HOW A SKUNK CHANGED NICK’S LIFE

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Nick’s Rain Forest Collage

It all started when a skunk set up house under my step. He didn’t bother me but I was worried that he might not like one of my visitors. I called Japco, a reputable pest control company, who trapped him and released him into the woods.

In conversation with Tina from Japco, I learned that she had an autistic 14-year-old boy who was totally discouraged about his inability to make any progress at school. Tina scheduled a reading consultation with me and the rest is history. Nick responded quickly to The Making Sense Approach and was soon a joyful reader.

Nick was bullied at school and he did not want to be around other kids. His mother decided it would be best if she home-schooled him for a while. I served as a coach, giving Nick instructive feedback on his work, and teaching Tina, as she directed his learning.

NICK, MATT & GRANDMOTHER’S BAY

Matt and Nick Read Together

In September, Nick’s writing was at the first grade level and Tina was worried because she couldn’t get him to write very much. Students often don’t want to write because they haven’t got anything in their minds they want to write about.

Cheyney Kirzinger and her grade three and four students at Grandmother’s Bay, a small community that is part of the La Ronge Indian Band school system, were studying  Touching Spirit Bear.  Cheyney had been part of a professional day I  presented for teachers at LaRonge which taught an unusual way to use a novel as the center of instruction.  Cheyney was having remarkable results.

So I started Nick, and his brother Matt, on a study of the same novel. I put them in touch with the Grandmother’s Bay students to share what they were learning from the story. It was such a win-win for all of them as they exchanged letters, art work and stories. Nick’s writing blossomed and he began producing pieces of length and substance. He made each child a laminated white bear book mark with their name on it.

A MIND SET FREE

Nick and Matt's Masks

Nick has created work of astounding quality. What a joy it is for me to visit him in his personalized classroom. His fertile mind is overcoming his disability. He has created a huge number and variety of projects such as paintings, sculptures, an Egyptian newspaper, and a detailed model of a rain forest. These masks were created by the boys as part of their Spirit Bear study. Nick made the one on the left and Matt the one on the right.

Someday Nick will use his incredible mind to make innovative contributions to the world.  Reading restores confidence and makes all the difference.

 

15 MINUTES FOR 15 DAYS TO READING SUCCESS

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This is the slogan under which we are advertising SIMPLY READ! our online reading course. I think I had better explain it. I am confident that when anyone learns The Making Sense Approach and uses it to practice with learners for 15 MINUTES EVERY DAY FOR 15 DAYS, most will GET IT! I believe this will be the case at least 95% of the time.

The Making Sense Approach to reading changes the readers’ focus. A neuroscientist told me that reading takes place in the frontal cortex of the brain. For this part of the brain to function properly input needs to be stress-free, simple and joyful. These are the conditions set up by The Making Sense Approach and he thought that is why it seems so magical.

Almost without exception, parents tell me the only clue they give to struggling readers is ‘SOUND IT OUT! This often doesn’t work. Sounding out small words is difficult because phonics is too irregular. Sounding out big words often fails because by the time readers get to the middle of the word they forget what they just sounded and they ‘wild guess’ a word and carry on.

The dictionary definition of reading is ‘making sense’. It’s pretty hard to make sense by guessing words. Reading becomes confusing and comprehension almost impossible. The result is that poor readers don’t read any more than they have to and so lack the practice necessary to improve. There is no pleasure in reading and JOY is one of the critical factors the frontal cortex needs to read well.

The failure to read quickly enough to find pleasure applies to readers of all ages. Many adults tell me they are slow readers and don’t enjoy reading This is because they are unable to go beyond phonics to focus on ideas rather than words. Just because you get older doesn’t mean that you make the critical switch from phonics to making sense Some parents I coach told me that they were slow readers but, as they read in this new way with their child, their own reading improved dramatically and they now enjoy reading.

Poor readers need coaches who sit beside them and force them to read quickly, giving minimal attention to the mechanics of reading so they can re-focus their brains. Everyone is taught phonics at school and those with identified problems get an extra dose. So when they are shown how to shift focus, the ability to read fluently and with comprehension happens quickly. Many coaches use the training they receive in the SIMPLY READ! course to turn ineffective readers around in as little as two or three sessions.

If you decide to order the course, please let me know how quickly you are able to put your reader on the path to reading success.

GETTING LOST IN THE SYSTEM
Guest blog by Gabriole Wilson

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I watched my stepson get left behind his peers because of a diagnosed learning disability. The school coded him in elementary school and provided extra help to complete his assignments. This tapered off as he progressed through the system, finally ending altogether in high school. A parent meeting was called because his teachers could see he was failing. His home-room teacher admitted that she hadn’t read his file because she didn’t want to pre-judge any of her students.

This is a noble sentiment, but misguided. The boy needed help and school was quickly becoming just a place where he had to spend time each day. He was bored and increasingly isolated. Any joy of learning was being leeched by frustration.I won’t go into the details, but he did finish high school. Unfortunately, the standard teaching practice for reading disabilities wasn’t particularly helpful for Tom. Everyone, including me, told him he just had to read more. But how does that help when sounding words out slows you down so much that you lose the meaning of the passage?

Tom entered adulthood with one goal: to stay out of school. He took jobs that required little reading and a lot of labor, including a stint in a rock crushing quarry. It was worrisome, but he had made it clear that further education was not in his plans so we left him to navigate his own way through adulthood.

A work accident brought him back to Calgary. Living with us meant another opportunity to try and figure out how to help him with reading. We both knew the same old approach wasn’t going to help, so I finally reached out to Vera and asked about her program.

Luckily Vera had just launched an introduction to her program on the web. Tom and I went through the modules and decided to give Vera’s system a try – it just made so much sense. Tom actually got excited about trying it so we picked out a book and began applying what we’d learned. My role was simple, just remind the reader what to look for and don’t let him struggle too long. Tom also began his list of unfamiliar words because part of being a successful reader is expanding your vocabulary to help with new material.

I saw improvement within two days. Tom was a little reluctant to admit things were better, but after a week he also had to admit that reading was much easier with Vera’s method. We are no longer having evening reading sessions. There is no need. Tom is reading regularly and tells me that he uses Vera’s method. I’ve also noticed that his written work has really improved.

Thank you, Vera, for taking the guesswork out of reading. I only wish we had come to you sooner.

Gabriole Wilson

THE ROLE OF PHONICS IN READING

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“Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Phonics, the sounds of the letters and their combinations, is an important component in learning to read, and schools are doing a good job of teaching phonics. However, because the English language is inconsistent and irregular, the rules of phonics don’t work at least 40% of the time. The result is that many students struggle with reading skills well below their grade level. Those who learn to read quickly are able to go beyond phonics to make sense. Some children do this as young as four years old, without any formal phonics instruction.

For most teaching and remediation programs, mastering the rules of phonics is considered to be the most important part of learning to read. It seems logical that if one knows the sounds of letters and their combinations, reading will be easy.

My experience tells me that this is not necessarily true. I meet people, young and old, who have been exposed to heavy doses of instruction and remediation in phonics and it has made them slow, ineffective readers. Those who help others to read need to understand the value and limitations of a phonics approach to reading.

For those who are unable to read well, the clues most often given are to ‘sound it out’ or ‘guess’. Many words can’t be sounded out and it is difficult to keep the sequence of letters in your head if it is a long word. The result is that readers ‘wild guess’ the word and carry on. If you are practicing with someone who is not progressing well, you know this is true.

When the tools they have learned don’t work, students get more and more frustrated and discouraged. Even though they can read many words, they read too slowly and can’t make sense much of the time. Reading becomes a chore that they’d rather avoid. When ‘sound it out’ doesn’t work and ‘wild guessing’ makes comprehension almost impossible, extensive work in phonics is a detriment rather than a help. You have to STOP and set them off in a new direction.

Here is an account from the Edmonton Journal, Sept 10, 2005, of a research project that investigated the results of a highly structured, strong basic skills, phonics program introduced by the Public School Board.

“From 2001 to 2004, a team of 25 researchers from University of Alberta and Concordia University College compared the progress of seven schools using the Meaningful Applied Phonics curriculum and a control group not using this program. The results were startling. Instead of doing better than their peers at reading and writing, the kids in the intensive phonics program were falling behind the students in the control group, generally doing worse every year they stayed with the M.A.P. program.”

“M.A.P. didn’t work well for kids in the middle of the academic program, but for the kids at either end, the effects were worst of all. The schools which fared most poorly were the high-needs school with the aboriginal population and the high-performing school in the affluent neighborhood.”

Effective readers must go beyond phonics and strategies to use their subconscious minds to help them read. All the struggling readers I’ve worked with know everything they need to know to read. They just can’t access it because they are too focused on using strategies and figuring out words.

Successful reading is finding a happy balance between phonics and experience. The Making Sense Approach, taught in my online reading course, teaches you how to quickly become a reading coach. You’ll show readers how to clear away the blocks keeping them from reading fluently and with comprehension.

SMALL WORDS FOR SMALL PEOPLE?

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“Once poor readers are thought to be poor, even the best teachers may expect
too little rather than too much.”

Awakening to Literacy Margaret Meek

Beginners are given difficult text to read – small words chosen to fit small people! Words are strung together to repeat the sounds being taught. They have to be decoded individually because the story doesn’t make sense.

To be successful with these little words they have to know short vowels. My teachers at Normal School in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (1955!) told me not to emphasize short vowels until children are seven because the ability to hear them is only developed in some children by that age. Since then, I have worked with even older students who couldn’t distinguish short vowel sounds. I was able to teach them to read easily, but they were usually unable to learn to spell well.

Big words are often more phonically regular and easier to read than little words and they are certainly a lot more interesting. ‘Grasshopper’ is easier to read than ‘saw‘. You will be surprised at how readers exceed your expectations when they focus on understanding rather than on memorizing letter combinations and ‘sounding out’ words. The Making Sense Approach to Reading teaches how to change the focus from ‘sound’ to ‘sense’. When the focus is on making sense, small words are often filled in by the brain because talking has given us experience on how words go together.

In the early days of reading instruction in North America, the first reading text students encountered contained real stories with real words and plots. In fact, the Bible was the first text used to teach reading. The subject matter was not chosen for simplicity or made up to practice phonics. An example is this sentence from a grade one reader in the Alexander Reading Series, 1915.

“If the little fly is wise, he will not listen to the spider’s sweet words,
for he would never come out of the web again, and would soon be a little dead fly.”

Based on this wisdom, the Making Sense Approach uses reading material that is well above the reader’s level and interesting to both coach and learner. It is possible because the coach is there to show how and to give support. This gives incredible confidence to struggling readers. They realize that they can read small print and long paragraphs. Difficult, interesting words that deliver a message that makes sense, gives the coach something to work on. Then the coach shows the student how to speed up. Good readers are speedy and are confident that they can tackle long stretches of text. This way of practicing builds confidence quickly.

It is actually possible, by too much emphasis on mechanics, to make reading more difficult than it needs to be. The most basic natural instinct of all animals is to make sense and too much teaching can interfere with this natural ability in struggling readers.

Reading, making sense, is INTERNAL, INVISIBLE, and UNIQUE TO THE INDIVIDUAL . As such, it is best learned through apprenticeship, by being coached by someone who knows what good readers do when they read and how to model it for struggling readers.

ADOLESCENTS WHO DON’T GO SWIMMING . . .

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Adolescents who don’t go swimming won’t become good swimmers.

Just as swimming is learned by swimming, reading is learned by reading. I will never be a good swimmer. I can’t swim well so I don’t enjoy it and rarely go swimming. Do you think I will improve?

If adolescents can’t read quickly and with comprehension, then they won’t choose to read for pleasure which is what builds reading excellence.

These characteristics of adolescents make it more difficult for them to seek help:

• Unwilling to admit they have a problem
• Perception that the task is too difficult for them
• Accept their poor reading skills and devise other ways to cope
• Hanging out with friends is more important – reading is solitary

One of the biggest misconceptions about reading is that when you can read, you can read. But even the most accomplished readers are illiterate (unable to read) any material to which they cannot bring some background of experience, some frame of reference. The second myth is that teaching reading is the work of primary teachers. All teachers must be teachers of reading. Teachers in upper grades need to show students how to read more quickly and must provide lots of background understanding of a subject before expecting students to read about it on their own.

Adolescents with reading difficulties fall into two general categories. The first are those who read so slowly and carefully that they can’t get meaning and become discouraged. Second, are those readers who decode quite well but panic on big words, wild guess, carry on, and fail to make sense. Both groups are focused on sounding out words, not on making meaning.

When an adolescent is reading poorly, both student and parents are carrying a huge load of emotional baggage built up from several years of strain, struggle and frustration. Nagging will not help. The Making Sense Approach to Reading shows parents, and other reading coaches, how to free adolescent minds so they can read quickly and with comprehension. An added benefit; it is all accomplished simply, enjoyably and without pressure. Learn more at www.readingwings.com

PRACTICING READING IS HARMFUL IF . . .

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In the years since I retired from teaching, a heavy expectation has been placed on parents. They are required to practice reading for twenty minutes a day with their child. In some cases, they need to sign a statement to that effect every day. This can be the most damaging event for children who are struggling with reading – the one that keeps them locked in failure.

Parents are asked to take this significant chunk of time from their day with no training in how to practice properly. What happens when a student resists being humiliated by failing to read well day after day before his/her parents and family members? The resulting conflict breaks down relationships and leaves the student embarrassed and hating reading.

Anna, who had two young school age children, a 15 month old child, and worked full time, had little time to spend doing the things she enjoyed with her children. She told me that in her frustration she often said, “Get over here so we can get this reading done and get on with our day!” She also admitted that sometimes she had to lie because she just didn’t have forty minutes to spend reading with her two children. All of their interests would have been better served if they hadn’t had this onerous task hanging over their heads daily.

I spoke to a young mother recently whose nine year old daughter won’t even look at the pages anymore. She has given up on learning to read.
Children want to succeed before their parents most of all. For those who fail to read well day after day, sometimes for years, deep ditches of despair are dug. When students become discouraged, and give up on reading, it becomes more difficult for the school to do its job. The sadness that this creates can cause physical illness and depression. It can also result in behavior problems and fractured relationships with parents as children rebel against this waste of their time. When reading is joyless there can be little or no progress.

Practice makes perfect is an old adage. I beg to differ. Practice makes permanent and poor practice makes poor performance permanent.

World table tennis champion and Olympian, Matthew Syed, says it well, “It has to be purposeful practice, with the right level of focus, and you have to be extending your limitations and receiving good training with rigorous feedback or you’re not going to improve.”

The Making Sense Approach to Reading, taught in Vera’s online reading course, shows how to conduct practice sessions that are stress-free, enjoyable, effective, and that build positive relationships around reading.

Do you have a story about practicing with a struggling reader? We’d all like to hear it.

See you next week,

Simply Vera

Reading and Relationships – They wouldn’t come in . . .

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They wouldn’t come into my house.  Two eight-year-old boys, identical twins, stood defiantly outside my door until their parents forced them to come in. There they stood, just inside the door with their backs against the wall.  They were unwilling to talk to anyone else about reading.  They’d had it with reading.  At school, kids teased them about having to spend part of the day in another class because they couldn’t read. They responded by fighting and were well known to the principal.

Life was great, except for reading.  Intelligent, gifted athletes, they also sang and danced with the Young Canadians, the troupe that entertains at the Calgary Stampede.
The second time they came back to see me, they ran into the house to show me how well they could read.  We had a contest. I had them both read at the same time to see who could say the next word in the text first.  What fun!  It was April and I suggested that their parents request they be given the rest of the year off from attending the resource room.  They never looked back.

I met Jeff’s mother at a meeting and she told me he couldn’t read.  Jeff was 34 years old and a golf pro at a prestigious golf course in the Rocky Mountains.  Since I was spending the weekend at the resort, I arranged to meet him at a restaurant to talk about reading.  As we conversed, Jeff took what I said and gave examples from learning to play golf.  For instance, he said that if you are thinking about the mechanics of your swing when standing at the tee, you won’t ever make a good shot.  He also told me that he never tells kids under twelve how to swing.  He just asked them to watch him and copy what he did.  He wanted them to develop the swing that they were comfortable with.

I taught Jeff how to read in about an hour that morning using just my reading book for him to practice with.  For the first time in his life, Jeff read fluently.  The blockages that had been built up over the years had kept him concentrated on ‘sounding out’.  The Making Sense Approach allowed his mind to focus on ‘making sense’ instead.
Jeff had been diagnosed with dyslexia in grade two and had been put into the ‘medical model’ and treated differently.  He said he remembered begging his mother, at the beginning of grade four, not to tell anyone about his reading so he could just be a normal kid.  (Sounds like my twins!)  Unfortunately, Jeff died about two years later from melanoma.  How sad it was that even in his eulogy he was labelled dyslexic!

What purpose was served by labelling Jeff, and putting him through years of failure, when he still couldn’t read as an adult?

A mother came up at the end of one of my talks to parents on reading and told me, with tears in her eyes, that her 13 year old daughter had tried to commit suicide.  She felt humiliated and ostracized because she couldn’t read the books her friends were reading and was failing in school.

The stigma that is felt by students who don’t read well has a life-changing effect on them.  Reading DOES affect relationships.

If It’s Someone You Love…

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If It's Someone You LoveI rarely talk about statistics in my writing because they vary so widely and, if the one who struggles to read well is someone you love, statistics don’t matter.   However, as I start this series of blogs, I want to establish that we are dealing with a significant reading problem.

I was chatting with the owner of a large drilling company that has a many rig workers.  He told me that a number of those workers are unable to read the menu in a restaurant.  They order from the pictures or by listening to others.  I hadn’t really thought about how handicapped people are who can’t read.

These men have all attended school, at least into their teen years.  What happened?  They were living in highly literate surroundings and a lot of money was being spent on their education.  How can the statistics on reading be so dismal when we have such an elaborate education system?

The 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress in the United States reports that approximately 66% of students in eighth grade are not proficient in reading.

In 2000, Statistics Canada reported that over 22% of Canadians (16 years and over) have serious difficulties with reading. Another 25% fall into the second lowest level; they can read, but not well. That is almost half of our adult population who are not effective readers!

A 2008 study by the International Reading Association found that by fifth grade poor students have an average score almost 20 points below that of their more advantaged peers.  If this is the case, it doesn’t bode well for Alberta where I live.  Poverty among children has increased 40% in recent years, from 53,000 in 2008 to 73,000 in 2009.

Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association and librarian at California State University says, “It’s appalling – it’s really astounding.  Only 31% of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it.  That’s not saying much for the remainder.  We just don’t have a good explanation.”

Commenting on the vast reading gap in Connecticut, Elaine Zimmerman, Executive Director of Connecticut Commission on Children says, “Research indicates that 95% of children can learn to read, the real problem is changing how things are done.”

As I start this series of blogs, there is one theme that will thread throughout my writing.  I believe that anyone of sound mind, who can talk and recount a television program,  can read.  If they can’t, it is because blockages have been created in school or at home.  I don’t blame anyone for this failure.  Everyone does the best they can based on their own experience and knowledge.

I focus my writing on what happens today, as you sit beside someone with a book to share.  I do not want to present a yardstick to measure your past experiences.

As we share our experiences I look forward to your questions and comments over the coming weeks.   We can all learn to improve our performance by dialoguing and sharing.

Until next week,

Simply Vera

vera@readingwings.com

Why are we using the same?

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I’m reading a series of essays, published in 1973 and edited by Douglas Myers, called The Failure of Educational Reform in Canada.  Katz, in his essay, contends that the basic structure of modern education was fixed by about 1880 and it has not been altered, fundamentally, since then.  It was based on the model created by Horace Mann for educating the Prussian army.

He poses two questions, “Did anyone propose alternatives to the structure that emerged?” and “Why has the structure remained so impermeable to reform?

These questions are just as relevant today as they were 38 years ago.  Do we seriously attempt to change the model of education that is not serving the needs of many in a society that has changed drastically since 1973?  We move the furniture around inside the box but that the box itself has not been redesigned.

Katz suggests three reasons why fundamental change doesn’t take place.  The structure serves powerful entrenched interests;  those in control have careers to protect;  and it serves the needs of the affluent groups in society very well so they see no point in changing it.

Traditions are not very receptive to change.  But the report that the world population has reached 7 billion, so many people that if they joined hands to form a line it would stretch to the moon and back 14 times (according to scientist Bob McDonald), should be enough to provoke us to look at the teach-test model which is becoming more firmly entrenched rather than being open to investigation.

I look forward to your comments and possible solutions to these two questions.