poplulation. Nothing is scarier than cancer. So if I can beat it, how scary can it be to write this blog about a subject that is near and dear to my heart?
As I stated in a previous post, I have been teaching people of all ages to read for the past sixteen years and during those years I have met the most extraordinary people. I met a man who was 45 years old and had graduated from high school, but still couldn't read above a kindergarten level. He was brilliant with mechanics, but couldn't read. I ended up teaching, not only him, but his step-daughter and step-son. All of their lives changed. I met a young man who told me he didn't need to read because all he was going to be was a farmer like his father. After he discovered that he could learn to read successfully he shared with me that his real dream was to be a veterinarian. I met a teen-age girl who had been "diagnosed" (There's those quotation marks again. You just know I have more to say on that subject) with ADHD when she was 7 years old and had immediately been put on Ritalin. At the age of 12 they had to take her off of it because she had become anorexic. When I met her she was 14 and hated herself, the world and everything in it. She wore nothing but black and didn't care about her personal hygiene. She constantly fought with her mother and school was something she endured. After testing her I discovered that she did have some perceptual distortions that were easily dealt with. Her mother drove two hours once a week so she could attend two one-hour sessions. Within weeks of starting she became a different kid. She was clean and neat and wore pastel colours. She started to care about herself and others around her. She even began to organize my sticker box because, according to her, it wasn't organized enough. Oh and her reading also improved. There are so many more stories that I could share with you, but the point is all these people had fallen through the cracks. The system had failed them and because the sytem had failed they were failing at life.
Please remember I am not condemning all teachers, I am condemning the system they work under. Speaking of teachers, I invited a friend of mine, who is a retired teacher, to visit my blog. Her response was to give me an English lesson (the their/they're thing and the difference between was and were). Then she informed me that they weren't teaching Whole-Language in the schools any more and that it had been done away with years ago. My answer to her was that they may have changed the name, but the methods and the results were the same. I can tell you within five minutes whether a child has been taught with Whole-Language ( or whatever they're calling it now). When I start with a new student I have a list of words that I ask them to read. The child who has been taught with W.L ( I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of writing Whole-Language so from now on I'll just use the initials.) will rip through the list until he/she comes to a word he/she has never seen before, then it's full stop. They've never seen the word before and they have no idea how to figure out (decode) what it says. (By the way for those of you who believe that "Phonics" is better your turn is coming.) They usually want to stop at that point because the frustration level is about to go through the roof.
Another teaching I just love, (Can you sense the sarcasm here?)which is really popular with speed reading programs, is little words aren't important. My way of disputing this theory is to ask the question: ( I used to love doing this when I lived on the prairies and it was 40 below outside)Is on the house the same as in the house? I don't know about you, but I'd rather be in the house on a cold winter day. The point is there is only one letter difference between the two words, but what a difference that one letter makes.
Let me give you an example of how detrimental this can be to a person's ability to read and comprehend. Quite a few years ago I was introduced to a young man who was in his third year of university. He was struggling to get through and, indeed, had given up because he couldn't keep up with his studies. When I tested him it quickly became apparent that he didn't pay attention to little words. To demonstrate this to him I wrote two sentences on the board. One said, "I got some money from Don" and the other said, "I got some money for Don". I asked him what the difference was between the two sentences. After studying them for some time he announced that one of them had a period and the other didn't. I informed him that was not the correct answer. I then circled the from and for with red marker and repeated the question. He still could not tell me the difference between the two sentences. I literally had to explain to him why the two sentences were different and the meaning of the words for and from. Now please understand this young man was not lacking in intelligence by any means. His brain had been so programmed that it could only do what it had been taught to do. After realizing why he was struggling to read he decided to attend sessions with me. In about five months he went from reading at a grade six level to a university level and he went back to university the following semester.
I am not sharing these stories to make myself look good and to pat myself on the back. (Although I must admit, in all honesty, that it does feel good to think about all the lives that have been changed.) I am sharing these stories because I know for the hundreds of people I have met and whose lives have been improved, there are thousands more who are struggling with no help. As I stated before this blog is for them and for anyone who knows them. If you appreciate what I've said (or even if you don't) or you can relate to it, please let me know. I think it's important to start a dialogue on this and so many other subjects. So bear with me and let's see where we go from here.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Spelling and possibilities
So here we are on day 3. For all you who noticed that I used the wrong their (should have been they're)in my second post. Congratulations! I wish I could say that I did it on purpose to see if you were paying attention, but alas, I can't. In my defense I will tell you that the blog site kept flashing a message informing me that the "save now" button was not working so I quickly published what I had written without proof reading it. Now the question is: do I go back and edit it or do I leave it the way it is to make my point?
Actually as I think about it I'm glad I made the mistake. It leads me to another story about one of my students and the questionable advice of his teachers. He was in high school and, not only could he not read, but he was an atrocious speller. The solution for this, I was told, was for him to use "spell check" on the computer. The first thing that flashed through my mind was an image of my student walking around with a computer connection inserted in his veins. I asked myself if he was going to be on "spell support" for the rest of his life. I pointed out that it was not necessary for him to use "spell check" if he was actually taught how to look at every letter on the page when reading instead of looking at the "whole word" and if he was taught to pay attention to the construction of the word and why it was spelled the way it was. Also, and this is a big also, a computer spell check program would not have caught my mistake (there, they're, their). As I was continuing this discussion with his teachers one of them loudly asserted that he didn't know the difference between the homonyms "then" and "than". I thought to myself, lady if you think "then" and "than" are homonyms my student is not the one with the problem.
For all of you who think this blog is just an excuse to rant against teachers I admit you are partially right. It is an excuse to rant against teachers who don't care enough about their students to look for something that will help them succeed when what they are doing isn't working. Isn't it the definition of insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result? Shouldn't the motto be: If it ain't workin, fix it? (Yes, I know there should be an g on the end of working. Have you ever heard of poetic license?)
You have to understand when I meet these kids they have been in "Resource Room" (Some of them their entire school lives) and they have been through a "Psych Ed" test (Please read first post for my opinion of those) and some of them have attended other reading programs and nothing has helped. Whether it's a boy or a girl or an adult, by the time I see them they hate themselves and school and anything to do with reading. I have had students who have literally started to shake when I placed a book in front of them. The first thing I have to do for any new student, no matter what the age, is to convince them that their struggle with reading is not their fault. After that has been accomplished we can move on and they can discover the wonderful world of successful reading.
There are so many stories that I want to share with you(and you can bet I will)as I write this blog. This blog is for anyone who has struggled with reading or knows anyone who has or is struggling to read. This blog is for parents and students who are fed up with a school system which is not meeting the needs of the students. This blog is for anyone who loves kids and wants to see them reach all the potential of their possibilities.
So if this is you, please keep reading and pass this along.
Actually as I think about it I'm glad I made the mistake. It leads me to another story about one of my students and the questionable advice of his teachers. He was in high school and, not only could he not read, but he was an atrocious speller. The solution for this, I was told, was for him to use "spell check" on the computer. The first thing that flashed through my mind was an image of my student walking around with a computer connection inserted in his veins. I asked myself if he was going to be on "spell support" for the rest of his life. I pointed out that it was not necessary for him to use "spell check" if he was actually taught how to look at every letter on the page when reading instead of looking at the "whole word" and if he was taught to pay attention to the construction of the word and why it was spelled the way it was. Also, and this is a big also, a computer spell check program would not have caught my mistake (there, they're, their). As I was continuing this discussion with his teachers one of them loudly asserted that he didn't know the difference between the homonyms "then" and "than". I thought to myself, lady if you think "then" and "than" are homonyms my student is not the one with the problem.
For all of you who think this blog is just an excuse to rant against teachers I admit you are partially right. It is an excuse to rant against teachers who don't care enough about their students to look for something that will help them succeed when what they are doing isn't working. Isn't it the definition of insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result? Shouldn't the motto be: If it ain't workin, fix it? (Yes, I know there should be an g on the end of working. Have you ever heard of poetic license?)
You have to understand when I meet these kids they have been in "Resource Room" (Some of them their entire school lives) and they have been through a "Psych Ed" test (Please read first post for my opinion of those) and some of them have attended other reading programs and nothing has helped. Whether it's a boy or a girl or an adult, by the time I see them they hate themselves and school and anything to do with reading. I have had students who have literally started to shake when I placed a book in front of them. The first thing I have to do for any new student, no matter what the age, is to convince them that their struggle with reading is not their fault. After that has been accomplished we can move on and they can discover the wonderful world of successful reading.
There are so many stories that I want to share with you(and you can bet I will)as I write this blog. This blog is for anyone who has struggled with reading or knows anyone who has or is struggling to read. This blog is for parents and students who are fed up with a school system which is not meeting the needs of the students. This blog is for anyone who loves kids and wants to see them reach all the potential of their possibilities.
So if this is you, please keep reading and pass this along.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)