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.

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.

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.

Possibilities and goals

"The potential possibilities of any child are the most intriguing and stimulating in all creation".

I wish I could tell you that I wrote those wise words, but unfortunately it is a quote from a calendar one of my kids (aka my students) gave me for Christmas a few years ago. But isn't that what children should be about? Possibilities. How can they reach or explore their possibilities if they've already been convinced their not capable of achieving what they think is the simplest thing?

To give you an example I had been working with a nine year old boy for about twenty hours and I could see that his reading was improving so I put a book in front of him and told him to read it. His eyes glazed over full of terror and fear as he stumbled out the dreaded words, "It's a chapter book. I can't read chapter books!" I told him he could try the first page and if it was indeed too difficult he could stop. After reading three quarters of the page, he looked up at me with a totally different look in his eyes and announced with disdain that the book was too easy. I asked him if he wanted to try reading a more difficult book and he agreed to try. It wasn't a "chapter book", but the level was much harder than the last book and he read it with ease. He was astonished with his ability to read the book and asked me why it was so easy now. I explained to him that because he had been taught to read with Whole Language he had never been given the steps to decode a word, but since we had been working on establishing those steps all he had to do was rely on what he had learned and reading would be much simpler.

He's a hockey player so I tried to put it in terms he would understand. I told him to imagine that his hockey coach had just told him to go down the ice and score a goal, but had not told him how to skate or handle the puck. "Would that be a fair or successful way of teaching you to score a goal?", I asked. He answered no and added that it wouldn't make any sense. I then explained to him that teaching a child to read with Whole Language is like that hockey coach expecting a goal,but without giving any instruction on how to get one. Because the emphasis with the Whole Language method of reading is to memorize lists of words, but never understand why they say what they do the child is incapable of decoding a word he/she has never seen before. (Decoding simply means figuring out what the word is.) They are never given the steps needed to decode words on their own.

Whole Language also teaches that if the child isn't sure what the words says just guess. I can assure you that this is about the dumbest advice you can give to a struggling reader. By the way this is not just my unsubstantiated opinion. Anyone who has any knowledge of learning methods will know that we all use six laws of learning to assimilate any new information. One of those laws is Primacy which says the first time we learn anything new is the most important time. If we get it wrong the first time it is extremely difficult to rid ourselves of our perception of the new information. If you doubt my premise I want you to remember when someone gave you a new phone number or address and you accidentally transposed the numbers. How long did it take you to get rid of that incorrect number combination? (Now come on I know everyone has experienced that at one time or another). There are so many reasons Whole Language does not work, but I won't continue lising them at this time, but you can be sure that I will talk about them in future posts.

You know as I sit here writing I realize that putting my thoughts down for all the world to see is a pretty scary thing. But more scary to me is what is happening to so many kids and adults who struggle to read. Did you know that 45 % of Canadians are functually illiterate? Did you know that according to Learning Disabilities Association of Canada that 30-70% of young offenders have some kind of difficulty with reading? Did you know that almost 50% of teenage suicides have been "diagnosed" with some kind of learning disability? Now that's scary!
You'll notice that I have put quotation marks around the word, "diagnosed". I will have more to say about that in my next post. (By now you should know that I always have something more to say on the topics of learning and reading.)

As I speak from my heart I hope that someone will have a chance to read this and that it might help just one more struggling reader.

Reading, kids and a whole lot else

The first thing you need to know about me is, I teach reading. I am a Reading Therapist, not a tutor. Although if I were to call myself a tutor I would be the BEST TUTOR IN TOWN. Teaching reading is my passion and my vocation and I love it. What I don't love, however, is knowing the majority of my students who struggle to read wouldn't be doing so if they were just taught to read properly in the first place.

Now if you are a teacher in the education system you might want to start reading another blog somewhere else because I can guarantee you're not going to like what you read here. I have been teaching people to read for sixteen years and throughout those sixteen years I have become more and more aware of the failings of the education system in North America. Basically there are only two methods of teaching reading in the land of academia: phonics and whole language. If perchance neither of those methods works for a child it is automatically assumed that there is something wrong with the student. He or she is then subjected to a battery of tests which are guaranteed to convince the student that not only is there a difficulty with reading, but he/ she is the "dumbest person on the planet". Please parents if you are reading this stop submitting your kids to this kind of academic torture. Nine times out of ten you will receive a report that is six inches thick rife with psycho babble, which is to quote the bard, "full of sound and fury but signifying nothing". It is designed to let the parent know that the education system is the only entity on the planet who can help your son or daughter. Despite the fact that they are the ones who couldn't teach the student to read in the first place.

If you doubt the validity of my claim let me tell you about one of my students. She was twelve years old when I met her and her mother had been assured by the Education Psychologist that her daughter was completely incapable of learning to read and it would only cause her severe frustration if she tried. Fortunately for Lisa (name has been changed) her mother recognized psycho babble when she heard it and decided to bring her to me. Lisa was in grade seven at the time and when I tested her it becamce evident that she was only reading at a kindergarten level. Lisa attended two one hour classes with me each week. In 81 hours she was reading at a grade 8 level and won "The Most Improved Student of the Year" award. Four years later I received an invitation to attend her graduation. Not only was she graduating, but she was an honour student. Please ask yourself what would have happened if her mother had heeded the words of the Educational Psychologist?

So this is an introduction to who I am, what I love and what frustrates me to the nth degree. If you are interested in education, reading, kids, and a whole range of topics please come on back.