John Bald/language and literacy

What's in a word - irrational numbers.

Normally, we see as irrational a person who disagrees with us. This is because we all consider our selves to be rational. Sometimes we can see the reasoning behind another person's point of view, but usually this just helps us to understand the error. As a French banker once put it to me, in a discussion of the disastrous exchange rate under Harold Wilson, "Chacun a son point de vue." Irrational means unreasonable, lacking in reason, not agreeing with me. It's a mad world, my masters.

But not so in maths. In maths, the term derives from ratio. A number that can be expressed as a ratio, such as 1/3 is rational. One that cannot be so expressed, such as π or the square root of 2, is not rational. This does not mean irrational numbers are unreasonable. They make a key contribution to reasoning, by enabling us to calculate, even if not exactly, things we would not otherwise be able to.  Irrational just means that they have no ratio that can be fully expressed. The cliche - not a lot of people know this - is perfectly applicable. Fewer still understand it. It is a mystery that is too rarely explained. But it is not unreasonable, or irrational in the usual sense of the word. 

Bright seven year old "sudden and remarkable improvement".

Steady rather than spectacular progress through Good Little Wolf this week, but there are a lot of irregular words in it, and bsy is learning vowel combinations and unusual words like people quite confidently. We discussed her science, in which she is very interested, and started some maths, as I suspected she might have trouble with number facts. She counted in twos, but did not know the table, so we started on that. She is left-handed, and was forming letters in a very unusual and personal way, that made it hard for her to distinguish b from d, so we did some work on forming letters, beginning with a and dad, using French "grands carreaux" paper, which has intermediate guidelines. School has noted "sudden and remarkable improvement" on her intervention plan, so someone has noticed.  Dad has just added, "After leaving the John Bald sessions, she doesn't stop talking all the way home..."

Interlude: Jackson Pollock, Figurative Artist?

In my youth, I loathed Jackson Pollock with his tins of paint dripping on the floor. Then we had pictures of neural networks, and now this traffic picture of London from 30,000 feet:

 

Pollock begins to look like some kind of figurative artist after all.  

 

An old problem.

Our problems with languages are not new. Here are two extracts from Modern Languages in Comprehensive Schools (1977):

The majority

The general picture in the schools visited was, however, in marked contrast to that presented by these examples, In all but a few of the schools the learning of modern foreign languages was characterised by some or all of the following features: under-performance in all four language skills by the abler pupils; the setting of impossible or pointless tasks for average (and in particular less able) pupils and their abandonment of modern language learning at the first opportunity; excessive use of English and an inability to produce other than inadequate or largely unusable statements in the modern language; inefficient reading skills; and writing limited mainly to mechanical reproduction which was often extremely inaccurate.

Some schools had reacted against the audio-visual innovations of the 1960s and had reverted to a traditional approach, involving grammar, translation and an emphasis on written work. Occasionally this produced a measure of success within clearly defined limits. In one such school in the North-West, the pupils had very little practice in using the foreign language for communication and could perform only in situations in which they had been drilled; reading was under-developed; written work, though of very good quality, was confined within the framework of examination requirements. However, it was clear that the pupils' general education was benefiting from their modern language studies and that the less able pupils had a sense of security and of achievement. In most such schools, on the other hand, not only were aural and oral skills seriously under-developed, but standards of reading and writing remained low. This was reflected in examination results.

It is hardly surprising that the situation in sixth forms was no less disquieting. There were of course some exceptions. In an 11-18 school in the industrial North, where 11- to 16-year-olds were achieving highly commendable standards in modern languages, the quality of the sixth form work was also impressive. And in a 13-18 school in an outer London borough the sixth-formers were acquiring a good command of idiom and sensitivity in their approach to literature. The usual picture, however, was of ill-read students with limited initiative reaching only poor to mediocre standards.

Where pupils were conscious of making real progress in learning a modern language (even, in one or two instances, where the goals set before them might be considered to be somewhat outmoded), they usually displayed their enthusiasm in the classroom and in their contacts with visitors. They tended, moreover, to continue their language studies at the option stage. In contrast, in all too many language classes there was an atmosphere of boredom, disenchantment and restlessness; at times this developed into indiscipline of a kind which made teaching and learning virtually impossible. These pupils opted out of modern language learning at the first opportunity. By the fourth secondary year (age 14-15 years), a modern language was optional for the majority of pupils: in all types of school visited during the survey, only slightly more than a third of the pupils in this age-group were still engaged in such studies. The majority of these pupils were girls: in many schools the ratio of girls to boys was two to one, although the proportion of boys was often far lower in abler sets and in the sixth form.* In the first year of the sixth form roughly one in seven pupils was studying a modern foreign language and in the second year only one in ten, these numbers including pupils who were taking or retaking examinations for the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) and GCE ordinary level (O-level) as well as A-level candidates.

and on headteachers:

Only in a very few instances was the head of the school mentioned as a source of direct inspiration and help to the language teacher. His functions in the overall organisation and leadership of the school (see Chapter 5) were, of course, vital but he generally seemed to refrain from anything that might have been construed as 'interference' with the work of the head of department, preferring to react to the latter's initiatives. In a few cases the policy of noninterference possibly went too far. The duties and responsibilities of the head of department seemed rarely to have been specified, and it did not always appear that the performance of his duties was regularly checked.

Interlude. If you go down to the woods today...

More in The Mail, including one of the bears applauding the performance. 

Multiplication tables - progress.

A nine year old, who has moved from not being able to read Harry Potter to reading two pages a night, with just occasional inaccuracy, has had much more trouble with the early stages of multiplication. He got lost in the two times table after 2x2, and would give answers that seemed wholly random. Last week, we took just the first five items of the table, and worked very hard, particularly on 3x2, which was where he got the columngs mixed up. I asked him to practise, but the random nature of the errors made me doubt it would work. To my surprise, he turned up this afternoon and got to 8x2 before he made a mistake, after which randomness set in again - 9x2 = 20.   However, going back to 7x2 got this straightened out, and he completed the table. He also did much better on 3x, though we had to be very careful over 3x3. Still, miles better than last week, and increasing confidence with the larger numbers. We agreed that the random answers were a result of panic, often accompanied by a winning smile inviting me to join in the joke. The cure for randomness, we also agreed, was really knowing the table so that you didn't need to guess and clown about. More next week.

On reading, we are now focusing on phrasing and using punctuation. Very good progress in this, and thanks to JK Rowling for providing such an interesting context and keeping us both amused.

Glynis Rumley's Pilote Lesson Plans

 

Kent Education's Pilote CD course was a landmark in primary languages - for the first time, the French authorities had allowed filming in a French school, with French children talking to English children as they do to each other. Pilote is still available, and its author, Glynis Rumley, has made these lesson plans available to anyone who wishes to use them.

Download Pilote 1 Moi

Download Pilote 2 Mon Ecole

Download Pilote 3 Ma Ville

Download Pilote 4 Faisons Les Courses

 

 

Bright seven year old - "There's been a change..." Updated

Bright seven year old (bsy), described in this posting, returned with father, six days on and read eleven pages of Ruth Miskin's ditties with only two or three hesitations while she blended some words before reading them. We discussed the differences between hydrogen and helium, and looked at some Zeppelin stamps showing the airship over the world. We then started on Good Little Wolf, which has a fairly high proportion of irregular words. Each new pattern, from little onwards, had to be unpacked and taught, but bsy then read them accurately, including comfortably, are, told, Mrs, being, and some vowel combinations including really and liked.  Particularly pleasing, as bsy was tired after a hard day at school, so we had to cut the lesson short. The teacher's comment to mother is in the heading. She's not wrong. And phonics clearly do work for bsy - she just had to learn how to use them.

Update One week later, father and bsy return, and bsy reads the remainder of the ditties with only a couple of double-takes and a little teaching of the fl  group at the beginning of a word. More Good Little Wolf, which bsy now has to read at home. I think our next book will be Alice in Wonderland. This certainly feels like Wonderland.

Dyslexia Action - not good enough.

This post replaces one made a couple of days ago on the major charity Dyslexia Action, that was somewhat harshly worded. The key point, though, remains.

Our understanding of brain functioning has been radically changed by research into memory and its operation in reading.  Our knowledge of English spelling and its development has been revolutionised by research made possible by the computerisation of the OED, and set out in David Crystal's Spell It Out. Irregularity is endemic in the system, and there are patterns in it that can be explained in a way that makes sense to children.

The DA's preferred system,  Units of Sound, takes no account of either. It teaches one sound at a time in away that does not make it easy for children to identify regular and irregular patterns as they arise while they read books. The one published evaluation that I've seen, John Rack's chapter in Dyslexia in Context (Reid, G and Fawcett, 2004) showed them making no more than year-on-year average progress, which is of very limited valued to children who need to catch up rather than mark time.

This is, simply, not good enough. and the organisation's predominance in the field of dx provision makes it a serious obstacle to progress and, overall, a negative influence in a field in which confusion is no longer either necessary or acceptable. 

The private world of dyslexia, and a term that has run its course.

Who exactly is dyslexic, and who is to say?

To begin with, very few people are actually assessed as "dyslexic". It is more usual for a psychologist or other assessor to come up with an opinion that a pattern in test results, at times combined with an analysis of actual performance, is "consistent with" such an assessment. This is a phrase widely used in the medical profession when a doctor can't be sure. 

Virtually every test score that meets this vague criterion includes a weakness in memory. Most include a weakness in recognising words, and in recognising words presented at speed - also a weakness in memory, as the words need to be built up from their constituent parts.

The point at which a combination of weaknesses leads to a "category" judgement is never certain. Categories bring supposed benefits, and, some people say, comfort, in that they understand the issues more clearly.

But do they? And, in particular, does the category of dyslexia (hereafter dx)?

I no longer believe it does. Dx is a concept of the late nineteenth-century, when our knowledge of the brain and its operations was far less developed than it is now. At the time, it served a useful purpose in isolating particular difficulties with reading from general learning difficulties that had their own categories, usually socially and intellectually pejorative. More recently, it has come to be used as an umbrella term, which can be extended to cover just about any difficulty with reading except those caused by visual stress - which is itself confusing, as visual stress can cause symptoms that are closely associated with dx.

But let's get back to the hard evidence. If someone has a weakness in short term memory, they can learn to use their memory more effectively, for example by learning to group similar words, and so form artificially the neural networks that immediately successful readers form naturally. If they have difficulty in reading fluently, the task can be broken down and rebuilt, like a music lesson, so that the obstacles to fluency can be identified and tackled. If they have problems with spelling, which is perfectly natural in English (see D Crystal, Spell it Out, for the reasons why) then they can be taught to spell. 

In each case, the hard evidence of a particular cause of difficulty is more descriptive of the problem, and more indicative of its solution, than the umberlla term. This is important, not just because the term creates a sense of victimhood and helplessness, but because, against all intention, it actually gets in the way of designing the teaching that the individual needs. At present I never use the term dx unless someone else does first. We would have a much clearer view of the situation, and the action that is needed, if this practice were adopted by everyone else, and dx seen as a historical, rather than a modern scientific concept.