Abc's of Elementary Education:: A Practical Guide

CHAPTER 1

A C

omplete Reading Program

In my many years as a teacher I have observed the controversy about what is the best technique or materials to teach reading, especially for beginning or remedial reading. The endless articles, questionable research, and arguments had me hopping from one concept, philosophy, and sets of materials to another. What surprised me was that everything worked, at least with some of the students.

Because of an auto accident in 1957 that left my younger brother permanently disabled and suffering from aphasia from brain damage, I had an ongoing interest in brain research. In the early Seventies I realized that most reading programs were one-dimensional and directed at one main sensory, responsive modality—one main brain area. Those who taught phonics were stimulating different brain areas than those who taught sight words or a tracing method or a language experience technique.

The concept of learning styles championed by Drs. Rita and Kenneth Dunn took into consideration the fact that some students learn more easily by seeing, others by hearing, some by touching or tracing. (This was why I developed my SIGHT, SOUND, TOUCH Reading System.) For awhile I tested my children and tried to teach each using the method that best fit his learning style (strongest sense modality). Unfortunately, it took a massive amount of effort and even though I was very successful I realized it was not time or energy efficient.

Although it is easier for children to learn using their strongest sense modality, the reality is that they all need to be trained to access and utilize as many modalities as possible because the most complete and thorough learning occurs from the interaction of as many different neural sites as possible. Then, they have many more hooks to fasten upon and to stimulate and access a neural pattern or pathway which makes the students complete and flexible readers.

In the early Eighties I had the opportunity to put it all together to apply my experiences with first graders. I knew that no one could be a competent reader without being able to recognize the Dolch or sight words. Research had indicated that the sight words comprised 90—95 % of the words in all books and materials up to and including the third grade. So, if students knew these they’d be able to decode at (not necessarily to read which means to understand) at a third grade level.

SIGHT WORDS

I started my first graders with 10 to 15 of the sight words each day and progressed to 25 a day! The words were given to the entire class. Of course at first I did not expect them to remember many of them. I made it a game and each word they spelled correctly was exciting to them. Some would get discouraged, so I kept reminding them that people learn from trying new things and learning from their mistakes. If they would try, I guaranteed they’d get more correct each week—which most did! Also, I would give them constant clues. I would say. The word is, was. It has three letters. It does not have a z. It has a an s. They’d laugh and say I was telling them how to spell the words. I would answer that I wanted them to learn the words and I only wanted to help them remember them, not to trick or embarrass them. After the first month we were recycling through the 220 sight words at a rate of once every two weeks. They could recognize these words and they could recall most of them well enough to spell most of them by the end of the year! They needed much less help when we did the language experience approach.

LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE

I read about an Australian teacher’s method of using her children’s own life experiences as the basis of books that each wrote about his life. Armed with our sight words, the children wrote about their lives as I stood at the board and gave them words. The range was from almost no words to a page from some each day.

The children read and reread each other’s journals or books, which gave them additional reading practice.

PHONICS

In the Sixties in Los Angeles I was hostile to phonics because it was presented as the only way to teach reading. It was also the basis of many of the basal readers that created stories that were merely practice for phonics. They gave readers the misconception that saying words or sounds were reading. There was nothing for them to comprehend or understand and so it was easy for them to believe that reading didn’t have to make sense. Still, I knew that much of the brain was responsive to sound and if I didn’t stress this, many of my children would be cheated of their strongest modality.

So, in the Eighties I had my first graders do homework lessons from two phonics type spelling workbooks—Dr.Spello and Conquest in Spelling. (These were created by the publishers for older students.) These gave specific lessons to teach general spelling rules or patterns. Although there were many exceptions to the rules, it did give them hooks to remember. They also were given practice in word families that rhymed or had other similarities that most children would not have noticed on their own. Added to this was my use in the listening centers and earned time areas of two phonics games.

I had developed a word wheel (Racing Wheels) that had many consonant blends, common endings, and attachments for prefixes and suffixes. They used this almost every day by combining a series of letters and circling the ones that were words. They also had two stacks of cards each set with beginnings or endings that they played with to make words. Further, during our spelling of the sight words I often gave them additional words that rhymed or had them try to make other connections. And, in their daily reading I would comment spontaneously on appropriate words that fit sound patterns while I helped them syllabicate difficult words.

TOUCH

For those who learn best by touch we played with making words in the sandbox. A bonus was that they would teach others during recesses and lunch.

During our printing practice I would give them sight words to copy and to trace using their fingers and pencils. Each way stimulates different brain areas and reinforces all the other things we were reading. These connections were making new pathways, reinforcing old ones, and making it easier for them to access what they had learned.

WHOLE LANGUAGE

It takes planning to use a whole language approach for the best results. It means the teacher has to coordinate the content areas with the reading skills and have the books and materials readily accessible so the students have them as their interests are stimulated.

My whole language approach easily flowed from the many different literature, science, and social studies selections that they read in the Listening Center tapes. I had taped ALL the mandated and supplemental texts in reading, science, and social studies and they listened to different selections every day. The children followed up with books that they checked out from libraries and that either they read or their parents or I read to them. There were so many different things that something almost always stimulated a child to follow a new or old interest on his own.

EARNED TIME

When a child completed a lesson he had two choices: either he could be an assistant teacher or he could have earned time. Most of my first graders would first help a classmate or two, which gave me the freedom to help the most needy ones. I taught them many games like checkers, chess, and five hundred rummy as well as games they brought from home to teach their classmates. This allowed them to either do academic things or play games; they made the choice. It developed confidence and responsible behavior. It also gave children paced breathing times to recover from the stress and frustration of academics. Games and earned time also provided a situation for me to teach cooperative behavior as well as deal with the disappointments of competition.

MUSIC

Besides the pure joy children get from singing alone or in a group, music is a great way to supplement reading instruction. When I made copies of a song they were to learn, they had a reading lesson with intense interest, motivation, and success. Many who could not read the words could learn the song. Later, once they’d memorized it, I would ask a poor reader to read it to me. He read it successfully and felt good and was more willing to try to read other selections. He would actually learn some or all of the words through repetition or, and this is important, he may have been one of those who learned more easily when a selection was sung. Different parts of the brain are stimulated by music than those used in normal reading out loud.

Hooked on Phonics uses this, but most children do not learn best this way. It is another way to reach some and all children enjoy it.

It means I could justify my music program to those who were staunchly for basic education. Adding music not only gave me variety; it reinforced my reading program! To me it was a wonderful break for my class and for me to express a part of us that could be experienced no other way.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

In the late Sixties I read about the Packwood experiment in England. They took two matched groups of children diagnosed as mentally retarded. One group went through a regular year of Special Education instruction; the other had physical education only. At the end of the year they tested both and the physical education group scored five months higher in reading!

I’m not certain how good the research was, but I can give a rationale. The physical education students were not damaged by competitive instruction that often inhibited their learning ability. They had a year free from academic distress and they probably were attempting stress free reading on their own. From a brain development model they received many neural connections as physical education affords many of the same figure ground, timing, learning similarities and differences that are taught on a small symbolic scale in reading. They were happy and their bodies were healthy, which made healthier brains.

ART

A rich art program stimulates another set of brain areas with much overlapping of areas that are used in reading. Art for it’s own sake shouldn’t have to be defended at any grade, because it also provides hooks, concepts and skills that will help in reading instruction. That is, like music and physical education, art skills enhance a child’s self-confidence while it stimulates his growing brain.

All three areas, art, physical education, and music also help my pacing. It breaks up the reading, math, or writing instruction in more doable time spans. If they have art, music, and physical education to look forward to they are more willing and able to listen and follow my instructions. (I believe this is true throughout the grades.)

The same instructional and learning skills I used in the more fun areas transferred to the academics and my class was better behaved and more efficient learners than other first grade classes.

DRAMA

I originally wrote my plays for my fifth and sixth grade classes. Yet, I was amazed at how fast so many of my first graders became competent readers. Since they memorized songs and poems so easily I taught them to be actors. They were sensational—for first graders. My plays are short, seven to twelve pages, have five to six characters, use a Thornton Wilder, basically bare stage, but have a narrator on stage at all times. The narrator often interacts with the actors as well as gives them cues when they forget a line. This gives young actors a sense of security and adds to the fun.

Of course a play is much more than merely memorizing lines. A good actor has to understand the lines and express them with his body and voice. Plays test and teach comprehension skills more easily and deeply than most stories in their mandated reading materials so they are a fun and useful part of any reading program.

LISTENING CENTERS

I had five Listening Centers. As mentioned, I placed on audiotapes every San Bernardino District reading text, supplemental reader, science and social studies text and book from primers to fourth grade. My students went from one center to another, each with different reading and spelling selections. They struggled at first just keeping track of where they were in the printed material that accompanied the tapes as they were experiencing sensory overload. I told them not to worry about being perfect readers, but rather to try to follow along as best they could. In each book my voice instructed them to look at the picture clues and the differences in letters and words and I encouraged them to play with the story. Later, when they were recycled through each selection, after having been exposed to more difficult readings, they discovered that they could read many more words than they thought. (Remember we were working on the sight words and playing games with words so they were reinforcing reading constantly.)

Dictating all those books was worth my efforts.

Now, when I advertise that one out of three of my first graders decoded at sixth grade levels, I must admit that the most successful were all from average intelligence to gifted. Most were minority children from poor to middle class families. Also, every year a few made absolutely no gain and the rest read at first or second grade levels. But, for three years getting ten to twelve first graders each year to read out loud with few errors in sixth grade literature books was quite an accomplishment.

Even those diagnosed as dyslexic read at least at grade level, most much higher. All the children were eager to come to school and almost all were independent as well as cooperative learners by the end of the year.

TV, VCR, and READING OUT LOUD

We watched movies, cartoons, and TV comedies. Films enabled me to discuss many things like plot, characterization, conflict, and scene in fast-moving situations with high interest. Children in their normal reading materials couldn’t get as much information as quickly and with as much variety as was possible in films. It is still a neglected medium and rich source of instruction. Just be careful about copyright laws!

I read them poetry and stories (often selected by them—whole language) that they couldn’t read yet so that they could learn how much a good reader can get from a selection.

OTHER READING MATERIALS

In 1960 I ordered one of the first SRA kits, but I was forced to return it because it didn’t fit Los Angeles District policies. Since then many types of reading materials as SRA type kits and the Barnell-Loft Reading Skill Series offer excellent ways to teach reading. I would place my class in one set of materials for two weeks to a month, then shift to another set. When we returned each time, most of the children showed good improvement and this always gave them an emotional lift. And, they were seldom bored!

If I had a first grade class now I would also use many of the great computer reading programs to supplement mine as well as many more video-based lessons. I found the computer programs made by Davidson were well received by the children.

TEACHER as a READER

If you now have a district-mandated reading program, you can use many of my suggestions to think through or research what will work best for you according to your children’s learning styles, your teaching style, and what is available. Mine worked and work because I researched and read and I knew what I was attempting to do. When I read Frank Smith and the Goodmans’ works on psycholinguistics it was easy