John Bald/language and literacy

Last shot in the locker - update

The pupil's first lesson was on the Wednesday before the Easter holiday. His second was after the holiday, ie three weeks later. After a reminder of how he needed to think about reading, he re-read the cover and initial sentences on the book we'd worked on, referring back to my record of the first lesson for two words only, and needing one additional reminder to use what the letters were telling him, and not to guess. He then learned to read several more lines of the same book, and we moved to reading the notices around the library, which had been labelled by teachers with words such as items, categories and materials. The pupil was able to read them after teaching, and his headteacher watched, very impressed.

A reflection from this is that, in order to read in English, we need to know not only what letters usually tell us, or can tell us, but what they represent in each word. The French scholar Nina Catach has described this as " a word-based system" as opposed to the French system, which she saw as grammatically based. It certainly poses its own problems - but within them lies the basis of their solution.

Light, the Eyes and Reading. A visit to CPOC

CPOC is the Colchester Primary Ophthalmic Clinic, directed by Dr Annette Grounds (PhD, Imperial College). It offers the rare, if not unique service, of combining established ophthalmic techniques, such as exercises to improve the convergence of the eyes, with tinting and close analysis of the movement of the eyes during reading, using a machine called Readamatics. I had arranged for a pupil to be referred to CPOC using the NHS Choose and Book Scheme - this required a letter of explanation to the pupil's GP, who did not know of the service.

The pupil had weak eye convergence, which led to switches of focus between eyes, and made it hard for her to switch her attention from near to far objects (eg from a whiteboard to her own writing.) She did not have clear left-right dominance, and would often lose her place while reading, sometimes up to two lines. She had, though been making very good progress in reading more complex texts, including Heather Angel's monogram on Macaque Monkeys, which has adult text, but in fairly large font. The smaller the print size, the more problems with reading.

The Readamatics machine allowed Dr Grounds to track the movements of each eye separately as the pupil read, and to see exactly where she lost her place. It was interesting to see the link between eye convergence and reading, but more interesting still that the eyes, as they tracked print, did not move in straight line, but wriggled, as if they were tracking the forms of letters in order to recognise them as the pupil was reading. This needs to be investigated.

In the meantime, the depth of Dr Grounds' examination, and the clear link to reading difficulties that would not otherwise have been established, confirms the view that I have formed in my 37 years' experience that visual factors are a bigger obstacle to reading than has been understood, and almost certainly as big a problem as those associated with dyslexia. Sir James Rose should have paid more attention to the issue.

Interlude. On being 60.

Surprise is the main thing. My grandfather died at 54, to be survived by my grandmother who died at 90. Not a happy fate. So, this in The Telegraph was interesting. I do feel more confident than I did, and for the first time in my life am not dominated by worries about money. Maybe being 60 is not so bad.

Last shot in the locker

As often happens, I was the last shot in the locker. The boy is 11, and was about to enter sec school completely unable to read, despite all efforts, including phonics as the school's basic approach to reading, RR and 20 minutes a day personal teaching from a TA.  It took 30 mins yesterday morning to turn it round, after a deal with the reluctant pupil that if I did not help him in 10 minutes, he could go back to class. The problem, as very often, was that he tried to sound out every word, and became completely lost when a word would not sound out.

The approach, as in my book, was to explain to him that the language was not always regular, and that he had to be ready for it to bounce a bit like a rugby ball rather than a football. We then explored the way the ball bounced in relation to the words he was having trouble reading, and he was able to begin to read.  Some phonics advocates see irregularity as a minor issue, that can be dealt with simply by having children learn "sight words" that may be printed in a different colour. Children do not see it in this light, and the children are right. The language is roughly three-quarters regular. A three-quarters truth is better than a half truth, but is not good enough.  Phonics are the basis for teaching, but irregularity needs to be explained and children need to learn to deal with it. This needs also to be clearly distinguished from the malign "searchlights" theory, that is just a guessing game by another name. The school's reading teacher yesterday said what I'd done was "a miracle", but it wasn't. It was just clear thinking.

A journalist asked how I could do this in half an hour. The answer lies in what I was setting out to do. I do not try to teach someone to read in one lesson. What I do is change the way the person thinks as they read, so that they are able to use the information contained in letters, and to interpret it as they need to in order to read in English, where letters tell us most of what we need to know, but not everything. Essentially, to read in English, we need to know not just what letters usually tell us, but what they are telling us in the context of particular words and groups of words. Even the single vowel o gives us different sounds in most, cost and some, all of which arose in this lesson. Once we know we have to adapt and interpret as we read, we can apply our intelligence to the task as we need to, and so succeed. Until we understand this, we can't.  We can begin this change in thinking in the first lesson. The rest is practice, consolidation and extension.

Update, here.