|
Irene is a little girl with an IQ in the low sixties.
She had spent one year in kindergarten, another year dividing her time
between kindergarten and first grade, and finally a third year in first
grade. By the time Irene walked through the door of my special education
classroom, she was halfway through second grade. In three-and-one-half
years, she had managed to learn only five letter sounds. She had never
recognized more than six sight words on any assessment. She was clearly
unable to read. I worked with her one hour a day, using the curriculum I
had devised, and in six months, she knew all thirty phonemes. (This
included digraphs and short vowels.) She knew over fifty sight words. She
was beginning to read and write simple sentences! Irene's success was a
final conviction that I had put together a curriculum worth sharing.
I have been in education for ten years. I spent the
majority of these years as a special education teacher instructing
students with learning disabilities. I taught both inclusive (in the
regular classroom) and resource (teaching children outside the regular
classroom) models. I taught at the elementary, middle school and high
school levels. I encountered one recurring theme throughout my teaching:
children were not reading at grade level. Often they were reading
significantly below grade level. Decoding the written language was so
tedious and overwhelming for these students, reading for pleasure became
an unrealistic goal.
These students knew that they were different from the
other children, and they interpreted this difference to mean, "I am
stupid." I saw a familiar low self-esteem and frustration from first
graders to twelfth graders. As I worked with these students, I saw talents
and abilities. Sometimes they were exceptional. Some of my students were
incredible artists and musicians. Others were computer whizzes. However,
these gifts and abilities were of no help to them when it came to learning
how to read.
By high school, even talented students can be burned
out on learning. Motivating these students can be nearly impossible. I
remember explaining to the parents attending an IEP meeting (a yearly
review of progress required for students in special education) that their
tenth grader was reading at a sixth-grade level. I tried to encourage them
with the fact that the previous year he was reading at fifth-grade level.
One year's growth in one year was excellent. But the larger truth carried
undeniable pain: their son was behind four grade levels in his reading.
How would he ever catch up with his peers? This situation is repeated over
and over in our classrooms.
When I began to teach elementary school, I was hopeful
that I could somehow narrow the ever-widening gap between my student's
reading ability and their grade level. I followed traditional strategies
for teaching reading; however, I didn't see the growth in my students that
would ever allow them to join their peers. I knew that the students who
tested in the cognitively deficient range were not likely to read at grade
level. But I also taught children with average IQs who were not reading at
grade level. I understood they must have some processing disability that
impaired learning. But how was I to get around the "traffic jam"
in the neural pathways and create "new routes" for learning. I
had been educated to implement instruction for numerous learning styles.
And I used a somewhat multisensory approach. However, I was unable to
structure an integrated instruction that effectively addressed the various
learning styles and needs of my students.
During this period my son was diagnosed with autism. I
began to read and study the modalities of instruction designed for
autistic children. I enrolled my son in a specialized autistic program,
and as I observed the systematic teaching that addressed his specific mode
of learning, I knew I was observing something that would change my life.
In a only two-and-one-half years, the school succeeded in teaching my
four-year-old son (who had the language skills of an eighteen-month-old
child with severe delay), a wide range of age-appropriate skills. As I
watched him achieve progress I had not known was possible, I realized
there had to a way for my students to experiences greater success. There
had to be a way for me to specialize my instruction so that my students
could be successful readers.
During this time I began to hear the term
"phonemic awareness." It was regarded as essential to reading
success. I was able to glean only bits and pieces, and these came from
people who knew the term, but were relatively unaware of its meaning. I
had no idea how to incorporate phonemic awareness into my daily reading
instruction. One morning I received a flyer announcing a phonemic
awareness class for students with learning disabilities. I welcomed the
chance to attend. Even though the class was a brief overview, I was able
to appreciate the importance of being phonemically aware. I visited the
local teachers' bookstore and bought every phonemic book my teacher's
salary afforded.
I met with the district's reading specialist, and she
taught me how to teach phonemes through oral-motor awareness. As I grew in
my appreciation of phonemics, I understood the importance of imparting
phonemic awareness to my students. My students were not only deficient in
phonemic understanding, but they were unable to maintain the necessary
strategies required for reading success from one day to the next. One week
they would seem to know the sound of the letter "p" or
"t," and the following week the same letters seemed to elude
them.
I began to organize my reading, my observation, and my
experience into a growing multisensory curriculum. With my phonemic
training, I was able to "chunk" language down to its smallest
units. Phonemic awareness gave me the tools with which to impart critical
reading skills to my students. I gave color and shape, texture, line and
pattern, light and movement to sounds. In time, I repeated these
multisensory approaches to phonics and the writing of letters. It worked!
I looked into the faces of my students, and I knew it! I opened a doorway
for them to step through, and they were "born" to the joy of
reading. It was as though I had somehow touched their souls.
But the most stimulating medium was waiting to be
added: music! I knew that music, with its mysterious dynamics, enabled
students to recall entire raps and songs with complicated and lengthy
lyrics. If children could sing phonemic sounds, and sing those phonemes in
songs and rhymes featuring those sounds, they would be empowered.
My step-father was not only a successful folk singer, he was
currently being featured in the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame for his hit
song, "Reach Out in the Darkness." (He had written the song
during the sixties and had sung it as part of a duet under the name,
"Friend and Lover.") I knew he had also won several awards for
children's music. When he approached me with the idea of adding music to
my classroom, I was ecstatic! The project quickly became a family affair.
Two of my sisters were musicians who helped to record the music. My
mother, a poet and creative writer, agreed to write the song lyrics and
preprimers. Another sister was an artist who illustrated the entire
project. I undertook writing the Five-Day-Twenty-Week teacher's manual.
Thus, Breaking the Sounds' Barrier, Reading By Ear was born.
I have experienced amazing success using this phonemic,
multisensory curriculum. I've watched children move two, and sometimes
three, grade levels in a school year. During the past year I had two
second-grade students who started the year at mid-to-late kindergarten
level and finished the year at a second-grade-ninth-month. They were in
line with their peers, ready to start third grade at grade level. Even my
students who functioned in the cognitively deficient range were making
excellent progress. Their growth was slower, but they were learning to
read and write! Wile my reward as a teacher was deeply satisfying, the
greater reward came from watching the happiness of my students. They were
able to experience success in reading for the first time. I saw children
begin to rebuild their self-confidence. Parents began dropping by my
classroom, excited about their children's progress.
One of my students, I'll call her Mary, was a child
with a significant learning disability. While she had made progress, she
had not kept up with the other children. On one particular day, as we
played a review game, I became intrigued with Mary's new-found ability to
recall information - some of it nearly a year old. When the game was over,
Mary had won by five points. Her response was unforgettable: "Mrs.
Gile, that's the first time I've ever won a game!"
Yes, it probably was the first time she had ever won on
her own merits. She had always been slower than the other children. But
now she had the tools and the knowledge of "sounds," and she
knew how to apply those sounds, and she had won a reading game. As I
thought about Mary, I reflected on the many middle school and high school
students I had taught. No wonder I could not get them excited about
learning. They had spent so many years never winning the game; they had
given up "playing."
Our curriculum begins with an oral-motor, phonemic
awareness, musical base. It uses a multisensory approach. It is being used
in hundreds of schools across America, and its influence is spreading. It
is a curriculum that reflects the many pieces I have found - pieces that
form an effective whole. It is a program that reflects the combined
efforts and talents of artists, musicians, and poets. It is Reading By
Ear!
|
