Love Learning

Use Writing to Teach Reading

For many children, using writing as a vehicle for teaching them to read makes a whole lot of sense. For those children who are global, random, right-brained, visual, kinesthetic, or tactile learners (anything other than the obviously left-brained learners), it is most certainly a method worth starting with when they are first learning to read. It is also a great thing to do if the child has already been in a traditional teaching environment and had little success in learning to read.

I had the luxury of teaching a group of beginners this way, although at the time it was not my intention to use writing to teach reading. It is so funny how often we do things and later see the benefits (or possibly the mistakes) of doing such a thing!

I think that what is prompting my train of thought to write about this today is that I read a comment the other day written by an educator of many years. He said that for a young child, listening to speech comes first, then attempting to talk, talking, writing, and finally reading. It was the first time I heard anyone make that comment so it remained, loitering in the back of my brain. The more I thought about this, the more it made sense to me. Especially for the types of learners I mentioned above, but really for any beginner or any child who is struggling to learn to read, writing is a great and worthy vehicle for learning to read.

Admittedly, it can be really scary to branch out, leaving the traditionally accepted methods and sequences of lessons to try something you believe your child would respond to. But whether you're a classroom teacher, a parent working with their child at home in the evenings, or a full-time homeschooling parent, the question to ask is what the single most important goal? If it is that your children/students learn to read (as opposed to you perfectly teaching the accepted method of teaching reading) it might make it easier to follow your children/students’ lead.

Some common misconceptions about teaching children to read

• It is a hard process and has to be really complicated.

• The child must learn his letter names first, then individual sounds, then he/she must sound out words, learn phonics rules, etc.

• If I introduce whole words, the child will be limited in reading later; after all, how many whole words can one child memorize?

• If I use pictures or images or anything that looks easy and fun, it is simply a crutch that will hold him back later on; he won’t really be reading or able to decipher new words.

• The teacher/parent always knows better than the child what they need to learn and in what sequence.

• Words are grouped by grade level – there are specific words for kindergarten, certain ones for 1st grade, and so on.

• I learned to read just fine in this particular, traditional way, so that must be the best way to learn to read and it should also work just fine for my child. Tried and true vs. novel and random.

I’m very sure this is not a comprehensive list, but it will do for now.

One way to teach reading through writing

Materials you will need:

• Some children – at least one.

• Paper – top half empty and bottom with lines. If you don’t have this, any paper will do.

• Crayons in a tray (please don’t use ugly crayons that have been peeled, have been broken into tiny bits, and have black marks all over them), pencils, colored pencils, markers.

• A serene frame of mind empty of expectations of specific results nor a sense of needing to “teach” something nor a niggling that you need to hurry the process.

• An “advisor” hat you will wear during this process. This hat can be invisible as long as you purposefully put it on your head.

What to do:

• First thing in the morning, by way of warm-up and after chatting a bit, let the children draw whatever is on their mind to draw. It might be something they have been thinking about or something that came into their mind while you were chatting. Anyway, let the drawing begin.

• Be present, but not directing anything, nor trying to influence their direction. Your focus on them will help them be focused on their “work” so avoid the temptation to go get something else done while they are drawing.

• When the children are brand new and can’t write anything yet, help them label their drawing by asking them what they want to write and then sharing with them how to spell the words. You could write them on a whiteboard for them to see or if they know their sounds, let them start and sound out for themselves. It is this part of the activity you will use for a teaching moment.

• When the children are finished, let each talk about their picture, sharing it with the group.

• Each day you do this, make notes of the words that the children didn’t know how to spell correctly, and share this with the group. Be positive. Do NOT say, “You spelled all these words wrong.” But rather say, “I want to show you a word. Let me write it for you on my whiteboard.”

• If the word has a common spelling pattern, add other words that also follow that spelling pattern. (For example, if a child wanted to use the word AWAY as in “My dog ran away” you can teach them other AY words: “day, play, stay, bay, hay, jay”.)

• Working together, take a strip of paper and write the new word at the top. For example, the word “AWAY” would captain this list of words you are generating together. Under “AWAY” add the other AY words in a column. Post this on the wall so you and the children can add other AY words as you come across them in reading.

• Repeat this process every day and over time, you will amass quite a collection of words the children will have learned to read and use.

• Remember to never teach a sound spelling in isolation, but rather show how the sound spelling is a pattern of letters and therefore sounds that occurs in our language. The children will make a lot more sense out of words and language if they know there are patterns that repeat often.

Keep a record:

What I ended up doing was keeping track of the sound spellings we were covering as we did our early morning drawing and writing so that I could nudge the children towards a sound spelling they had not automatically gravitated towards. By spring, the children had gotten so familiar with the various spelling chunks (sound spellings in words) that they could read material that was far above their grade level.

For ELL:

This practice worked very nicely with ELL students. They would use our stylized sight words as references for writing their own sentences, and then when their writing was complete, they read me their sentences without any need to peek at the stylized words! This showed me how much of a constructive activity it was for these children to learn to read from their own writing.

First steps to take when your child struggles with reading

Each child differs from the next in how they learn, what their strengths are, and what they prefer as they learn. Within traditional classrooms whether at home or in school, many children struggle and others fail outright. Children that struggle or fail are very sensitive to their failure, which gives rise to a whole new set of issues. The confidence that fuels success in learning is an emotional state that arises from our experiences. If we have confidence that we can accomplish something, we will perform to our maximum, but if we have lost our confidence, we will likely underperform or fail completely. Confidence or lack of it is directly tied to our experiences. If we have attempted something and have failed, depending on the importance attached to that task, we will shrug and try again, or we will shut down, convinced we are incapable.

When a child is struggling, I believe in looking at the child first and uncovering the beauty of her design. Next, I believe in tailoring instruction to her. Most of the time, this will not happen when a child is in a traditional setting. Testing as an option or solution will likely come up first and the child will be evaluated. For sensitive children, testing is a huge red flag telling them that something is wrong with their brains. And this is sad. The intention with testing is to detect the underlying issues so we can help the child. But what all too often happens in testing situations is that parents are told there is a disability present, but how to successfully remedy or make up for that disability is not forthcoming.

My personal belief is that testing should not be the first line of defense. Testing puts the focus on the child as though something is wrong with him. Reality is, what is lacking is a methodology that matches the child. What I would like to do is to list a couple of common scenarios and then suggest some things a parent can consider trying before resorting to testing.

Scenarios:

My child is able to sound out letters in a word, but he laboriously sounds everything out. Years have passed and now he cannot sound out words that have more complex spellings, or he’s so sick of the tedious nature of sounding out words that he will not try any longer. Every time he comes to a word it is as though he’s never seen it before.

    1.    Use 3" x 5" cards and choose a handful of words that are easy to sound out. Ideas are "help," "sand," "tent," "stop," "grass," "hand," and "desk." Write the words, one word per card, in nice block letters. Lay them out in front of your child and have her pick up a card and tell you what the word says. She will likely sound it out. 

    2.    Next, ask her to think of ideas with you to help her remember that word the next time she sees it. It is NOT necessary to sound out a word… words are like faces that we can see and remember. Say she chooses the word “sand.” An idea you could use to help your child remember “sand” is to use colors or markers and make sandy colored dots all over and around the word. If you want to pretend you are at the beach, she can put a head on the D and let it be a child who is sitting in the sand at the beach.

    3.    When she has finished decorating the word, have her choose another word and do the same thing. For “tent” she could draw a tent being held up by the two t's that are at the beginning and end of the word. Take your time with this and avoid the temptation to hurry through. The point of this exercise is to help your daughter learn how to help herself, which will result in her gaining confidence in her own ability to learn and her own ability to use her gifts to her advantage.

    4.    Over time, choose more difficult words. For example, one set of cards can be words that use the sound spelling OI in the middle of the words or the sound spelling AY at the end. Have all the words in the group contain the same target sound spelling.

    5.    Remember that your child will be her own best helper if she is encouraged to believe in her own abilities and be shown that she can help herself. Every child needs to feel her own competence!

My child can recognize words, but reads one word at a time, tediously, without phrasing and with very poor comprehension if at all.

Nothing is wrong with your child’s brain. What is happening is that your child is doing what he thinks you taught him to do: name words he sees one after the other. We assume children understand why they are learning to call out the words we teach them. We most often don’t introduce the concept of reading as the magic communication that will open all sorts of worlds of rich images and concepts to our minds. We approach teaching of reading with letter recognition and then with the tasks of sounding out words. Many, many children focus on doing just that and are never led into the skill of using words as messengers for ideas and images.

    1.    Choose a word that you feel your child is interested in. Maybe it is “truck” or “dinosaur” or “mountain” or “airplane” – any word you feel he would be drawn to conceptually. Talk about how those letters in the word are just symbols that are used to make many different words. It is the arrangement of the letters that make up the word “airplane” that make that word mean something totally different from the same letters arranged to make “a praline.” So, say you choose the word “airplane” to play around with.

    2.    Using the word airplane as a theme, ask your child what he imagines when he hears that word. If he likes to draw, let him draw a picture of what he’s imagining when he hears you say “airplane.”

    3.    Once the picture is complete, working together to write a sentence or two using the word “airplane” that tells what the drawing is about. Repeat this exercise several times over time. You are attempting to connect the symbols (words) to images and stories in your child’s head. However long it takes, keep it up if you see that your child is absorbing the point.

    4.    Next, choose a book that you feel your child will enjoy. Share with him that this time, the words are there already, and he will need to imagine or draw the pictures that go with the words he reads. Start with a short paragraph. He will read to you, think for a moment and then draw what he read. This is a powerful exercise that at first will seem so very slow to execute, but is effective to help your child perfect his ability to translate those black squiggles on the page into beautiful and colorful images in his head.

The more actively your child is involved in 1. finding out wherein his talents lie, 2. working through the learning process, and 3. finding ways to help himself, the more his confidence will rise which will in turn fuel greater and greater successes.

Above all, remember, there are no bad brains out there. Let’s purpose to run away from name calling our children's particular learning tendencies. Let’s instead celebrate their unique design and focus on their strengths, gifts and talents. Remember that if we have a child who is just not growing, it will not do any good to take him from office to office getting him measured. Maybe just buy shorter pants, instead.

Teaching Prepositions Unforgettably

In a previous post we designed some lessons for teaching prepositions of location in ways that allowed children to act out their learning, manipulate objects as they learned, and then draw and/or make cut outs to show their understanding of prepositions of location. (Ex: “The cat is ON the table,” or “The boy crawled UNDER the porch.”)

Today we are going to do a similar planning session with prepositions of time. These are not as concrete, so we are doing them now that the students are familiar with the prepositions of location.

About prepositions of time

These prepositions are words that have to do with time such as BEFORE, AFTER, and DURING. Example sentences include:

        We will play after lunch.

        He cleaned his room before dinner.

        They daydreamed during the speech.

        I’ve missed her since she left.

        She will wait until class begins.

Teaching prepositions of time

Sentences using prepositions of time can be acted out, but they are not as concrete as prepositions of location which can be shown by positioning two items relative each other like you would do if you were showing “The ball is ON the rug.”

1 - Use a timeline when teaching prepositions of time

You can make one timeline that is large enough for the class to see, and then have cut outs that divide the timeline into sections. Here we see breakfast, lunch and dinner. So if you are using this time line, your sentences can relate to time in relationship to the means.

        I packed my book bag before breakfast.

        I put my dishes into the sink after breakfast.

        I told jokes at lunch.

        We talked about going camping during lunch.

        Mom said I had to take a nap after lunch.

        I set the table for dinner.

Model for the class how to place a little figurine or doll on the timeline to correspond to each sentence.

2 - Follow-up

The children can make their own timelines using long strips of border paper and crayons.  Markers on a timeline could include days of the week, birthdays, seasons, day or night, hours of the day etc.

 

Another post about prepositions is a recent one where we provide practice in recognizing prepositional phrases and using them to help with reading fluency and comprehension.

The role of emotions in learning…

…and why it matters so much that we understand well.

Too often adults behave as though we (subconsciously, not intentionally) believe that all learning happens in the thinking, rational brain, and that if a child is not performing well with reading or math, their rational, thinking brain is somehow at fault, i.e. disabled. For years, my passion has been to learn the reasons why some children who are bright fail in school and what I can do about that as a parent, educator, and product designer, so I focus on learning from these children. Lately my focus has gone beyond “the child is obviously bright, so why is he failing?” to “the brain is wired to learn naturally, so no matter how bright or not bright the child appears, what is preventing learning?”

The clash between learning and teaching styles

What I have come to believe is that one of the biggest obstacles to learning has to do with a mismatch between teaching style and learning style. It is as though we speak Swahili to children whose native tongue is Tagalog. We can talk slowly, more loudly, repeat ourselves, have them try and write what we say, have them drill with flashcards, cut the required work in half, lower expectations for them… but as long as we’re speaking Swahili and their ears are trained to hear Tagalog, nothing good will come from the exercise.

The results of the clash

Children are naturally wired to scan the faces of adults who care for them – parents, teachers, or anyone who is important to them – and to read body language. They want to please, they want to belong, and they need our approval. They need to see our faces light up with love and approval when we look at them. Unfortunately, when we are busily chattering away in Swahili, what registers on our faces and in our body language is frustration, perplexity, maybe a sense of helplessness, or exhaustion. The child will absorb all that, and in the habit of children, will sense that he is failing us… and that the fault is his. The child will not understand that he should be spoken to in Tagalog; he will berate himself for not understanding our steady stream of Swahili.

Negative emotional connections

The next thing that will happen is that the child will begin to make negative emotional connections with anything that reminds him of the unpleasant experience he had with trying to learn in a Swahili classroom. The chair, desk, pencils, papers and books will all remind him of his failure to learn. At this point, there is the child’s failure, yes, but other things are happening as well.

Shut down

The more a child associates negative emotions with learning, the more his brain will shut down. He will be immersed completely in his emotions which are urging him to avoid the danger he is in. I have seen children who get to this stage in their life check out, act out, display bravado, drop out, become behavior problems so they will not have to be faced with their failure yet again. And of course learning does not happen.

The design of our educational system

 Our traditional system of education (which includes curricula, teaching style, testing, philosophy, and really everything about it) is accepted nationally in spite of the fact that for all the research, money spent, and initiatives initiated, our children are failing in greater and greater numbers. What is hard to understand is that for the most part, the focus remains on the failure of students; not the failure of the system to reach the students.

Does research impact practice?

Our children don’t all learn the same way; we have known this for decades according to research conducted by the most expert of experts in educational and neurophysiologic fields, such as Carla Hannaford, PhD., educator and neurophysiologist. We know so much about how children learn, in theory, but what research reveals doesn’t seem to effect change in our educational system. We have seen the system become more and more skilled at identification of learning disabilities, but PRACTICE has not changed universally. And until it changes, we will not see a change where it counts: with our failing children.

Chronic stress and its results

We as biological beings are wired for survival. When we perceive danger or think we do, our limbic system goes into full alert and we react to the “dangerous thing,” (fight or flight) even before we’ve had sufficient time to allow our thinking brain to process whether or not we truly are in danger, and to formulate a considered response to the incoming stimuli. Our thinking brain takes a bit longer to respond, which is why impulsive reactions are often not productive. Children in particular respond to perceived threat from within this emotional, reactionary place, and their responses are to fight or to flee. For many children, the one of the greatest threats they encounter is found in the classroom.

In her book Playing in the Unified Field Carla Hannaford writes, “In the 1950’s, Swiss researcher, Hans Selye discovered that people were exhibiting the survival response in a chronic way to non life-threatening situations. He terms this incoherent state 'stress,' and claimed it was an aberrant, inefficient use of our survival mechanisms. Though very little if anything in our daily lives is truly life threatening, the body reacts as if it were whenever we become fearful, anxious, confused, frustrated, out of balance, or critical of others or ourselves.”

Dr. Hannaford also writes, “If we are stressed, these disturbances can cause a steep rise in adrenaline and cortisol and a decrease in brain function causing us to react rather than reason.” She already discussed the results to unborn children of stress in the expectant mother and what the surge in cortisol does to the infant. “If the pregnant mother is chronically stressed, the high levels of survival hormones will cross the placental barrier and cause the developing embryo and fetus to also be in survival mode. This early pattern of chronic stress can lead to poor development and incoherent patterns of response.”

Finally, Dr. Hannaford states, “Chronic stress that produces high levels of adrenaline and cortisol and greatly decreased levels of dopamine (possibly our most important learning chemical) on a regular basis is not natural.... Cortisol inhibits the immune system, uptake of protein for cellular growth, learning and memory, and increases the transport of fat molecules that can clog vessels going to the heart and other organs... Unfortunately, stress has become normal, being stimulated by common life situations, and setting the stage for the emotional, physical and social ailments in our lives, those of our children and of the world in general.

Chronic stress: contributes to depression, hyperactivity, memory loss, learning difficulties, allergies and diseases like AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.”

Sources of stress

So we know chronic stress is at the least a detriment to learning, and at the worst physically damaging to humans.  What I want to discuss here is the sources of stress for our children.

• As soon as a child realizes he is not living up to expectations and not pleasing his significant adults. This might be in a class setting or might be as sweeping as expectations for a career choice.

• Stress can come from tension in the home; problems faced by parents and how parents handle those problems is absorbed by the children. The stress in the adult is transferred to the child. Disharmony between parents, chronic rushing around, habitual impatience, lack of quality face time with the child, financial stressors, and more.

• Being expected to do things he’s just not gifted in, particularly in a school setting whether at home or school. We tend to expect our children to be a master of everything even as we adults recognize that each person is endowed with gifts and also with un-gifts. We expect every child to master reading, math, handwriting, spelling, science, public speaking, calculus, brain surgery... (ok, sorry, I got carried away). It is critical that we spend a lot of time making eye contact, watching, studying our children to help them discover their unique gifts and then FOCUS on those with the child. Of course we can help them find ways to strengthen areas in which they are not as gifted, but our primary focus must be on their gifts.

• The early involvement in competitive sports with the lose/win pressure attached. Reality is one team or person will always lose, and the chance that your child will lose is 50/50. I am not convinced the benefits of participation in the sport outweigh the effects of losing on a child who is too young to separate the inevitable loss from his self-worth.

• Anything that pushes our children into a stressful mode, and we can learn exactly what is stressful by observation.

What can we do?

• Learn your child, and it takes time and attention. Make it a priority to notice what is easy for him, what he gravitates towards, and encourage those things.

• Realize her brain wants to learn and embrace fully the knowledge that if conditions are right, she will learn.

• When she encounters something difficult for her in school, take the attitude that her brain is fine, but maybe the presentation is not fine and find an alternate approach to teaching that topic.

• Encourage exploration and creativity, whether it be outside play, construction projects that take up his whole bedroom floor, or making concoctions in the kitchen.

• Provide a model of serenity as you go through the day. Identify what is stressing and figure out if that thing should really be as stressful as it currently is, and if not, what can be done to change the stress level. Do I need to really have all these demands in my life? Can I prioritize them so that some are “must-dos” and some are “oh wells”?

• Limit demands on your child to those hills on which you are prepared to die. Honesty, obedience, responsibility… things that will help make your child into a responsible member of society – those are important. Evaluate honestly which expectations emerge from our own desire to look good because of our child’s performance. Which demands stem from a preconceived notion of what the child’s career path should be?

• Enjoy life to the utmost. Possibilities are endless once we release ourselves from unnecessary fears, constraints, expectations, and free ourselves to reach for the moon. Focus on relationships, friendships, creativity and what builds us up as people.

How to design units that access each student’s giftedness…

…and turn on their excitement for learning

It would be amazing to take a protracted field trip and visit the schools across the nation, walk the hallways, and peek in the classroom doors to see what we can see. Doubtless what we would witness would be incredibly varied. We would see everything from classrooms in which students are engaged, participating, and energized, to classrooms in which children are passive, indifferent, and checked out. In some of these latter classrooms, behaviors are out of control, while in others, students are silent.

What makes the difference in classrooms?

I have a theory: if we access each child’s area of giftedness, we will turn them on to learning. In reality, the brain is already wired to learn. What remains is for us to figure out how to create a learning environment in which brains can learn, want to learn, and do so without a ton of effort on our part as teachers.

How can we do this?

Some ideas need to be in place before successfully designing units of instruction that engage students and access their best abilities. We should assume that:

• All children are gifted in varying ways.

• Students don’t all learn the same way.

• The ultimate best means of conveying what they have learned will vary from student to student.

• Lecture/verbal instruction is the least effective way to teach.

• Listening to verbal instruction is the least effective way for students to learn.

• It IS possible to teach one lesson and reach all the students in a classroom.

• Children can perform far beyond what we view as their ability level.

• Children rise to the occasion when they are given control over their own learning.

• Children don’t always learn concepts in the order we view as “the correct order,” be it sight words or math facts.

• Most children learn by sorting through a wealth of ideas and making order out of them in their own minds.

Planning a unit

As an example, let’s use the topic of European influences on the settlement of North America – 6th grade level.  The unit includes the history of the first European visitors and settlers to America as well as what animals and plants were introduced from Europe. I actually prepared this unit back in 2001 and taught it to two sixth grade classrooms in a rural, at-risk population of students with marginal home support. Suffice it to say, the topic was not on the list of “burning issues I need to know about” for my students. Decide ahead of time exactly what you want all the students to come away knowing and understanding, and be prepared to share this with the students.

Prepare your unit in ways that speak to the modalities of the students. It is not the time to say “read pages 225-228 and answer the questions at the end of the unit.” Speaking to the modalities of the students means that you will show more than you will tell. As you are sharing the food stuffs that originated in Europe, create a huge map (on the whiteboard or smartboard) showing images of the various foods/animals; use arrows or put the items in little ships that are headed towards the new world. Use rhyme and color-coding. Encourage the students to use their hands to reflect the lessons you are presenting, even if it is to draw the map in their notebook and draw or cut out images of the influences from Europe.

At the end of the unit, share that you want to find out what they each understand. There will not be a test to study for; there won’t be a certain way for them to show you what they know. Each of the students will be able to choose a way to share what they have learned with you and the class.

Give them the list of concepts or questions you want them to be able to respond to. At the same time, give them some ideas for options they can choose from just to prime the pump.

1. Verbally gifted students could choose to do a TV news report or write an article. 

 

2. Interpersonally gifted students could do a TV or radio interview, do a game show where the host asks questions and the contestants answer the questions, etc.

 

3. Intrapersonally gifted students might choose to create a diary from the point of view of a young person traveling over to the colonies for the first time, recounting their experiences. Or, they might choose to make a scrapbook with cut outs illustrating their entries.

 

4. Visually gifted students might choose to collaborate on a mural/map complete with key, illustrations, etc. They might elect to create a product using color-coding to show source countries of different plants and animals or customs.

 

5. Rhythmically gifted students might make up a song or chant or  poem or ditty about various aspects of the lesson.

 

6. Kinesthetically gifted students might create a choreographed play and act out the content of the unit.

 

7. Logically/Mathematically gifted students might recount the events, focusing on the challenges of the expansion into the Americas and the way these challenges were overcome. They might be interested in the data and numbers surrounding this period in our history. They might create graphs and other numerical charts as a way of sharing data.

The rubric

The teacher’s rubric must focus not on the means of conveying learning but on whether the substance of the unit was understood and communicated. Did each student show they understood the unit? Did they convey the concepts that were central to the unit?

Consider having a simple rubric for students to use to rate each presentation, prepping them ahead of time to focus on content more than on the means of presentation.

The structure of the rubric should include the major concepts and have a place for rating maybe from 1-4 the excellence of communicating each concept. The student rubric should be simpler and focus on the main elements and the extent to which they were communicated.

Taking it further

As you teach more and more frequently using this model, encourage your students to learn all they can from each other about what each child finds easiest to do. Encourage collaboration, not by teacher-led grouping, but instead by giving the students the liberty of planning future presentations drawing on the skills and gifts of students who are different from themselves. For instance, a visual spatial student could team with a verbally gifted child to create a presentation that showcased both of their abilities. The mathematically gifted child might team with a body/kinesthetically gifted child. The resulting projects would be so diverse and amazing for the class to enjoy as their learning and their understanding expands with each new presentation.

The result?

Your students will love learning. I can guarantee it! 

How to Choose the Best Educational Environment for Your Child

Recently I heard from a parent on the other side of the world about concerns she had with her daughter’s difficulties in some areas of school. She expressed that her daughter is primarily a right-brained learner and that she struggles with subjects such as writing when she needs to translate information from mental ideas or images into a sequence of words, or in math class when ideas utilizing symbols are called for. All of these present challenges to be overcome.

Subsequent discussions with this parent led to her question, “What is the best educational setting for my child?” She was doubtless considering whether or not she would be able to support her daughter sufficiently from home. This is a huge question, however, and one only parents can answer for themselves and their own children. But I asked this particular parent to describe in more detail what is easy and what is hard for her daughter in the school setting. Here are some of the ideas she expressed about her daughter:

What is hard for her: 

• Spelling. She is able to learn her spelling words for her spelling tests, however the spelling words are not used correctly in her writing thereafter.

• Mathematics. Simple addition, subtraction, division and multiplication take a long time to work out and sometimes when she gets the correct answer, she will write the wrong answer on the sheet.  If she cannot see the picture of the problem at hand, she cannot understand what is being asked of her.

• She is very tough on herself and wants to get everything right.  I cannot reason with her that mistakes are a part of learning.

• Often daydreams in class. She says that she uses the time to process information, however her teacher believes she is not on task.

• Moves, rocks, fidgets all the time; this helps her focus on the task at hand.

• Cannot follow verbal instructions.

• If she verbalizes before writing, her thought process is much clearer and she can write in a sequential manner.

What is easy for her:

• Reading - her reading level and comprehension are at grade level.

• Art - is very creative and thinks outside the box.

• Dance - very expressive in her dance, always getting acknowledged at school.

• Intuition - picks up people’s moods very easily.

• Writing - if helped, she can write some very imaginative and entertaining pieces of work.

• Science - loves science and is very excited to discuss science concepts.

As I read through these bullet points, what struck me was that this lady's daughter truly does sound like a visual/tactile child! [For more information about visual-spatial learners, see this blog post and this one.]

Another idea that struck me is how thoroughly this mother had gotten to know her child. This knowledge of our children is fundamental to truly being able to guide and help them. Once we’ve identified their gifts as well as their areas of challenge, we can choose wisely for them because we will have the information needed.

So how do I choose?

While I cannot answer this question, I will say this: Once you have determined your child’s learning needs and strengths, the next step is to find out what your options are. Is there a school your child could attend where consideration is given in coursework for right-brained or visual learners? If you have various options open to you, take the time to interview and ask specific questions about how your child would be helped through her areas of need.

If you feel there are few options for your child, one idea to consider is to supplement her education at home by using materials that are designed especially for visual or other right-brained learners. Visual learners learn very quickly when the setting is right. If the materials you are using have images and body movement incorporated into them, working with her at home might be all you need to do.

Please don’t hesitate to call (1-800-881-0912) or email (info@child-1st.com) if you would like to chat about your own child and what might help him/her out the most. Or, use the comments section below.

Coming Soon: SnapWords™ for SMART Boards!

Many customers have recently suggested that we create SMART lessons that feature SnapWords™ sight words. We're excited to let you know that we'll soon be releasing a series of files for SMART Boards that teachers can use to introduce SnapWords™.

The lessons will contain the SnapWords™ images, sentences using the sight words for context, suggested body motions, and plain sight words. The files will be separated into groups of 10 to 12 sight words each that follow the groupings in The Reading Teacher's Encyclopedia: Download Words by levels 1-25. Teachers can use the SMART lessons to introduce the sight words and then once their children know the words, can provide reading and writing practice with those words through the activities in The Reading Teacher's Encyclopedia.

We'll initially release files for the words in Lists A-E, but files for SnapWords™ List F (Download List F Words) and Nouns will be coming soon. We'll keep you posted and give you more tips on how to use this resource once it's in the store!

How to Meet the Needs of Many Types of Learners at One Time

Or, teach once and reach them all

One of the biggest challenges for teachers is to find ways to meet the needs of the many types of learners in their classrooms day after day. For several years I experimented by trying various strategies, all while watching the kids to see what helped them, and some things began to stand out that seemed to work very well in reaching a lot of different types of learners. Using multiple strategies at one time was astonishing—children who had been failing for years suddenly had the lights go on. And this was not because the material was dumbed down to their level, but instead because the vehicles that carried the information to the brain were different.

It took me several years of refining before I developed an approach to teaching many kinds of learners at one time that assured that they would all learn. Below is a global map of the various elements that are included in the design of Child1st materials, and following are short descriptors of each of those elements.

Global Whole/Graphic Map:

Many children are global learners who learn by seeing where the detail they are being taught fits into the big picture. For example, if you teach a child 2+5=7, he'll likely be distracted by trying to recall where else he saw numbers that add up to 7 and so not remember that detailed equation. If you tell a global learner that one strategy for reaching non-traditional learners is to embed the learning within the global whole, she will immediately begin wondering what the other strategies are that are good to use. If you tell a global child that LAUGH is pronounced L-A-F, and that TAUGHT is pronounced T-O-T, a flurry of question will be unleashed in his mind, all of which will prevent him from remembering what you told him. What a global learner needs to see is the whole picture. “Where does this fit in the whole?” “What other words are spelled with the AUGH sounding like O?” “What other number pairs add up to 7?” and so forth. The strategy then, should be to show the global whole from within a diagram or chart, and then having done that, teach a detail at a time if need be.

Draw/Write:

From the very beginning, we need to provide immediate writing practice for what we teach a child. For example, if you show a child a SnapWords™ image such as the one at the right, talk about what it says and what the image conveys in terms of story or situation, and then be sure he understands what the word means. The very next thing to do is ask him to study the word, then close his eyes and “see” it in his imagination. When he says he can see it, have him open his eyes and draw or write what he saw in his mind. This practice is very simple, but will do a number of things. It will teach the child to rely on his strong visual sense, teach him to rely heavily on the pictures his brain snaps when he sees something, and give him a chance to use other senses to deepen learning when he draws or writes what he saw. The cycle of learning is complete when the child has drawn or written what he learned. Finally, this approach is very important as a means of showing you what the child really grasped. Many children can seem super attentive, when in reality they are staring at you but dreaming of something else.

Metaphor:

Whenever we liken a new piece of learning to something tangible and known, we are utilizing a very powerful tool that will help a child remember the new learning. For example, we can tell a child that M is Mmmm or we can say “M is Mmmmountain.” The shape of the known object reflects the shape of the letter M and also carries with it the sound of M. If you add to this a visual of M being mountain, you have tripled the learning potential for the child. Other metaphors: “Your circulatory system is a huge system of roads and highways…” “You brain is a very complicated computer.”

Color:

Color is a powerful aid to learning, sorting, and remembering. When used thoughtfully, color coding can make learning easy. One caution, however: if your coloring system gets super complicated (such as a distinct color for every sound) the child will be forced to try and memorize a color coding system before he can use it. This is going to be counter-productive! But if you use a color to highlight a target sound spelling, the different color will make the target letters/sound pop visually and the child’s brain will snap a picture of the lesson.

Gesture:

I cannot say too much about the teaching power of gesture. Many children can learn only when moving, and gestures that reflect the detail being learned are also hugely important. I have personally seen children who unconsciously made slight hand motions as they were reading—either motions for letters, or body motions for sight words they had learned using gestures. It became clear to me that while the gestures were vital for carrying information into the brain, they were also utilized to retrieve the learning!

Music:

Music makes a wonderful clothesline to clip learning pieces to! Can you see it? No detail will get lost if you have tied it to words in a song! Collaborate with your child in coming up with a tune to accompany some lesson they are learning. Music will make it easy to learn and recall the information.

Acting:

Acting out learning is another form of gesturing, but is definitely whole body and brain! When you are teaching the science concepts of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, have the children act out the movement of the water. It will be unforgettable! If you are teaching prepositions, have the children act out where they are in relation to their chair or a table. For learning fractions, act out the action in the math equation using real, concrete objects and a table or desk.

Rhyme:

The use of rhyme or jingles will help children learn and remember details. For example, in our SnapLetters™ Card for the letter A, we have the visual of A (anthill with ants crawling up and down it) and also have a jingle that ties the shape of the letter to both long and short sounds of A. “Amy’s ants on an anthill, actually.”

Rhythm:

Marching in a line to learn odd and even numbers is so great. If you are learning to count by 2’s for instance, march in a line, counting out loud. Each time you get to an even number, lean over to the side dramatically so that children subconsciously relate the deep bend with the even numbers. Rhythm can be linked to gesture if you clap or stomp in rhythm. If you are learning your 5’s table, use each hand to represent a 5. So if you say “4 x 5 is (slap both hands together twice to represent the four 5’s) 20” you will combine rhythm and gesture. The learning will be absorbed by the child’s body.

Story:

Story is one of my all time favorite tools. Once you let go of your inhibitions (mildly), you can really get imaginative with the stories you make up on the spot to explain learning concepts. For instance, see our previous blog posts about the story that explains inch, foot, and yard, and the story that explains contractions. Also, Alphabet Tales is a book of stories that explains how letters came to have their shape and sound. Once children hear a story and learning is embedded in it, they will not forget!

Visuals:

Visuals are incredible in their ability to transfer learning to the brain in an instant. Everything we create at Child1st utilizes visuals for sure. When right-brained learners, visual learners, active learners, and children who struggle see a learning concept embedded in an image, their brains will usually snap a photo of it, and it is there… forever in memory.

All of Child1st products utilize as many of these elements in their design as possible. In this way, we can be sure to not neglect any learner! Go check the materials out and help your children love learning!

Dyslexic Learners: Teaching Reading Via Whole Language or Explicit Phonics

Explicit or Implicit phonics instruction – and where do sight words fit?

Yesterday I skimmed through a whole series of websites about teaching dyslexic learners how to read. I was most interested in the approaches and materials being used. One website held forth on the topic of explicit vs. implicit phonics instruction. The author explained that explicit phonics is the approach where you teach in detail the various phonics rules. You teach from part to whole: teach the little pieces of words very systematically. And she stated that this is the ONLY way to teach dyslexic children or any other child who struggles with reading. She went on to say that implicit approaches to reading are ones in which the teacher teaches from whole to part: she names whole words and the child has to learn and remember the words. The teacher then may break the word apart into its various components and teach the child that way. The author of this website stated categorically that this approach is what is called a whole language approach and that it will never work for struggling readers.

Communication is tricky

What I got from reading this site was that communication is tricky. When I make the statement that some learners learn best from whole to part, this can convey the idea to others that I am an advocate of whole language. Which I am not. I do believe it is best practice to provide specific, detailed, explicit phonics instruction to children. Having said that, I also believe it is best practice to teach all children whole words at the same time (see our SnapWords™). So many children need to understand the global view; they need to see the end product; they need to understand the reason behind learning little pieces of words. Without these big picture concepts, these children will not experience success in learning to manage all the little fragments of words. Another reason for teaching whole sight words along with explicit phonics instruction is that most right-brained learners do not successfully memorize and utilize those little word fragments. They will be a whole lot more successful if you give them the whole word used in a sentence that means something, and then you break the words into their sound spellings.

When explicit phonics fails dyslexic and other struggling readers

I have seen what happens to strugglers when they are taught the little pieces unsuccessfully. I can see a picture in my head that shows this. I picture a child with a whole box of little pieces sitting by him on the table. The pieces in the box are all the little phonics rules he has been taught. He might be successful at telling you what an isolated piece sounds like, but when you hand him a text and he suddenly encounters a new word, he has to quickly decide which puzzle pieces to take from his box. Not every child will be able to sort through all the pieces and come up with the right answer so quickly. Another challenge is that a dyslexic child already has the challenge of reversing letters or syllables… so the more you expect him to handle several little bits and keep them in the right order, the more likely it will be that he will reverse something. As is the case in much of life, no one method is going to be sufficient for every child. It simply doesn't match up with the evidence to compartmentalize like that. I believe we have to learn the child first, not the system. Too many of us focus so strongly on learning systems of instruction; usually those who are considered master teachers are those who master the systems the best. However, we are often not that great at reading individual children. We try to fit each category of child (dyslexic or autistic, for example) into a system we’ve already learned. And as long as this focus on the system instead of the child continues to happen, we will be unable to reach many learners.

What does work for strugglers

The only reason I experienced success in teaching failing readers was because I focused intently on each child. I noted when he blinked… a child with ADD will sometimes blink each time his attention is short circuited. During those lost moments, mistakes are made. I learned that sometimes it is not that a child with ADHD didn’t know how to read, but rather that his struggle was in those little lost connections. The focus then became to help him not lose his focus. Sometimes it helped to have him track with his finger and purpose to not look up until he reached the end of the sentence. I also noted when a child’s eyes glazed slightly and realized that what I was doing was not working for that child. I also paid a lot of attention to what we were doing every single time the lights went on in the child's brain. I studied the child first, and that is the only reason the children learned. Later, when I started this company, I chose the name Child1st because I want so much to advocate for each individual child. We teach the child, not a lesson and not a system.

Successfully teaching visual and other right-brained learners

Several times on this blog we’ve talked about how to teach word fragments to visual and other right-brained learners. This belief, this practice came out of working with real children who were almost non-readers, who had not learned to read under regular phonics instruction. Utilizing the approach of using both whole words arrayed in columns so the children could see the spelling patterns and systematically teaching the components of words worked like magic for these children. Nothing else worked as well, in fact, to get them up to grade level in reading within the year.

Our Easy-for-Me™ Reading Program has been successful with non-reading dyslexic children when nothing else had worked for them. The program explicitly teaches word construction (phonics) at the same time as it leads the teacher through the process of introducing related sight words. The lessons detail specifically how to make this process a multisensory process, one in which children learn to rely on their amazing visual gifts for learning and remembering, and where they practice daily with hearing, seeing, and doing.

How does Orton Gillingham compare to the Child1st multisensory reading products?

Over a decade ago, I was teaching a group of beginners. At the time, I was intrigued by the fact that all of the children were either strongly visual or kinesthetic learners. In retrospect I realize that any child who is under the age of 7 tends to be a visual learner. At the time, however, I thought it was a really interesting coincidence.

I used an approach that was very similar to Orton Gillingham. Over time, the children became whizzes at giving me the sounds for a list of sound spellings such as the one below.

B	C	D	F	G	H
J	K	L	M	N	P
R	S	T	V	W	X
Y	Z	I	E	A	O
U	Sh	Ch	Th	Ck	Qu
Ce	Ai	Ou	Ea	Oa	Ow
Igh	Eigh	Ay	Ie	Aw	Ee
Ey	Ue	Ew	Au	Oo	Ui
Oy	Oi

By the end of the kindergarten year, I could give the children a sheet of lined paper containing the sound spellings above, and they could all supply me with a word that contained each spelling. They could also see a sound spelling and tell me the sound or sounds it made. It was pretty cool. I believed they were brilliant.

Children do what we teach them to do

The downside, however, was that while the children were amazing decoders, they were terrible at reading. They could not view a word and just say what it was. In addition, they would often sound a word out and then in the very next line see the same word and rather than remembering what they had done in the previous line, they would sound it out again. Over time, my frustration began to mount. I knew I was missing something pretty important in how I was teaching these obviously bright children. Much later I figured out that the children were dutifully doing exactly what I had taught them to do: they were sounding out words using all the little pieces I had taught them. But were they really reading? I don’t think so. They were not recognizing words nor were they absorbing the meaning of the words they were sounding out. This is my biggest beef with focusing solely on explicit phonics as the only way to teach reading. It is just not enough in many cases.

When we focus so much on teaching all the little pieces of words, it is so easy to neglect to teach children to read. We assume they will grasp the point of learning all those little pieces, but far too many children don’t make that connection for themselves. Some children never learn to read because they don’t know what to do with all the little pieces, while others are perennially stuck in the sounding out stage and yet others are able to recognize and name words, but have no clue what they are reading. They don’t comprehend because they have not grasped the fact that the whole point of reading is to receive communication.

Going beyond Orton Gillingham and explicit phonics instruction--why do it?

Remember that I had figured out that my students were predominantly visual and kinesthetic learners. So, one day when the lesson for the day was the word HELP, I heard the children sound it out just fine. But ten minutes later when we returned to the word, they had apparently never seen it before. They sounded it out again.

Adding the visual element

Oh my. So in desperation, I asked the group of children, “What does this word look like to you?” I am not sure where that came from apart from being fresh out of ideas and desperate to try something. One little boy immediately raised his hand and said “It looks like someone raising two arms and yelling ‘HELP!’”

My eyebrows went up and some lights began to dawn over marble head. Following his lead, I sketched a rough drawing on my whiteboard that looked a bit like this:

I shared with the children that the e is the head of the person who is in the water and the reason he’s yelling HELP is because the fish is swimming towards him and just might nibble his toes! In a very simple way, we added two right-brained elements: visual and story.

This drawing worked like magic. First of all, it showed the children that the letters they knew sounds for when put together made a word they could recognize over and over again. Secondly, they understood that the word conveys a story or part of a story. From that day on, we talked about each word we came to and as I asked the children what the words looked like, I began to design the earliest versions of the SnapWords™ images.

Adding the kinesthetic element

We encountered a new issue shortly. Several days later when I showed a little girl the plain word for HELP, she looked at it quizzically, but couldn’t for the life of her say what it was. I reached over and grasped her hands, and as I raised them up over her head, the word HELP popped out of her mouth as though drawn out by the raising of her hands. Another light began to flicker in my mind. The fact that we taught explicit phonics was super great. We were covering all the bases. The fact we added a visual to the whole words was an amazing addition, but now we needed to complete the multisensory learning package by adding physical movement that mimicked the meaning of the word. So the body motion for help was raising two arms as the child said the word.

Getting back to the original question about how Orton Gillingham compares to Child1st

I suspect Orton Gillingham might be happy with me for taking his advice about teaching in a way that encourages the child to SEE, SAY, and DO and also to use explicit phonics instruction. But I have learned to go so much further than having the children SEE themselves writing the word as they say it. That process is technically multisensory, but the matter of fact is that if the children are writing symbols, they are in a purely left-brained function. Symbols are left-brained elements. When you add a visual that is embedded in the symbols, you are taking the left-brained symbols and adding to them the right-brained image, creating a connection in the brain between the hemispheres. Then when you add to that a related body motion that mimics the shape of the word, you are involving also the cerebellum. This creates a connection between hemispheres in the brain, forming a lasting learning experience.

Who will benefit from Child1st materials?

Any beginner is in a stage where the right hemisphere in the brain is elaborating and developing and so will find the Easy-for-Me™ Reading materials fun and effective. For beginners and any child who struggles with the wholly left-brained approach to teaching (explicit phonics), including right-brained elements and body movement will involve multiple regions in the brain and will result in a far higher rate of success for those who struggle. The Easy-for-Me™ Reading Program details in each lesson exactly what to do to utilize the various regions in the brain. All materials are provided for you.

If you are using Orton Gillingham’s most excellent approach to teaching reading, please pay close attention to how each individual child is responding. As with any approach to teaching, if it is not fully meeting the needs of every child, it is our responsibility as teachers to add elements that will result in success for every child. No one program will meet the needs of every learner. No one program, no matter how excellent, will meet the need of every single dyslexic learner, for example.

It is true what they say: A picture is worth a thousand words. I have surely found this to be true in my experiences with brand new and with struggling or non-readers.

Sight Words and Reading Programs

Orton Gillingham has his list of red words: words that cannot be decoded. He also designates some high frequency words as green words, or those you can go ahead and decode. You can find upwards of 400 words in our inventory which are colorfully stylized to make learning them easy for your children.

See samples of the stylized sight words.

See the list of words available (not including SnapWords™ Nouns)

See the list of “coming soon” words: Download New words sept 2011.

In addition, our Easy-for-Me™ Reading Program beautifully leads any parent or teacher through the steps for teaching non-readers (be they the very young, or those who have not learned to read using other approaches) in a wholly multisensory way. The program goes beyond “see, say, do” to include fully integrated approaches that trigger responses in multiple regions in the brain at one time.

If you have specific questions or concerns about your particular situation or about a specific student, please contact us at 1-800-881-0912 or info@child-1st.com. We are happy to talk with you.