Page Five
ENDLESS CASSETTES
When John and I met Barry Kahn (ME) at the Massachusetts Suzuki Conference in Boston recently, he told us about “endless cassettes,” devices used in Suzuki training which he thought had exciting possibilities for use in other sorts of learning as well. The cassettes look ordinary but are designed in a special way so the tape loops around to where it began, and so will play the same thing over and over and over until you shut it off. In the Suzuki program, tunes are recorded on these loops, and played often so the children learn them by heart.
The cassettes come in 3, 6, and 12 minute lengths, and can be ordered from ABILITY DEVELOPMENT, Box 887, Athens OH 45701. Besides music, Barry thinks they would be great for learning languages, or anything requiring memorization. Recently I had to learn some lines for an acting class I was in, so I taped the scene and played it back a number of times; if I had an “endless cassette,” this job would have been a little simpler. Please let us know if you try these gadgets and if you come up with any other uses for them. - DR
TEACHING ADULT TO READ
Dean Schneider (PA) writes:
… I’ve been working in a local literacy program since July. Bill, the man I tutor, is 48 and never learned to read. He grew up in South Carolina, and his father always put him to work instead of teaching him or sending him to school. The adult literacy program is simple in concept, similar to a learning exchange. The YMCA acts as the administrator and compiles a list of volunteers and matches each volunteer with a person who is registered and seeking help learning to read.
I’ve been happy with my tutoring with Bill. He’s learning to read and I’m seeing my same old methods work as well for an adult as they have for children [See Dean’s letter in GWS #15, “Advice on Reading”].
Bill and I simply sit down for an hour or so and read together. When we begin a new story, I read the story aloud first so he hears what it’s about, then he reads whatever amount of the story he can before getting tired or frustrated. I sit next to him telling him words or giving him clues whenever he gets stuck. We read the story several times until he knows the story fairly well, then we go on to the next. And when he reads on his own at home, he’ll read the current story and some of the prior ones for practice.
We started right out reading real books. At first we read simply children’s books. I especially like the MONSTER series published by Bowmar/Noble (4563 Colorado Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90039) and the fairy tales published by Ladybird (Hutchinson Books Inc, Chestnut St, Lewiston ME 04240). After reading just a few of these together, I decided to move to the JUNIOR GREAT BOOKS program, series 2 (Great Books Foundation, 40 E Huron St, Chicago IL 60611) - a much more difficult set of stories, but very good and Bill seems to like to push himself to read harder books. He enjoys working on a story until he gets it right,” as he says. There’s no need for reading to be one long line of steady progress: there are plateaus and leaps.
I have yet to see a better general statement of how people learn to read than James Herndon in HOW TO SURVIVE IN YOUR NATIVE LAND. He says, “Reading is best taught by somebody who can already read and who knows and likes the kid… sitting down with the kid with a book and reading to the kid and listening to the kid read and pointing out things about sounds and words as they go along,” and perhaps talking to him about the book and what is going on in it. This is basically what I do with Bill. It works as well with an adult beginner as it does with a child.
The “phonics” work I do is simple. It’s partly tied in to the 19 “clues” I give as shown in the list below, and occasionally we’ll take a break from the story we’re reading and spend five minutes or so on variations of words from the story. For example, rat, sat, fat, mat, brat, that; came, same, tame, shame, blame; mean, bean, lean. There’s no particular reason for choosing a certain word for this exercise except that, in the beginning, it should be a common sound. I don’t try to do everything all at once. I only list a few possible variations, and I don’t try to “cover” every sound he’s unfamiliar with. I allow him time to assimilate his growing vocabulary and skill. I simply pick a couple basic sounds to work on for a few minutes, then we get back to reading the story. I do, however, keep an informal chart of the little lists of variations so we can review from time to time. Later on, I’ll pick a sound on the list to expand further. For example, I might do fear, feast, beast, beat, meat, peat, peace, please, etc. We’ve been reading together twice a week since July and we’ve only accumulated a couple of pages of these phonetic variations. Yet, Bill’s recognition of words and ability to figure them out goes beyond such a limited range of sounds. He seems to have absorbed some general rules for figuring out words from the limited phonics work we have done; in other words, he uses phonics for what it is - a clue to what a word might be, and one way to look at a word (i.e. by the sound.)
I’m not against teaching phonics, at least when done in this manner and by syllables or whole words, but I don’t agree with teaching phonics right away to a beginner. It’s like trying to teach outlining before a student knows how to write. Get the person reading a lot first so he begins to see patterns, to relate unknown words to known words, and has a stock of known words you can compile for little charts. How can phonics make sense until the learner gets a sense of the terrain, of what it’s all about, a sense of patterns, a familiarity with lots of sounds and words through just reading. Sure, you can force phonics down students’ throats, but that’s just a measure of your willingness to be authoritarian, not a measure of what is truly useful for the learner. Phonics should come after the student is already reading quite a bit. This early reading is mostly through a “sight” vocabulary and an acquired sense of phonics. Bill learned from easy but good books which he read over and over, a few pages at a time until he had learned to read particular books. Each book he learned made it easier to read the next since he was acquiring an increasingly large sight vocabulary. Then, a bit of organized instruction in phonics can help a person consolidate what he knows so far and be a basis for further learning. But still, you don’t need much phonics instruction (if any!). We will continue to read and re-read stories and accumulate new phonics lists.
In the following chart, I list some of the “clues” I give when Bill gets stuck as we read together. These are clues only; if Bill doesn’t get the clue and is still stuck, I simply tell him the word he’s having trouble with. I do not sneak lessons into our reading time together. The only “lessons” I do at all are the variations on sounds I described above.
Clues and Aids to help a reader get unstuck:
- Read the story for him first, so he hears it, knows what’s coming, and hears your model of how it should be read fluently.
- If he looks confused after reading a section, even though he reads it correctly, reread it for him.
- Just tell him the word so he’ll keep going.
- If the unknown word is the same as a word he’s seen before, say, “It’s the same as this word up here” and point to both words.
- Tell him a word that rhymes with the unknown word. Tell him “you know this part of it” (such as “out” in “outstretched” or “ten” in “tender”). Cover the unknown part to show the known part by itself; then, cover the known part and see if he can figure out the unknown …
- Just say “Skip it,” or “Skip it and come back to it when you’ve finished the sentence.” This helps him figure out words through the context of the sentence. You can also re-read the sentence for him, up to the unknown word.
- “Take a guess.” Sometimes beginners are afraid to make a mistake, so they don’t risk taking guesses. I’ve found that guessing at unknown words loosens him up; besides, more often than not, his guesses are correct or at least close. If he learns to make guesses, he will do the same when he reads alone and will not get stuck as often when there is no one right there to read with him …
HER OWN READING IMPROVES
Judy Thompson in Washington State wrote to John:
… I had been unable to read, or told I couldn’t, for so long I really must have subconsciously believed it. I am 42 years old and after reading what you said in one of your books - I don’t remember which one but you said kids shouldn’t be made to worry about what they didn’t know when they read - I tried it out on my 7-year-old girl after she had been on Dick and Jane for two years and hadn’t been progressing hardly at all. Well, I dropped reading altogether and two weeks later, she picked out a book several levels above what she had been reading and just started to read and didn’t worry about what she didn’t know. She read much better than before, probably because she wasn’t worried about the unknown.
So this made me think of what I always did. I only read what I knew I could read. So, I got something I wanted to read and I was surprised how well it worked. I read very slowly and still do, but I understand and retain everything. I started to love to read when before I hated to. I never thought I would ever say I love to read but I do. And I thank you for letting me see that I could …
I have a father who with tears in his eyes said to me, “I guess I am just dumb.” He works on cars, built a house when first married, most of it himself, drew out the plans himself. He welds, made a sawmill by using odds and ends and was self-employed for most of my life at home … He was a logger and I used to help him on Sunday. He cleared 3 acres of land and built barns, a shop, chicken coop, greenhouse, had a small farm - cows, chickens, garden. Made a real high swing for us kids. Got wood for the house. And yet he felt dumb …
BUYING STANDARDIZED TESTS
From a parent in Massachusetts:
… Last year I mailed away for the free standardized test catalog described in GWS #26 (Bureau of Educational Measurements, Emporia State U., 1200 Commercial, Emporia KS 66801). I then ordered the Metropolitan Achievement Test for 6th grade, and the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, Levels 9-14, which covers grades 1-6. Each set includes a teacher’s guide and answer sheet. The cost for both sets was about $17.
It is helpful to know which tests your school uses, such as Iowa, Metropolitan, etc … Each level has many different forms (JH, H, AB) so it is unlikely you would get the same test your child would be taking in school. I ordered the tests on my husband’s school letterhead paper, but nowhere is it stated in the catalog that only educators can purchase these tests.
I think they’re useful if your child is required to take the tests each year. You can get a good idea of content, format, and scoring … The answers are recorded on a separate answer sheet by colouring in a circle:
No. 5 1 2 3 4 0 0 0 0
It is easy for a child to lose his or her place, and then all the subsequent answers would be wrong. This happened to my child at school, and he felt so pressured knowing he only had a certain amount of time to complete the section that he became unable to find his place, and just continued to fill in any circle so the teacher wouldn’t be angry. After practising at home this year, he felt more confident about taking the tests.
It was helpful for me to see the range of skills that are tested: Vocabulary, Reading, Spelling, Capitalization, Punctuation, Language Usage, Map Reading, Reading Graphs/Tables, Use of Reference Materials, Math Concepts, and Math Problems.
Of course, you’re much better off never having to take these tests at all. But if you have to take them, as we do, then you might find buying them a worthwhile investment …
(DR: Did anyone else buy their own tests? Please tell us about your experience with them.)
GETTING GOOD MATERIALS
From Leslie Westrum (WI):
… Recently visited a local pre-school and was tremendously impressed -mostly, I realized, by the equipment. Michael and I have allotted in our family budget about $300-400 per year for our “education fund” (so far we’ve never spent that much in one year, but it’s there if we need it.) Our friends think we’re crazy to spend so much on the kids - and yet they send their own kids to a pre-school - costs them about $800 per year per child! (Some here would cost closer to $1,800 per year.) For that amount of money the kid gets to take his turn with a dozen or more kids at using the great school equipment, and the day there is very regimented - and the kids come home tired and bored and flop in front of the TV - no energy left …
Our plan - so far working out just beautifully - is to provide good, sturdy, attractive equipment (I hesitate to use the word “toys” for our school things) and more importantly to provide a peaceful non-competitive atmosphere and lots of cuddling and individual attention.
It has been my experience that children (like adults) learn more easily when given attractive tools to work with - so I’m critical, I admit, of the things I choose for “Rabbit Mountain.” Madeline (now 2 1/2) loves our set of 170 coloured blocks - wooden ones with a lovely feel to them and nice bright calories. They’re made by T.C. Timber and will probably last forever! James (1-1/2) prefers Duplo Blocks (made by Lego) because he can snap them together and they don’t fall down.
… We took Madeline to an educational supply store and she chose an alphabet frieze for the wall - caps and lower-case letters from A to Z and animals from alligator to zebra. She loves pictures on the wall, but then so do the rest of us. So now we have all those letters and animals marching across our living-room wall, I’m sure the instructor from my interior decorating class would weep …
Our new townhouse has a big back yard and a sandbox (very dilapidated). We had one week of warm weather here last month, and spent most of the week in the back yard. What a delight! … Michael has drawn up plans to re-build the sandbox and also to build a climbing structure for the kids.
Funny - I used to think that only schools or very, very rich people would have all the educational things we’re accumulating, but we’re not really a school, and we’re certainly not rich - it’s just a matter of priorities and preferences. Some people buy cigarettes, some buy tempera paint. Some pay a pre-school, some create one. I realize, for instance, that our kindergarten blocks cost a bit (around $50) and I could have made perfectly good blocks myself - but I’m not eager to cut, sand, and paint little blocks. On the other hand, I’m awfully eager for good weather so we can cut, sand, put together and paint our climbing structure which will cost about $100, and I wouldn’t even consider spending the $600-800 to buy one of those! (And of course we’ll have lots of small leftovers for a birdhouse, squirrel feeder, maybe some kid-sized benches) …
COOPERATIVE LIBRARIES
Many home schoolers have said to me, “There are so many books on your list that I would love to buy, but I just can’t afford them.” For this and other reasons it might be useful for home schoolers in a given area, even if they live far enough apart so that they only see each other once in a while, to join forces to make a home school library. A number of families could decide what books and materials they wanted. If they already had some kind of common gathering place, they could pool their money, send in their order, and have all the books delivered to that place. But it could work just as well if each of, say, six families ordered one-sixth of the books, and then every month or two passed their books along to the next family in some regular rotation, so that by the end of the year everyone would have seen all the books.
Some such arrangement could make it possible for groups of families not only to order more books from us, but other good books which we do not carry (because we cannot get a retailer’s discount on them), like the splendid books put out by the National Geographic Society or the Sierra Club. And under such an arrangement families could subscribe to many more good magazines than any one family could afford, like National Geographic, National Geographic World, Natural History, Ranger Rick, Smithsonian Magazine, Science 83, Odyssey (a child’s magazine of astronomy), Cobblestones, Homesteader’s News, Mother Earth News, and many others.
Of course it would save families money and perhaps trouble if they could persuade local public libraries to buy the books they wanted. But where libraries are not able or willing to do this, the families could, as just described, have their own library.
Elsewhere in this issue we talk about ways of cooperating with schools. I can imagine a situation in which some of the members of this book-buying-and- sharing group would be teachers in schools. In such a case, as part of their regular rotation, the books and magazines would spend part of their time in these teachers’ classroom libraries. For that matter, there is no reason why some non-homeschooling families might not also be part of this cooperative library. It would among other things be a good way for them to meet some home schooling families, and vice versa. One way of finding such families might be to write a letter to the local paper. On second thought, it may be wise not to let this library group get too large, or the task of coordinating it, keeping track of books, etc., which someone will have to do, may become too much of a burden.
If some of you try, or are already trying, this joint library plan, we’ll be grateful if you will let us know how it works out. - JH