Reviewing Progress

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Dear Kay,

Introduction

This is the fourth letter, and it is time to take stock and review your methods and progress. First, this month’s new teaching tip.

This Month’s Teaching Tip

Actually, it is the oldest one in the book and the one you will stick to when in doubt or when your student is tired or preoccupied. Take a text in which he is interested, whether it is television soap opera or football or whatever turns him on. Place it squarely in front of him, and read aloud to him, pointing as you read. Remember where you point? To the top of the line of print because the tops of letters are more readily identifiable than their lower halves. If there are illustrations don’t hesitate to use them to raise questions or discussion from time to time. The benefit is that your student has a natural interest in the content and that he follows the line of print as you read it. In that way he is making a shot at each word as you come to it and his estimation is confirmed or denied immediately.

You may say, "That is guessing!" My answer is that we aim to make the student a good "guesser". When we "guess" or, as I prefer it, "predict", we are using all the knowledge we have already, whether we are aware we have it or not. This is the way many of us first come to grips with print, when someone reads us a story while we look at the print and the pictures. In this way we build up associations between print and meaning and sound, on which the links between sound and print can be built.

Mixing in Other Work

There is no reason why you can’t improve the shining hour by drawing out of this activity some other work for the student. If you had to explain a word because he didn’t know the meaning, then after a while recall the word to him and ask him to find it on the page. If he can then you know he has a mental image of that new word. At this point it is no bad thing to get him to write the word in his indexed notebook. In pencil, remember, until he is sure he knows it, then he can go over it in ink. The number of words in his book (or box of cards) is a reliable measure of progress.

Alternatively, compose a sentence for him, leaving a gap in it and either giving him a choice of words to fill the gap or asking him, when he has read the sentence, to suggest a word himself. For example:

Nasser Hussain  is ……………. of the English ……....... ..............

This is the converse of a technique of dealing with strange words in context. The student reads as far as he can then when he halts you tell him to miss that word and read to the end of the sentence. Then ask him what he thinks the word is. If he still hesitates, read the sentence aloud to him, omitting the new word, then talk about possible fillers for the gap. Then let him add it to his word-hoard in book or box.

Reviewing Your Session

Now, to look back. Have you balanced the work throughout the evening? Do you talk and exchange news? Is there reading? Is there writing? Is there letter-study - after all, there are only twenty-six of them and it is a good start to know the letter-shapes because detailed study of them facilitates rapid recognition. It is also necessary to know their names. Not that we expect the letters always to say their own names nor do we teach phonics too soon. That is why we do not teach word-attack skills as yet. By that I mean it is too soon to tackle a word like ‘boot’ by saying," ‘b’ says ‘buh’, ‘oo’ says ‘oo’ and ‘t’ says ‘tuh,’ ‘buh - oo - tuh, B-OO-T".

If you tackle strange words in this way too soon then by the time you have sounded and blended the student has lost all sense of the meaning of the word in context. We understand words in strings, in sentences. It is strange but true that if you repeat a word over and over again (try this for yourself) it will become drained of meaning and you will have to wait for the meaning to return. So keep the reading going at understanding speed not dictation speed.

Silent Reading

Finally, it is never too soon to start the practice of silent reading. If we keep students reading aloud for too long they will always read at that speed and never read any faster. Try asking a question and getting your student to look for the answer without reading aloud. Try asking him what he thinks will happen next in a story, then if he suggests an answer then ask him to look ahead and see if he can see the word.

Keeping Your Student

Always remember that if you wonder whether you are getting anywhere with your student, ask yourself if he is still coming? If he is then you are succeeding because if he doesn’t continue then he never will succeed. Be pleased with small successes; two hours once a week is a very slender foundation on which to build. Would it help if he could be persuaded to do something between Club sessions? That will be the topic for next month’s Notes.

Gladys Glascoe