| Subject: Re: Spelling |
Author:
Keith
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Date Posted: 21:32:55 11/14/10 Sun
In reply to:
Alison
's message, "Spelling" on 23:42:06 08/30/10 Mon
This is a very difficult problem which still gives me difficulty today. You see, a person dyslexic is not just dyslexic visually, when the brain takes in the information, but also through memory recall, were the mind will remember but will still rearrange letter, add and delete letter and completely change the word all together.
On trick that my father taught me was how to break the words up into smaller words. For example the word "together" to-get-her.
Now admittedly I was not able to take this approach and use it for any other words at the time, after all that was the only example my father gave me at the time.
It was not until after I had completed my AA, and was working on my BS that I was finally able to figure out how to apply this to other words.
When working on my science degree, most of the words were completely foreign to me and extremely long. The longer the word the more difficult it gave me. Just like a child that tries to sound out words, after say the first three letters they kind of give up and try to guess the rest. I learned I could not guess the rest without having a lot of difficulty getting it correct. But, I could break the word down to bite size smaller words which were short enough for me to handle while at the same time knowing those smaller bite size words would allow me to put them together so to correctly spell a much larger word.
This may be 3 letters to maybe 5, but any case they number of letters plays a key role into making it bite size to me. The student may only be able to handle 3 letters, or they may find sometimes it maybe 3 letters while other times it may be more. Each word will be individualized as well. Each word you will have to take the time to break them down into smaller word with the student. Once they are all broken down, then they can much easier remember each bite side peace and understand how to use them so to build a much larger word. One word I did this with my Biology background is a muscle in the neck, “sternocleidomastoid” ster-no-clei-do-mast-oid. This is a word that would give most adults difficulties, but you can see who it is broken down to smaller words that are much more meaning full. Now granted you may have to look at a word several times to decide which way is most meaningful for the student, with the student. This is because it may seem to work best one way, and then best another way later. Play with it to see which way the student likes best and he/she feels is easier for him/her. For someone who may not feel they need to break it down so much, they may break it down like this, sterno-cleido-mastoid, or some variation of the two. Granted they may not necessarily be proper words, but it allows the student to see how the different parts of the words can be broken down to make the individual sounds which make up the word.
In some cases you may not be able to break the word down enough. In both cases one of the best tools of learning is repetition. It is not so much that the student has to concentrate extremely hard once they have the word broken down as far as they can, and trying to memorize the word, but to treat it like a speed bump. Remember in cognitive learning, something I picked up from physiology, the mind has a short attention spank and the mind is able to remember short list much easier than long list. So only allow the student to look at the words say a minute, and then put them down. Then a minute of distraction, say memorizing something for another test or class, work a drawing, or just spend the time looking around the class. Then look at the words for another minute. By channel surfing back and forth for short periods, the main goal is not so much how long they focus on the words each time, but how many times they look at the list.
For me, I started to get familiar with words after looking at them 5 different times, by ten I almost had them down, and then by 15-20 I was starting to get pretty good at spelling them. The more times you look at them the better you will remember them. By creating several short study sessions, you will prevent the student from becoming overwhelmed or burnt out as well. Kind of how kids may channel surfing on the TV, all the while they are able to stay up with everything on each show. The brain is being stimulated more, but because it change at the persons own pace it also prevents them from getting board and weary of the task as well.
It’s just like anything else, the more you become familiar with something, the more you know and understand it.
I have also learned this when doing math. I learned it when doing algebra. To me algebra is primarily designed to have so many different things going on that it comes across as over whelming. But, if you can take the time to break it down and see it in its individual peaces, or in this case, steps it becomes much more manageable. You see each of the small steps instead of seeing a great big giant step. These simple steps are multiplication, division, addition, subtraction. Do them in order one step at a time. First you look for each number you can multiply. When you are finished the equation I reduced to a smaller equation. Then you do all the division, again making the equation smaller, then only addition, reducing the equation more, until you are finally left with one small equation that has subtraction. Once you are finished with all the steps, you have this tiny little equation that only require basic algebra, placing all the numbers on once side of the equation, and leaving the letter on the other side, and either leaving you with the answer or again one last simple math problem. By making things into smaller steps they become much easier to do. When all the steps are done, the problem is completed.
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