All Kinds of Brains:
If we know there are no two brains alike, that there are many types of learners, and that there are multiple pathways to the brain, why so often do we present new material to all children in the same way? Kids don't learn to read in the same way. What works fine for some children does not work at all with others. The argument that rages between phonics people and whole language people is missing the point. Neither option is enough on its own. There are ways of teaching that create a flash of understanding, an ease of learning, an indelible memory created. Unfortunately all too often we don't use those ways of teaching.
How Reading is Traditionally Taught:
When we teach reading in the accepted way, we teach children their letter names (ay, be, see, dee), a corresponding sound (ay says a as in apple), how to put those symbols in a correct sequence (abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz), (so far we are memorizing still, right?) then we add some rules for decoding (i before e except after c, most of the time), memorization of sight words (words that appear most frequently in all texts for children), and we add to this the expectation that children will successfully memorize endless sequences of letters (spelling) which they will use correctly in their writing.
The Results:
A quick glance around a typical school will show us the results of teaching all children this same way. In each classroom, there are a handful of children who just absorb all this sequential stuff as though through their pores. These are the children who can see a word once and just remember it. They would learn to read if you stuck them in a paper bag with a stack of books. They would figure out the pattern and the code for reading. Another group of children work at learning to read and do ok with it, but many of them do not enjoy reading, and many don't understand what they are reading because they are so focused on the task of recognizing the words and saying them correctly (which is what they think reading is). Another group of children lags sadly behind the rest and this group begins to struggle and then fail in any discipline that requires reading. The final group of children just don't make it. A lot of testing and sorting goes on, children are identified and named by the skills they do not acquire and they are often removed from the regular classroom and are sorted into small groups where intensive efforts commence to help them learn to read.
One Way That Does Not Work:
The one thread that runs through every part of the traditional process of learning to read is memorization. This is really the culprit; not the design of the child's brain. Those children who are labeled as "learning disabled" or "severely learning disabled" MIGHT actually be more accurately identified as:
- one who cannot memorize strings of symbols or rules
- one who learns far better with visuals, global maps and patterns
- movement is the key to learning and remembering for this child
- seeing the WHY behind the learning is critical to knowledge acquisition for this child
- sequencing is hard for this child
- needs to see correlation between previously learned material and new material
- must have more than one pathway to the brain for knowledge acquisition
- needs to tie new learning to concrete, known objects
- this child remembers when the "rule" is embedded in a story
- this child has to do and say it in order to learn - not listen or watch it done
- this child cannot make good sense out of auditory instruction (listening)
Differentiated Instruction?
In the effort to reach all these various types of learners, schools are moving towards small group instruction, instructional goals for each student, differentiated instruction, interventions planned for each child in each area of failure. I've been there and have done that. How was it? Hmmm. I spent more time filling out forms, writing plans, documenting, etc., than I did in preparing engaging lessons for my students. I HAD to fill out the paperwork in order to keep my job, and when time ran out, unfortunately lessons were less than scintillating. I didn't feel very good about this.
Are There Magic Bullets?
I've worked with children in various settings; small group resource and special ed, individual interventions, ell, regular classroom, looping 1st-2nd, and tutoring. The arena that afforded me the least amount of freedom to follow the learning I saw happening was the regular classroom. After my last two years of teaching in the regular classroom, I took serious inventory: how every single child did during the year (progess, lack of progress, areas that were strengthened, areas that still were not strong enough), how I planned instruction, how I balanced demands placed on me by the district and administration, and most importantly, how various parts of the instructional day paid off in terms of huge growth. I was able to identify the practices in my classroom that resulted in enormous gains for all the children, and sadly was also able to quickly identify which "lessons" resulted in no gains or minimal gains. When I had reflected on all my experiences with children, some specific ideas gelled for me based on the years of research with real kids. Are there magic bullets for teaching all children? I truly believe there are. The best thing about these "magic practices" is that learning is far more rapid and effortless for the child.
High-Yielding Practices:
The "magic bullets" or the teaching practices that yielded the highest results include: (double click on visuals to enlarge them)
- Use of visuals integrated into symbols in order to access the visual cortex - totally powerful and
effective in most children. Visuals with symbols embedded in them are "snapped" like a photo and are recalled intact later. Here is an example: - Fronts of cards show the word embedded in an image, while the backs show the plain word in the same font, include a body motion to accompany the word, and finish with the word used correctly in a sentence which will aid in comprehension.
The alphabet can be taught by embedding visuals with the letters. The upsidedown umbrella not only relates the shape of the letter to a known object, but also provides a visual reminder of the shape of the letter. The accompanying jingle provides a rhythmic hook for memory for those children who learn best via rhyme and verse.
- Use of Stories along with visuals to convey ideas we want the children to learn. Instead of memorizing the fact that
lowercase b has the "bulb" of the letter pointing to the right, while the lowercase d points to the left, we use a visual AND a mini-story.In the first visual, children see a bed they can make with their hands to show how b and d are formed. In teaching children to recognize their ABCs and remember the associated sound, 
rather than memorizing and then chanting this information, we use Alphabet Tales, a full color book of stories that explain exactly why each letter came to be formed as it is. Once children hear the story and see the visuals, they do not forget. In the second picture, the visual shows the backwards J having a sharp point that will POP the O, while in the lower visual, the sharp point on the J is turned safely away from the letter that follows it. In the third visual, there is a combination of body movement, visual, and "jingle" to help children remember the difference between the words Me and My. I found that many of my beginning readers stumbled over this issue. The visual and motion used a few times 
ended that problem. The story implied in all three of these visuals of course lies in the simple explanation of the visual. The children are not being asked to just remember verbal rules.
- Use body motion along with visuals and stories to engage the cerebellum as frequently as
possible. In the example of the bed and of the ME and MY words, the children are using their own body to mimic the shape of the concepts they are being asked to learn. The sight words and alphabet also rely heavily on body motions which help those very kinethetic learners store and retrieve information. Here is the body motion for C.
- Use fingermapping to help children correctly sequence sounds in a word as they are writing. There will be another strand that goes into a lot more detail about what fingermapping is and how this helps many children who struggle with sequencing. Helping children SEE the sequence of sounds/letters makes them able to correctly write the word. They will not leave out letters, use incorrect letters, nor reverse letters. Fingermapping to these children is as powerful as seeing a visual map is to people who simply cannot recall verbal directions to a new location.
- Use whiteboards and markers daily to help children learn new concepts in reading. Use of whiteboards rather than pencil and paper is pretty self-explanatory. Some children don't mind using pencil and paper, but for those who struggle with fine motor skills, whiteboards and markers are wonderful. Every single day I spent 15-20 minutes with the class on the rug in front of me teaching the new concept for the day in reading. Anything I taught them, they wrote. For kids who are very kinesthetic, writing is a must. Our practice was for me to say the word we were talking about, sound the word out together (auditory), then while the kids sounded the word again, they wrote each sound on their board. This practice sounds like a too-simple-tp-be-powerful practice, but I have to say that this ranks right up at the top of my short list of very effective practices. Kids HAD to be engaged, HAD to be attending to the lesson, they had to work out meaning, they were using all their modalities at one time, so there was no child left behind in the learning!
- Teach using patterns. For many children, just remembering a detail about how a particular word
is spelled is nearly impossible. If you teach a particular sound spelling such as AY, don't teach it using one word in isolation. Generate a whole list of words containing that sound spelling and then have your children sound and write them on their white boards as you lead them through that exercise. One of the hardest concepts for struggling readers to grasp is that a specific sequence of letters doesn't always sound the same. Take OUGH, for instance. OUGH sounds like UFF (tough, rough, enough), like O (though, although), like OW (in drought, slough), like OT (ought, bought, fought, thought, 
brought), like OFF in cough. If you teach the words in a pattern, using a visual and a sentence, the children will never forget the words that sound alike. For example: The Ot Brothers story: "I THOUGHT they OUGHT to have BROUGHT the candy they BOUGHT, but instead they FOUGHT for more!" Let the children draw a quick picture of stick figure brothers in a big knock down drag out battle for the candy! Another story: My Dog RUFF. "My dog is ROUGH and TOUGH ENOUGH!" Draw a great watchdog type with big teeth showing. In the top illustration, the lesson taught was that A by itself sometimes sounds like AH. All four words contain that sound spelling, and the visual invokes memories of nights when the child might have asked for a drink of water while delaying bedtime! In the bottom example, the pattern is ERE words. I taught the children that the ERE is like a baloney sandwish, the e's being the bread and the R being the baloney. If you had the HHH sound at the beginning, you have the word HERE (pointing to the floor adds the kinesthetic element to what is already auditory and visual). To the word HERE, you add a T to make THERE, and W to make WHERE. At this point the children have already learned their digraphs...using visuals!
Our website has many teaching tools that address teaching to all the modalities. Visit us now and see the difference it will make in your teaching to teach once and address all the particular needs of your learners. Do you prefer to FLASH or DRILL?
Useful links: Download SWlist.pdf this list identifies the 306 stylized words we offer. Download TryBeforeYouBuy sample Sight Words. Sample Activities to teach sight words. Description of the sight words available. Alphabet products. Decodable Books. Easy-For-Me Teaching Posters. Check out the Sight Word Landscapes and Borders.
