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Neurodevelopment Teaching Tip of the Month Breaking the Code May 2010 |
Try reading the following sentences:smoe rscheearch sgests taht it deosn't mttaer in waht order the ltteers in a wrod are, the key is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. Tehy say the human mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a whole. How did you do? You probably were able to read the sentences because your mind interpreted the words correctly. That's because most adults have automated the sound and letter codes, and have seen the words in print so often that the brain automatically fills in the correct spelling. If young children try to do this same exercise, they usually can't do it because they have not mastered the sound-letter connections. This particular exercise has to do with learning the phonics rules or codes of our language. But the principle holds true for any form of communication. If the person receiving the communication does not know the rules of the subject, chances are they won't get the message. Watch an intermediate student who has not yet mastered the arithmetic fact families try solving an algebra equation. Or try reading a paragraph written by a student who still hasn't mastered basic language arts skills. While tutoring a global child in language arts, I noticed we weren't making much progress. The rules of punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and sentence structure were boring details that didn't seem all that important to him. So I dared him to read the following sentence. 
“I can't read that. Those aren't words. That's not even the alphabet.” “True,” I admitted. “You caught me.” I dared him to read another sentence. Flupt ross dex mogting grinko steffrot plunker. “That's nonsense,” he bemoaned, rolling his eyes at the same time to punctuate his point. I responded, “No it's not. It makes perfect sense to me. I know what the code is.” “But that's not fair,” he argued. Now I had him. I showed him a sentence from one of his stories filled with spelling and grammatical errors. “I agree,” I countered. “So is it fair to expect others to read this sentence when you use your own code? You love to write and express yourself. But if you don't follow the code system used to write English, how will anyone be able to read what you write?” Needless to say, he was much more attentive after that. 405 Words To view more 'Teaching Tips' Articles please 'Log In' and visit the 'Achives' page. |
