John Bald/language and literacy

The Languages Show: Successful Language Learning for Pupils Assessed as Dyslexic.

This seminar will take place at 2.15 on Friday at Olympia, and I hope to post it on Youtube. It is perfectly possible to teach forign languages to people assessed as dyslexic, provided teaching is adjusted to make use of all channels of communication and learning, and provided also that we avoid the error of going too fast for children to understand in the early stages. This continues to be a major cause of failure in languages, alongside copying and not explaining the written language properly. 

Download Mfldx2

Video of talk is on You tube, here

Churchill's Grammarian: Robert Somervell

The Churchill Centre has a splendid biography of Robert Somervell, who taught the great man English grammar at Harrow, and who lived to read this:

[B]y being so long in the lowest form I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. They all went on to learn Latin and Greek and splendid things like that. But I was taught English. We were considered such dunces that we could learn only English. Mr. Somervell--a most delightful man, to whom my debt is great--was charged with the duty of teaching the stupidest boys the most disregarded thing--namely, to write mere English. He knew how to do it. He taught it as no one else has ever taught it. Not only did we learn English parsing thoroughly, but we also practised continually English analysis. Mr. Somervell had a system of his own. He took a fairly long sentence and broke it up into its components by means of black, red, blue, and green inks. Subject, verb, object: Relative Clauses, Conditional Clauses, Conjunctive and Disjunctive Clauses! Each had its colour and its bracket. It was a kind of drill. We did it almost daily. As I remained in the Third Form three times as long as anyone else, I had three times as much of it. I learned it thoroughly. 

Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence--which is a noble thing. And when in after years my schoolfellows who had won prizes and distinction for writing such beautiful Latin poetry and pithy Greekepigrams had to come down again to common English, to earn their living or make their way, I did not feel myself at any disadvantage. Naturally I am biased in favor of boys learning English. I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat. But the only thing I would whip them for is not knowing English, and I would whip them hard for that. 

Mr Somervell's inks are a good idea, but grammar needs a Churchill to make its big ideas clear to people in terms they can understand.  As Wittgenstein' said, "What can be said at all can be said simply."  Churchill's tribute makes excellent use of short words and short sentences. Grammarians should do likewise.

Technical Paper: Notes on a foundation lesson and assessment for people assessed as dyslexic or as having problems with literacy.

The foundation lesson gives the teacher a clear idea of what it is in a person's thinking that is holding up their progress in reading and writing, and starts the process of adjusting their thinking so that they can succeed. This allows the teacher to make an immediate impact on the problem, replace confusion with confidence, and to change the pupil's life for the better. This foundation lesson has been developed for use with individual pupils over thirty years, and was featured by Sue Palmer in The TES, here. 

Download Foundation Lesson For People With Literacy Problems

Download Assessment.

 

 

Yorkshire Publishing Organisation, Skype and a little improvisation.

Following the Yorkshire Publishing Organisation course on tackling dyslexia last week, we had our first skype lesson with a seven year old, his teacher and his father. Due to technical hitches, we had sound from me, but not from the school, I started to explain spelling to Peter, as we'll call him, with him indicating whether he understood by gestures, and his teacher telling me if he'd read the words correctly. Peter picked up everything first time, and seemed relieved to know that the reason he couldn't read words like where, kind and are was that the letters did not indicate the sounds we'd usually expect.  Peter's teacher and father were delighted, and he was literally jumping for joy.

We moved to the Gruffalo, with Peter reading to me down the phone, as we still didn't have sound with skype. Peter learned to spell buffalo. His first attempt, bflo did not contain any wrong letters, but had missed out two vowels, so we said the word carefully, and he built it up. Then, looking at Gruffalo, he was able to identify the extra letter he needed and insert it. When we got to the end of the first page, he asked to do another - and pointed out that we'd missed out the last two lines. We finished with the French connection in the gruffalo's terrible tusks, claws etc.

More next week, and thanks to Jodi for her improvisation and support. Good fun, and seems to have done some good too.

 

Suzi Bewell, great webinar, and more from ALL London.

Suzi Bewell's webinar on Literacy, Languages and ICT is here, with some great ideas and links to very useful Youtube videos and other resources. Notes and references from other ALL London webinars are at the same link.  A super ALL London meeting for NQTs, assistants and PGCE trainees took place last night at the London Institute of Education, featuring some magical presentations from Nick Mair, Nadine Chadier, Annalise Gordon. A series of classroom tips collected from ALL members will be posted soon.

Las Fallas - great work from little green mouse.

Susi Mair has posted a lovely eight-minute video of the Fallas festival from Valencia, here, with nice, slow commentary and a translation so that everyone can understand and enjoy.

 

Behind this is a thought on language learning, that our own language runs alongside the new one all the time, checking it and reinforcing it. Properly used, this makes our own language an aid to learning and not an obstacle. Not using it - and I mean as an aid to understanding rather than as a substitute for the Spanish - is tying one or both hands behind our back.  Discuss...

Tam's Bunnet - for once, a mnemonic.

The pupil who came to me counting on his fingers two years ago, and who has been moved up a set in maths, is now to be entered for higher tier rather than foundation at GCSE. This result is based on giving him fluency with number work, including tables, number combinations, long multiplication and long division to two places of decimals, using the mnmemonic Tam's Bunnet, described here. It is more or less the only mnemonic that I use anywhere, and I'd be interested to hear of any others for this purpose.  The order of teaching addition facts is important - I do not rush to complex conceptual issues such as finding the range of combinations that will make ten unti the pupil is very secure with combining two single-digit numbers. The 2x table is equally crucial, and I do not proceed to another until it is secure. 

 

Tam (right) and his friends in their bunnets.  

I used it again on Friday evening with a ten year old who lacks confidence in maths and who, like the pupil above, did not know the 2x table when we started. It took him a while to remember, and he still makes some slips in multiplication that hold him up, so we need to work on that at the same time. An advantage is that close observation of him working shows exactly where the slips and gaps are, so that it becomes clear where we need to focus the teaching.

Legasthenie - an alternative term to dyslexia?

The German term Legasthenie refers to all types of reading and spelling difficulty, and is an interesting concept. It is frequently presented as a syonmym for dyslexia, but, as the word Dyslexie exists already in German, it is  clearly a new word in its own right. This may be a triviality and may be an important development. We can argue about whether or not someone is dyslexic, but the existence of reading and spelling problems is not a matter of doubt. A pity it's not a more transparent word, but it seems a step in the right direction. The German Wikipedia entry is interesting.