Supporting children with difficulties in reading and writing - Week 5

Multisensory Teaching Practice

Auditory Discovery

• Children listen to the words and identify the common sound (fog, careful, sift, refill, funny, cliff, often, fight).

Visual Discovery

• Give list of words - children circle the letter that makes the sound.
• They don't need to read the word.
• What is the name of the letter?

Tracking

• "Catch" each f by circling it, keeping pen on the paper in between.

Oral Kinaesthetic Discovery

• Try to feel what is happening with our bodies when we say f.
• Put hands on neck and feel the difference in sound between f and v.
• When we pronounce f, the vocal chords are not moving
• Tongue - explore movement with children. It can move in all directions. How does it move when we say f? Sh? Ss? When saying f, tongue is against your teeth.
• Teeth and lips - pronounce f and s. What difference do you see? When you say f, lips are closed, can't see teeth.

Manual Kinaesthetic Discovery

• Read words with fingers, not eyes.
• Use cards with raised letters - can you read the word?

Tactile

• Cover eyes with blindfold.
• Read words with fingers.
• Use counters to count the number of syllables in a word.
• Then put hand under jaw to count syllables. How many times did your jaw touch your hand?
• Write the word with a line after each syllable.
• For long words, use your thumb to split the word into syllables.

The Alphabet

• Lay alphabet in the shape of a rainbow so that you can see all of the letters.

Blap

• Blap is from planet Gizoom.
• What sounds do you hear in the name Blap? Put a counter down for each sound.
• Find words (real or imaginary) that end the same way as Blap.

Revision of Reading Cards

• Review short and long sounds for vowels and the sounds for consonants/blends.
• Say the clue word, children say the first sound they hear in the word.

Teaching Phonological Awareness and the Alphabetic Principle

• Start with shorter words and move on to longer words.
• Use the Blap "alien" to work through the assessment tasks.
• Use counters/objects to help teach phonological awareness. Ideally, different colours - syllables, two shades of same colour to represent onset and rime and a colour for the phoneme.
• Have wooden/ plastic alphabet for touch. Get children to write the letters. Start with upppercase because less confusion between letters.
• Must make sure child has a thorough understanding of the alphabet.
• Dyslexic children may not be able to tell you which letter comes before or after a target letter, although they are able to recite the alphabet.
• Five minutes a day work on alphabet - use in a rainbow shape.
• Ask them to lay letters out and put their hands on their mouth and throat so they can feel the movement.
• Close eyes. What letter comes before another? If they get stuck, ask them to feel the letter.
• Have a word in your head. Each child has one letter. They have to listen to each other the work out what the word is.
• Auditory discovery of phoneme - series of words where the target phoneme is at the beginning, middle and end of the word.
• Visual - circle the grapheme relating to the phoneme you are working on.
• Write the word in the air, in sand trays etc.
• Tracking - have the letter in different fonts/forms
• Reading cards to use for revision. Important to reinforce the grapheme-phoneme correspondences.
• Spelling cards - when teaching the spelling of phonemes always start with the more frequent graphemes (eg first f, then ff, then ph).
• Children can review reading cards each day - say the clue word, say the phoneme, and then turn over the card to see if they are correct.

Multisensory Techniques

• Working in structure - don't put child in a situation where they haven't seen the grapheme/ phoneme link in a multisensory link.
• Give the children self-correction tools so that children can self-correct
• Reading - grouping words into families - teach explicitly with colour coding
• Reading - helping children separate longer words into smaller sections eg syllables.  Underline the phonemes, cross out the silent letters, separate the syllables.
• Make a reading pack of irregular words
• Spelling - teach cursive writing because each time the pen is lifted from he paper. the more chance of error for a dyslexic learner (American dnealian). 
• How to teach regular/irregular words.
• Regular - SOS (Simultaneous Oral Spelling) 
• Irregular words - LSWC - Look Cover Write Check
• Sentence dictation - allow child to read the text before you dictate it. Child says back sentence. Teacher dictates sentence, students write it. Pupils read what they have written. Find mistakes.
• Tricks to remember spelling.

Comprehension

• Try strategies with students to see what works with those students.
• Use audio books to allow children to access content when you are not focussing on working on the text.
• Be aware of font when creating worksheets etc. San serif fonts like Ariel, size 14 with letters a little more widely spaced can make things easier to read. Double spaced too.
• When presenting a text to a child:

1. Verbal preparation, preview difficult words in the text, what do they know about the topic?
2. KWL - knowledge, what do I want to learn, what have I learned?
3. When the child is reading - self-monitoring eg re-read sentences, look up words. Stop  - what did that just say? What words didn't they know?
4. Active processing of the text - asking children to recall, get children to sequence chunks, students take on role of teacher and ask questions of a student or a peer.

• Reading Rockets website, Reading Educator website.
• What kind of text is it? Different strategies for different types. How is the text organised?
• Visualisation, mind maps. Use visual imagery for comprehension. Is it useful for the child in front of you (not always useful)
• Mind maps can be used to plan writing

Composition

• Pre-writing stage - bring together background knowledge, make sure student knows exactly what is expected from the writing. Brainstorm, mind-maps, get the ideas down.
• Karen Harris researcher
• Organisation - structures.
• Try to make writing task authentic
• Think about audience - who am I addressing?
• Drafting - then edit
• Editing - part of the process. Make process explicit
• MAPS - Meaning, agreement (grammatical), punctuation, spelling
• Use writing strategically - do they need to demonstrate their knowledge via writing?

Māori Greetings Spinner

I want to put together a set of resources to use for a te reo lapbook so thought I would start with simple greetings. It occurred to me that I could use a spinner element to show the different greetings you use for one, two and more people in te reo Māori and so that is what I made.

My illustration skills are rudimentary and my Adobe Illustrator skills are virtually non-existent, so I used a tutorial from the Guardian How to Draw series to help me make some cute little aliens for my spinner.

I have made two sizes. The original printed on A4 paper and works fine but the drawings are quite small to colour (perhaps blow up to A3?). This version has some brief instructions.

The slightly larger version that prints on two A4 sheets. The pictures are still quite small, so I have included a colour one as well as black and white.

CS002x Programming in Scratch

I have just completed week 2 of the EDx CS002x Programming in Scratch course. I have played around a little bit in Scratch in the past but never really got a handle on it. The course has provided a structure that, for me, helps me to learn a little more easily. The videos are especially good at explaining concepts. The quizzes can be a little intrusive - I think that more hands on experimenting would be better than multi-choice questions. Having said that, I did manage to make a very simple game. I even figured out how to get the bat to fly around myself! Baby steps :)

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/49061788/#player

Book Reflection: "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynmann!"

I requested the book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynmann! from the library on a whim after seeing it recommended as one of the best books about a scientist. It is an odd read. Basically, it consists of transcripts of stories told to Ralph Leighton by the Nobel Prize winning scientist, Richard Feynmann. He had a pretty interesting life, including working on the atom bomb during World War 2. He was also clearly loved telling a story (also was a bit of a smartass and had some fairly dodgy attittudes towards women by modern standards). What surprised me was that, in addition to his science, he clearly loved teaching and had some strong opinions about it. In particular, the chapter about his experiences on a committee choosing a maths textbook for schools is eye-opening and pretty depressing. I found myself noting down some of the things he had to say (below). Not a perfect book but I felt it was a fascinating glimpse into the life of an extraordinary person.

"I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding; they learn by some other way - by rote, or something. Their knowledge is so fragile! (p36-7)

"After the lecture, the guy who had invited me said, "Well, how did you like it?" "Just fine," I said. "The only part I didn't understand was the part about lecithin. What is lecithin?"The guy begins to explain in a monotonous voice: "All living creatures, both plant and animal, are made of little brick-like objects called 'cells' ...""Listen," I said, impatiently, "I know all that; otherwise I wouldn't be in the course. What is lecithin?""I don't know." (p71)

"So because I was self-taught using that book, I had peculiar methods of doing integrals....I got a great reputation for doing integrals, only because my box of tools was different from everybody else's...." (p87)

"The trouble with computers is you play with them. They are so wonderful." (in Los Alamos 1940s)  p 127

"Then they came to work, and what they had to do was work on IBM machines - punching holes, numbers that they didn't understand. I said that the first thing there has to be is that these technical guys know what we are doing....Complete transformation! They began to invent ways of doing it better." p128

"If you're teaching a class, you can think about the elementary things you know very well. These things are kind of fun and delightful. It doesn't do any harm to think them over again. Is there a better way to present them? Are there any new thoughts you can make about them? The elementary things are easy to think about; if you can't think of a new thought, no harm done; what you thought about it before is good enough for the class. If you do think of something new, you're rather pleased that you have a new way of looking at it. The questions of students are often the source of new research." p 166

"I finally figured out that the students had memorized everything, but that they didn't know what anything meant. When they heard "light that is reflected from a medium with an index," they didn't know that it meant a material such as water. They didn't know that the "direction of the light" is the direction in which you see something when you are looking at it, and so on. Everything was entirely memorise, yet nothing could be translated into meaningful words." p212-3

 Note: Feynman memorised things like log table that enabled him to do calculations in his head very quickly by thinking about numbers that were close, ie approximation. The difference is that he UNDERSTOOD the maths. Having the facts to hand just enabled him to work more easily and to spot patterns.

"I taught a course at the engineering school on mathematical methods in physics, in which I tried to show how to solve problems by trial and error... After the lecture some students came up to me in a little delegation, and told me that I didn't understand the backgrounds that they have, that they can study without doing the problems, that they have learned arithmetic, and that this stuff was beneath them....One other thing I could never get them to do was to ask questions. Finally, a student explained it to me: "If I ask a question during the lecture, afterwards everybody will be telling me, 'What are you wasting our time for in the class? We are trying to learn something. And you're stopping him by asking a question.'" p214-5

"I had this uneasy feeling of "I'm not adequate," until finally I said to myself, "I'm gonna stop, and read  one sentence slowly, so I can figure out what the hell it means."
So I stopped - at random - and read the next sentence very carefully. I can't remember it precisely, but it was very close to this: "The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels." I went back and forth over it and translated. You know what it means? "People read." p281

New maths
"The purpose was to enhance mathematics for the children who found it dull.
I'll give you an example:They would talk about different bases of numbers - five, six, and so on - to show the possibilities. That would be interesting for a kid who could understand base ten - something to entertain his mind. But what they had turned it into, in these books, was that every child had to learn another base! And then the usual horror would come: "Translate these numbers, which are written in base seven, to base five." Translating from one base to another is an utterly useless thing. If you can do it, maybe it's entertaining; if you can't do it, forget it. There's no point to it.
Anyhow, I'm looking at all these books, all these books and none of them has said anything about using arithmetic in science. If there are any examples on the use of arithmetic at all (most of the time it's this abstract new modern nonsense), they are about things like buying stamps." p292-3

"I think ordinary people with common-sense ideas are intimidated by this pseudo-science. A teacher who has some good idea of how to teach her children to read is forced by the school system to do it some other way - or is even fooled by the school system into thinking that her method is not necessarily a good one." p 340

"It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty- a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid - not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked - to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can - if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong - to explain it....
In summary, the idea is to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another." p341

Feynman, Richard P. (1992) "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynmann!" Adventures of a Curious Character as told to Ralph Leighton. London: Vintage Books

Why do we learn to write?

I was in a class of newly minted year 3s the other day and, as part of our lesson on full stops and capital letters, I asked them why we learned writing. The children had many answers including:

• so that our work is neater
• so we know how to write out letters
• to make our hands stronger

One child suggested it was so they could learn to write letters. That was the only answer that came close to addressing the real purpose of writing - communication! It reminded me of another time when I asked some year 5s why we learned maths (apparently so that they could teach the times tables to their children!)

Experiences like these have reinforced for me the importance of making sure that students know the "why" and not just the "what".

Getting on Board with Vision Boards

To help keep me on track on my "one little word" project, I signed up for Ali Edwards' class. Each month she gives a "creative prompt to help you make your word more visible in your life". This month the prompt was making a vision board. This was a pretty new concept to me and when I found out it was related to the so-called "Law of Attraction", I wasn't that enthusiastic about making one. But, seeing as my word is DO, I put my doubts and misgivings aside and decided to give it a go.

Ali included a very helpful video in the class about the process she used to make her board. First, grab some magazines that you can cut up. I used what I had on hand (Taste, Photoshop User and Education Aotearoa). They were all old and heading for the paper recycle bin so it felt good to use them for something. Next, flip through the magazines and cut out any images or words that appeal to you. This is the "brainstorm" part of the process.

I put my cuttings in a plastic bin as I knew that I was not going to make my board until the next day (I wanted to separate the "idea generation" process from the "making" process).

Ali used a canvas for her vision board but I didn't want to buy anything so I re-purposed a piece of corrugated cardboard from a box. When I started sorting through my clippings, I realised that I would need to have at least some kind of structure to work from. So I decided to grab the images first to use them as a base for my finished board. I arranged them first without gluing and when I had something I was happy with, I stuck them down. I was fortunate to find a large image (Make Some Thing) that I think works well as an anchor for the rest of the board (and relates to my word).

Finally, I sorted through the words, selecting those that "spoke" to me or that worked with my word. Again, I arranged them on my board and shifted things around until I was happy with the way it looked. I am reasonably happy with the final product (but happier just to have gone through the process).

It would be an interesting (and relatively cheap) process to do with kids. It would be a great way to spark discussion on design principles like grouping, use of colour, size of elements, use of lines (straight and curved), symbols, fonts etc and how they used them (or decided not to) in their work.

Lapbook 101

I didn't really know anything about "lapbooking" until I stumbled across a few pins on Pinterest. It seems to be very big in the home schooling community in the US although I am not sure how much it is used in schools.

It looked quite interesting so I thought I would have a go at making a sample lapbook using some of the more commonly used minibooks. I bought some cheap manilla folders at the Warehouse and, seeing as this is a sample and I wanted it to be somewhat sturdy, I used lightweight card for the books. For some of the books, I used templates made by The Candy Class. These templates come with detailed instructions in both pdf and Powerpoint form which would be very handy if you were using them with a class.

The lapbook was not difficult to make. I would imagine that the main challenge would be planning what kinds of books/information would work best for the topic you are doing. I am thinking about making one for my pepeha, which might make a good back to school activity.