I am posting this message on behalf of Valerie Yule.
I wonder what you all think about her ideas. Here are a few questions I have:
- Do you believe that the English spelling system makes it more difficult for some people to learn to read and spell? If yes, who are “those people”?
- Are there certain factors that put some people more at a disadvantage than others? What are they?
- Has anyone tried any of Valerie’s suggestions? If so, what did you think? If not, do any of the suggestions look like something that might work for your students?
- What else, if anything, can/should teachers do in the classroom to facilitate reading and spelling skills?
Valerie’s Message:
Injustice and huge waste of talent result when the disadvantaged face barriers that need not be. Also consider the personal suffering, the economic cost to society, and the wasted hours in school when children fail to learn through social disadvantage, dyslexic difficulties, or their foreign background.
Most people do not consider the injustice of which I write, and which my experience as a schools and hospital psychologist and teacher has burned me up, when I found how unnecessary it was.
Most people who are literate have learned it easily or have forgotten that even they had a struggle.
Many British and American talented men and women from Mark Twain and Benjamin Franklin to inventors of modern communications like JV Atasanoff (computers) have seen the problem, but have tried to cure the problem of English spelling by radical change. That is impossible for many reasons. Other countries have updated their spelling. For many reasons Americans and English have not. Now spellcheckers help those who can read to write better. But what of those who cannot?
The burgeoning of texting shows how people can spell better than our writing system can. But this is hard for everyone to link to our traditional spelling.
Our academics prove that English spelling has problems; they know the problems of those who cannot learn literacy. But they fail to investigate how spelling could be updated, like other modern languages, to help the disadvantaged, and cut the time in education teaching reading and spelling for children to be able to learn other things, including learning by reading.
Experiment!
I have put forward ways in which this can be done. I have tried removing unnecessary difficulties in spelling for children, disadvantaged adults, foreigners learning English and even for ourselves as literate adults, and seen the happy results.
2011, Yule, Valerie 'Recent developments which affect spelling. On the possibility of removing the unnecessary difficulties in English spelling, while leaving the basic appearance of English print intact.' English Today, 107, vol 27, No 3. Sept 2011, pp 62-67 http://journals.cambridge.org/repo_A839oLF6
1986. The design of spelling to meet needs & abilities. Harvard Educational Review. 56.3. 278 - 297. http://www.hepg.org/her/abstract/489
Try Parallel Texting to give these unfortunats a chance. That is, a parallel text shorn of the spelling difficulties, set next to the present text. Mor foriners and English-speakers could then manage to read
I try to persuade teachers to giv it a trial. It harms no one. But everyone is afraid to start, altho my tests hav stood the test of time and experiment since the 1970s.
One side of each page in a reading book is normal spelling; the other side is ‘spelling without traps’ which helps beginners to read present spelling.
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/litreadingcribs.html
Innovators! What do u think most needs innovation?
My work as a psicologist has been primarily with peple who hav not been able to read, or very badly, or strugld as children harder than we had to. Think of what they miss out. Think of the cost to society!
Try this, or think what u would do.
http://www.ozreadandspell.com.au/
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/spelling.htm
If we got rid of the unnecessarily tricky spellings, most disadvantaged peple would hav a better life, thru having fewer barriers to literacy. Children could lern litracy qicker. We could read a spelling with rules that took one page - like most alfabetic languages - and so could they. No mor than one or two spellings per speech sound.
EXAMPL.
1. A Dictionary Pronunciation Guide based on the BBC Text Pronunciation Guide, plus 36 very common irregularly-spelled words to lern by rote that make up 12% of everyday text. (ALL ALMOST ALWAYS AMONG COME SOME COULD SHOULD WOULD HALF KNOW OF OFF ONE ONLY ONCE OTHER PULL PUSH PUT TWO THEIR THEY AS WAS WHAT WANT WHO WHY VERY, and international word endings -ION/-TION/-SION/ZION)
After that, only 6% of surplus letters in words need be cut, and 3% of misleading letters changed, in everyday text. That indeed makes a difrence for the disadvantaged, who can then read normal texts when Paralel Text is given next to it.
Experiment is the best way to progress.
Can u make a trial, for those whom u find hav dificulty?
Tell me what happens, or why u did not trial innovation at all.
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/spelling.htm#word Can u spell? The best of us may not be perfect.
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/spellresearch.htm
http://www.ozreadandspell.com.au/
2002. It's the spelling that's stupid, not me; Taking Ockham's Razor to English Spelling. ABC Radio National broadcast. Ockham'sRazor. 5.5. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/its-the-spelling-thats-stupid---not-me/3505566
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/paraleltexts.htm
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/dyslexiatest.htm
Only 1-3 spellings are necessary for every speech sound, not up to twelve.
Dr Valerie Yule, M.A., Ph.D, Dip.Ed., M.B.Ps.S. Academic positions at Melbourne, Monash and Aberdeen Universities in departments of Psychology and Education; Teacher at all levels, from preschool to adult and migrant literacy; Clinical child psychologist at the Royal Children’s Hospitals, Melbourne and Aberdeen; Schools psychologist chiefly but not only in disadvantaged schools, Present research on imagination and literacy.
Comments
Somewhat, but not significantly. I taught ESL to economically and academically disadvantaged adults for 10 years. Spelling was never a significant problem for any of them. Within 2 to 3 months, my students would learn how spell and recognize words without much coaching. An occasional dictation test here and there would help them with they're listening and spelling skills. The biggest problem was always semantic once they had to read and write sentences with coordinated conjunctions, clauses, sarcasm, etc. It was clear that their ability to manage this was directly associated with the amount of reading that they did or had done before. Those who had done quite a bit of reading in Spanish, previously, would be able to handle more complex grammar with some coaching. Those with limited reading experience would have more difficult.
This, of course, seems to be consistent with the results of the NALS, which suggests that the majority of Americans can handle basic reading tasks. The difficulty emerges when they have to read and interpret more complex texts.
Of course, It has been demonstrated again and again, that the educational achievement of the mother is the most significant predictor of academic success, followed by socioeconomic circumstances. These two factors, obviously, are directly linked to access. Children and adults who are exposed to literacy rich environments become very successful readers. Those who haven't often have difficulty.
No.
Access is fundamental, i.e., exposure to rich literacy environments, learning how to use libraries, lots of interesting books, newspapers and magazines of multiple levels and subjects, access to technology. Those who are not exposed to literacy rich environments will have tremendous difficulty learning to read complex texts, in spite of what we do as teachers, or what teaching methods we use. Those who are exposed to literacy rich environments will pick up reading without difficulty, regardless of what teachers do. This of, course, is if learners have no disabilities. If there is a disability, it would have to be diagnosed, before an intervention can be implemented. If a person is deaf, for example, teaching the person phonics would be useless. ASL and sight word recognition would be necessary. If a person is blind, teaching them to recognize words by sight would be impossible. A kinesthetic approach would be necessary. Many reading disabilties range from the inability to process images to the inability to process sounds. Certain disabilities, without a doubt, will make learning to read or write impossible, others would have to be identified to determine the intervention. Figuring out any medical condition, and understanding the anatomy and physiology of the brain are fundamental tasks in determining the appropriate intervention.
Andres
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I found Val's message and the questions very interesting, almost too much to tackle in one comment. Here's my two cents: I think the message combines three big issues around the English spelling system when it said "...children fail to learn through social disadvantage, dyslexic difficulties, or their foreign background." SES, learning disabilities, and a foreign background would be three very different root causes for spelling difficulties, each worthy of it's own discussion. Furthermore, having one of these "disadvantages" would not imply having another, and being foreing born is not necessarily a disadvantage.
The comment "Try Parallel Texting to give these unfortunats a chance" stuck with me. If we only consider the narrow definition of literacy as reading and writing, then we negate the literacy practices and other ways of knowing of competent people labeled here as "unfortunats."
As an ESOL teacher, I appreciate advocacy for literacy learners. I am an advocate, too. I understand the reasoning laid out here. I simply think we have too many complex issues being combined into one message, and that may not serve to help the "cause."
Thank you for listening. Susan W