s/o - gifted vs average - how beneficial is explicit teaching

[IsabelC]

My background is that I was generally a very academically minded school student. Most subjects I was at or near the top of the class without putting in any/much effort. (In case you mistakenly assume I was gifted, I will admit that there were some things I was rubbish at. Like sports. All of them. And advanced math and chemistry.) I found language arts particularly easy. The mechanical aspects of spelling, grammar and expression came naturally to me. I had very little instruction on these (virtually none prior to 7th grade, when I changed from a very average public school to a posh private school to which I had won a scholarship). Now that I'm trying to teach my children to read and write, I am figuring out a lot of 'rules' that I was hitherto blissfully unaware of. I never learned spelling rules, because I simply look at a word and can see (well, 99% of the time) whether it is spelled correctly or not. (I still remember with some embarrassment the day I (at age 6) irritated my second grade teacher because I could spell diarrhoea (that's diarrhea for you Americans lol) and she couldn't.) It's the same with writing an essay. I found it was fairly obvious how it should be set out, without especially concentrating on things like having a leading sentence at the beginning of each paragraph.

 

So to stop waffling and get to the point, I'm seriously wondering how some people become good at spelling (or grammar, or whatever), and how useful things like spelling rules are. Many people don't need them, and a fair proportion of people who have trouble remembering how to spell would also have trouble understanding and remembering the rules (with their exceptions - ah, those exceptions. I mean, the rule "When two vowels go out walking, the second one does the talking" has so many exceptions it can hardly qualify as a rule at all!). I wonder whether a more economical use of time might be to concentrate on reading, then attack spelling later on if the child seems to be having difficulties (which is more or less what we're doing thus far).

 

I guess what I'm asking from those with more knowledge and/or experience, is would my experience be common or uncommon? And with your children, and children you have taught or know of, how many have benefited a lot from learning the mechanics of writing, as opposed to (or, probably more accurately, in addition to) simply being exposed to large amounts of high quality writing?

 

In other words, if you view explicit teaching of spelling and grammar from first grade as essential, go ahead and convince me!

 

Or if anyone thinks the opposite, let me know too please.

Edited February 25, 2010 by Hotdrink

[T'smom]

LOL! That is soooo me! Down to the not being good at any sports or advanced math! I had NO idea about phonics- I didn't know the difference long vowel sounds and short vowel sounds, until I started teaching! I just picked up reading, I didn't have to be explicitly taught and when I wanted to become a teacher- it was a real effort to understand the 'rules'. Other subjects were the same way.

Now, I don't think that that is really a common experience- it certainly wasn't the case with the majority of my students. HOWEVER- I think that it may be likely with your kids- because they could have inherited it from you! It's my opinion that if they can do the work, it's not that important that they understand the 'rules'. For instance, if they are reading fluently- do they need to know that the 'silent e makes the vowel say it's name'? Math may be a different story though- they need to understand the whys to build on future skills. I'm interested to know if other people agree with this.

[hornblower]

I cannot remember not being able to read.

I spell and write intuitively. I did learn explicit grammar rules for English because it's my 2nd language and I was taught in a system that actually covered grammar.

 

I assumed my kids would be the same.

 

They were not.

 

They had exposure up the yingyang and it did not click for them until I did years of intensive work on phonics, phonemic awareness etc. 20/20 hindsight I would have started this work a lot earlier with them.

 

My sense now is that it won't hurt to teach explicitly and if it turns out 'unnecessary' you'll know quickly that you have that kind of kid & can ditch it if you no longer need it.

[Momofeat]

 

My sense now is that it won't hurt to teach explicitly and if it turns out 'unnecessary' you'll know quickly that you have that kind of kid & can ditch it if you no longer need it.

 

:iagree: As an OG tutor, I know that children who have dyslexia need to be taught explicitly. They are actually a large chunk of our population, and they are not just going to pick up these skills. However, almost everyone can learn when taught explicitly, although they may be bored to tears by it. Ask my poor DD, who had the full OG treatment for quite some time before I realized that she really didn't need it, LOL!

[elizabeth]

 

http://stores.lulu.com/classicalwriting This is the only course that worked for us as it is divided into several levels of complexity and rigor for each task . Everything is covered from grammar to vocabulary to diagramming etc. There is not a great deal of repetition so it works nicely for those who pick such material up quickly. It was the best choice for our family. Be ready to sit down with the core book and digest the approach for a few weeks prior to implementation . It does require more work for the teacher /facilitator but the rewards are impressive. I have several friends who teach at the local university who would love to use these materials for remediating their students...Seriously the level 5 tasks in Aesop are beyond the expectations of a freshman rhetoric class . That speaks volumes regarding the demands of the course for teacher and student. Presently we are using Corbett's Rhetoric and finding that we really enjoyed the Classical Writing series so much that we might revisit it with Diogenes level next year. We never used a spelling program but did use Wordly Wise for vocabulary building with great results and minimal headache.

[Liz CA]

I am the same way - can see a word once and know how to spell it. Learning foreign languages came pretty easy.

I really think it may have something to do with being very visual. I like to read instructions rather than watch someone do it - mostly anyway.

When I try to remember something, I close my eyes and retrace everything visually. I can also read upside down which I don't think is such an accomplishment but everyone I know thinks it's weird. Again, I think it's the visual thing with me.

 

I don't consider myself gifted - everyone has something they are good or something that comes easy to them. It was surprising for me that my son did not have this intuitive, visual skill when it came to spelling even after he read many books. He has more of a feeling for math.

I was and still am a reader.

 

Edited February 25, 2010 by Liz CA

[dhudson]

My sense now is that it won't hurt to teach explicitly and if it turns out 'unnecessary' you'll know quickly that you have that kind of kid & can ditch it if you no longer need it.

 

:iagree:wholeheartedly. I have a child who is a natural at Language arts, one who is pretty good and one who struggles with spelling. Two of them are twins and have been taught exactly the same thing. If I had not taught the rules and had taught (and am teaching) grammar and phonics we would be in serious trouble.

 

The child who is a natural will know why they do what they do and the others will learn what they need to for success. I

[staceyobu]

I am much the same way. I wished I had been taught *some* grammar (I learned no grammar in elementary school and remember very little spelling instruction). It is difficult for me taking foreign languages because I don't know my parts of speech well (example... write the six Turkish pronouns... I stress over what pronouns are).

 

Anyways... I know that it is helpful with dyslexic kiddos... but it is an interesting question if it is beneficial to ALL kiddos.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Ds needed very little phonics instruction before he just took off and read on his own.

 

He went very naturally from narrating long complicated things to writing long complicated things. I've never formally taught him to write. I do critique his work.

 

We did some spelling but once I saw that he didn't really need it, we dropped it.

 

I did insist on grammar. He hated grammar with a passion until we found Analytical Grammar. That taught him the care and skill needed to parse/diagram a sentence but without the repetitive twaddle that he had objected to.

 

He has sort of figured out math facts from needing to be able to compute the complicated problems that he had figured out how to do conceptually. I have insisted on some drill work as well as the conceptual though.

 

Dd is a whole different person and student. She goes from the detail to the whole. So we are working on phonics and spelling longer and in great detail. But I'm noticing that now that she's starting to get the detail that she is starting to transfer that to other things.

 

She loves the drill that ds hated. I'm so glad that we can school individually!

[keptwoman]

I also have a natural bent towards English. I've done a couple of IQ tests over the years and one told me I was a "linguist" I don't know what that means except that language comes easily to me. I'm an excellent visual speller. I can look at a sentence and tell you that it looks wrong, most of the time I can point out how to fix it, but I can never pinpoint exactly why or how it's wrong, I just play until it looks right. I deeply regret not being taught proper, thorough grammar. One day when we can afford it, I'll be buying AG to do myself, so that there are rules to go with my "that just doesn't look/sound right, why don't you change it to this"

 

I've been sure that my kids understand the bones of the English language since they came home. I know that for some it comes naturally, but it is not so for everyone, and even if it is, it's still handy to be able to articulate clearly why something is not correct.

[MomsintheGarden]

I was never taught formal grammar, so it's been fascinating to learn the grammar vocabulary from our Rod & Staff curriculum. Ditto for spelling, and the WRTR (+ my spelling bee students use the very intense spelling rules book from Hexco). I really like that my dc and I are learning *why* we do things, and that we have the words to use to discuss the concepts.

 

GardenMom

[littlebug42]

Currently, I am at the same point as you are. My oldest daughter has a natural gift for LA related things. She can spell almost anything I throw at her so honestly, we don't spend a lot of time on spelling with her (2nd grade). If she comes to a word she can't spell, we look at it but once she spells it, she doesn't forget again. I was never taught a lot of the rules but again, it was never really an issue because I already knew how to spell the word (although I still find myself on occasion repeating to myself "i before e except after c"). We are working on grammar but again she just breezes through because it comes so naturally to her. Lessons on verb agreement etc are almost pointless because she can immediately look at it and pick the right verb, etc. I am still working out how much time to spend on things in these areas. I will be spending time on the mechanics of writing because I do believe that is important but who knows where that will take us.

[Paintedlady]

Anyways... I know that it is helpful with dyslexic kiddos... but it is an interesting question if it is beneficial to ALL kiddos.

 

My dd is dyslexic and my ds is above average. I tend to teach more toward an OG style for my dd b/c she needs to be taught that way, and ds gets taken along for the ride. I don't think it hurts him in any way but b/c we use a mastery approach instead of a spiral, and I can move him along much more quickly. They're only 10 months apart so it works for us.

[Mom2absh]

 

I like to read instructions rather than watch someone do it - mostly anyway.

When I try to remember something, I close my eyes and retrace everything visually. I can also read upside down...

 

 

I do the same things! I also prefer a printed map to a GPS - I remember the turns I need to take by picturing the map. And I picture a wall calendar in my head to help me organize appointments - I organize the dates in a grid and move up and down the dates! (I really have too much stuff to keep straight to use this as a system - I can't remember everything. But I do have that image in my mind! :D)

 

I was also a natural speller and writer. I just made my sentences sound good - I never needed to know WHY they sounded good. I'm in a co-op now where I have to explain WHY things are wrong. I'm struggling to learen the right terms next to moms who all the grammar terms. I look ditzy saying things like "Oh, THAT'S an adverbial clause!" I always used those grammatical things, but I never knew what they were called.

 

J

[EKS]

For both of my children, I didn't start grammar or spelling until they were reading well, on a 4th grade+ level. For my older son, this meant we started spelling and grammar work in 4th grade and for my younger son, we started in K. I think it is ridiculous to start spelling and grammar with a child who is not yet a fluent reader, though I understand that some reading programs incorporate spelling as part of their instruction.

 

So I'm not going to convince you, because I agree with you!

[Ester Maria]

I learned English as a foreign language in Italy, nobody was ever taught phonics and explicit spelling rules (though grammar was alive, well and hated :D), and yet, surprisingly, we all ended up fairly literate. By the end of high school the types of (spelling) mistakes we used to have were pretty much the same kind native speakers would make. From time to time we would mix the systems though (e.g. some words spelled the American way in the middle of an essay which was the entire spelled the British way, those kind of things were looked down at; later I switched to the American variants, obviously).

 

I didn't know what phonics was, I didn't know it existed, until I moved to the States, and the concept was not intuitive at all. I could not fathom the idea of teaching poor readers to spell that way - good readers, maybe, to make them aware of the rules; but a child who can barely read, it seemed impossible to me. Yet, it seems to work. I never used it as, thankfully, both daughters happened to be natural spellers.

 

I noticed early with myself the same kind of ability in other languages. I always aced our Italian dictations without any effort, and I rarely did spelling mistakes in Hebrew (it was just "logical" to me in my mind why in some cases something is written and something not, why it is ayin and not alef, those kinds of stuff), or even in Greek (the accent system never really bothered me, I just "knew" which syllables were long and which were short, whether it's eta or epsilon - ok, knowing the modern pronunciation too helped with that, but still, most of the kids made mistakes in those things). My husband is the same, albeit obviously "scientifically" minded (like the younger daugther), and the girls are the same. Pretty much everyone on both sides of the family too. Weird, but pretty much everybody I seem to know are what you would call "natural spellers".

 

Maybe it has something to do with learning to read in a relatively phonetic language (e.g. Italian) first, and then, as a confident reader, moving onto other languages? I don't know.

[Ummto4]

I agree with Esther Maria.

 

Indonesian, my mother tongue, is a very phonetic language and the letters sound like latin's letter. Each of us are taught to read phonetically because the language is very easy to decode. There's no whole word instruction in Indonesian. Instruction does not take long ... one year at the most since it's mostly decoding (no rule), and children can then spell and read whatever they want after that.

 

We don't have problems with spelling in general, both in Indonesian and in English. I think it's because Indonesian can make sense out of English phonics although we still don't know why there is a long vowel a vs short a. Big words like organization are easy, because in Indonesian it's organisasi. Every Indonesian knows how to read and spell organisasi, so when they encounter organization in English, they know how it's read.

 

I've heard studying latin can improve reading skill and I can understand that. Reading a very phonetic language does sharpen the decoding skills in English.

[Dmmetler]

Well, I avoided directly teaching DD when she was a toddler/preschooler, and let her take the lead. Given that I have a graduate degree in early childhood education, that was what all my training and experience said to do. The result is a child who, at age 5, is literally all across the board on skills, didn't fit into a K classroom because she masters a concept the first time she sees it, but has enough gaps that we can't simply skip levels, either. In retrospect, I kind of wish I'd moved, when she was at a K level, into actually doing K curriculum, because right now she's anywhere from 1st to 12th grade level depending on the subject and area. Her current K teacher commented, when we were discussing home schooling for this coming year, that she fully expects that DD will probably go through 1st-3rd grade math in a few months once she starts working with it, because of the way she learns.

 

Meanwhile, having been in school this year, I see that DD has started to group subjects into being "hard" and "Easy"-not based on what it is for her, but based on what her classmates say. So math is "hard" when it's dealing with addition and subtraction, even though she's been able to figure out such problems mentally for years. Long vowel sounds are "hard", even though she can read college textbooks. She also has been heard to describe chapter books as "too hard for me", even though they're years below what she willingly ready before starting K. And so on. I really wonder if I've missed the launch window.

 

She was identified as "gifted" and as being fairly high level GT (hit the ceiling on multiple tests) at age 2 1/2, and again at age 4 (although neither has been the level of testing that programs like Davidson consider indicative). But I think I was so tied into "normal" child development that I forgot that a child who was testing like a 6-7 yr old at age 3 also could, and should, learn through techniques appropriate for a 6-7 yr old.

[Lovedtodeath]

My daughter seems to be very gifted. I have found that assuming she didn't need explicit instruction was a big mistake. I always wondered if she was bored (which is what she said.) She finally got it through to me that I was frustrating her to no end. Things are going much better now that I just assume she needs it all. OhElizabeth wrote something about her daughter needing all of that work even though after all of the work she becomes way ahead. I think it is best to do it.

 

The result is a child who, at age 5, is literally all across the board on skills, didn't fit into a K classroom because she masters a concept the first time she sees it, but has enough gaps that we can't simply skip levels, either.

:iagree:That is where we ended up as well. She started out way ahead, but there were too many gaps to just leave her there. We needed to back up. Then she is terribly bored yet learning things she needs all in the same lesson. Edited February 25, 2010 by Lovedtodeath

[LibraryLover]

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Edited February 27, 2010 by LibraryLover

[Wildiris]

"In other words, if you view explicit teaching of spelling and grammar from first grade as essential, go ahead and convince me!"

 

As a home school teacher your personal learning style does not influence how you teach your children. Your children may not be blessed with you ability to spell or write and they would benefit greatly from direct, explicit teaching of grammar rules and spelling earlier rather than later in their schooling.

 

I am teaching the last of my four children to read. Compared to the four other kids, she benefits the most from direct phonics instruction and the small increments of grammar found in FLL. But each child learned differently.

 

My oldest son, who received little or no phonics instruction, spelling instruction or grammar instruction, did OK. He learned to write by ear and not by the rules. We worked on writing with some explicit instruction. Once he learned to read, he read all the time until he entered public school at 13.

 

My second son had more phonics instruction and grammar instruction, but didn't take-off reading until he was 10 and read all the time until he entered public school at 12. When this guy got to school he was astonished that his class mates did not know how to locate a noun or a verb in a sentence. He also found that he wrote better than most of his classmates. I do not think his ability to write had any thing to do with grammar instruction. I think his ability to write came from his love of story. He listened to books on tape over and over again, memorizing long passages of text not unlike how writers imitate their favorite writer to absorb and understand their style. With this son too, we worked on explicit writing instruction.

 

My oldest daughter has the gift of all things coming to her without effort. She has had the more spelling and grammar instruction than either of her brothers. She can tell you how to find the indirect object of sentence and diagram it for you, she reads constantly, but, and this is a big but, she struggles to write. She can write, but it requires effort she is not use to giving to a subject. She too has been given explicit writing instruction. Unlike her brothers she does not make grammatical errors in her writing and is well versed in different types of sentence construction and learned before 4th grade the structure of compound sentences because she learned grammar early.

 

When I read over my middle son's papers for school I can see that he has great ability, but lacks the motivation to write grammatically correct sentences and he tends to write the same style of sentence over and over again.

 

Sorry about the long winded response, but I think I fall into the "Teach them phonics and grammar early" camp. I've heard it said that those students with a firm foundation in grammar have an easier time learning a foreign language. Ultimately, it probably depends on the needs of the student. Some kids need more direct instruction in phonics and grammar early and others just do not need direct instruction at all.

[Ester Maria]

I've heard it said that those students with a firm foundation in grammar have an easier time learning a foreign language.

You see, this is a very interesting question.

 

I agree with you, but I think the opposite is correct as well: children raised bilingually and children who learned foreign languages at an early age might have an easier time learning grammar, approaching the system behind the language - any language, their own or a foreign one.

 

I guess that's one of the reasons why I never quite understood the "late foreign language instruction" camp, in my experience children who grew up with two systems - particularly if one of them was written phonetically - have a lot easier time with grammar and spelling (even though early bilingualism might have some other, shall we call them "side effects", but on the long run they disappear). I'm all for experiencing a few systems early (it definitely makes you more aware of the rules of your native language, even if subconsciously), and then approaching the language analytically. It may only be me and my weird ideas (wouldn't be the first time :D), but I think grammar is less abstract for kids who function in, or have at least experienced, different languages.

 

@LibraryLover: Of course, the cases of LDs (dyslexia etc.) exist everywhere, even where the language is phonetic, and need to be properly taken care of (which is A LOT easier in a homeschool setting); but I guess most of us here don't confuse poor spelling as a product of struggling with a LD, and "regular" poor spelling which is all too common for kids who grow up with only one language and that's an extremely unphonetic one, in a situation where it takes them years to read comfortably (talking about an average schooled child) more because of a nature of the language than because of their lack of ability to decode it.

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

We don't have problems with spelling in general, both in Indonesian and in English. I think it's because Indonesian can make sense out of English phonics although we still don't know why there is a long vowel a vs short a. Big words like organization are easy, because in Indonesian it's organisasi. Every Indonesian knows how to read and spell organisasi, so when they encounter organization in English, they know how it's read.

 

I *SO* agree with this. I have come to the conclusion that native English speakers are at a real disadvantage when dealing with their mother tongue. Ok, many can deal with it, otherwise the language would have died :tongue_smilie:, but it's so much harder to learn to read in English, than in other Latin languages.

 

I never had phonics either, and I can usually spell properly in English. The harder the words, the easier they become, most of the time, because they'll be like French words. I get thrown when a word comes from Arabic, though.

 

It took 20 minutes to teach my son to read in English. We got a "Magic Treehouse" book and tape, and had the tape read to us. Then he got up, picked up the following book and read it. Voilà. English reading done.

[KristenS]

I mean, the rule "When two vowels go out walking, the second one does the talking" has so many exceptions it can hardly qualify as a rule at all.

 

Well, I haven't read the rest of the thread, but I thought the rule was that the FIRST vowel does the talking. :)

 

I'm a natural speller, so I rather like the rules and things, because they make sense to me. I don't think my son is going to follow in my footsteps, and my daughter is too young to tell. But I do think spelling rules are important, if only because it makes people look uneducated if they make too many errors.

 

First grade, though ... that's young. I think it helps to be able to read and perhaps even pronounce all the letters correctly before working on spelling. LOL. I get a kick out of my preschooler and her phonics ... she can do the work so well, but can hardly pronounce some of the words!

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

I guess that's one of the reasons why I never quite understood the "late foreign language instruction" camp, in my experience children who grew up with two systems - particularly if one of them was written phonetically - have a lot easier time with grammar and spelling (even though early bilingualism might have some other, shall we call them "side effects", but on the long run they disappear). I'm all for experiencing a few systems early (it definitely makes you more aware of the rules of your native language, even if subconsciously), and then approaching the language analytically. It may only be me and my weird ideas (wouldn't be the first time :D), but I think grammar is less abstract for kids who function in, or have at least experienced, different languages.

 

I was a child who completely failed to learn English by immersion. It took high school English, when English grammar was finally introduced for it to click. My mother tongue being French, I had had a lot of French grammar instructions, and I couldn't fathom why English was not following those rules. As soon as English grammar was introduced, my English improved. I must have a weird brain. I lived in the English part of the city, all kids on the street were English-speaking. I just never picked it up.

 

When teaching my kids, we do a bunch of foreign languages. English, Spanish, Latin, and Mandarin. Even when my son was 6yo, we would do comparative grammars between English, Latin and French. We both enjoyed it. And it cemented some notions for him in a nice way. Pronouns in all languages, action verbs, passive verbs, direct objects, indirect objects. It also brought out how much of a mish-mash is English grammar, compared to other languages...

[ElizabethB]

 

So to stop waffling and get to the point, I'm seriously wondering how some people become good at spelling (or grammar, or whatever), and how useful things like spelling rules are. Many people don't need them, and a fair proportion of people who have trouble remembering how to spell would also have trouble understanding and remembering the rules (with their exceptions - ah, those exceptions. I mean, the rule "When two vowels go out walking, the second one does the talking" has so many exceptions it can hardly qualify as a rule at all!). I wonder whether a more economical use of time might be to concentrate on reading, then attack spelling later on if the child seems to be having difficulties (which is more or less what we're doing thus far).

 

 

That is a horrible rule, it works less than 50% of the time. It goes up to slightly above 50% if you consider a_e and i_e, etc as in make and lime as two vowels.

 

I only teach rules that are statistically significant and helpful.

 

I learned to read with only a bit of phonics and no rules, and was a good reader but a terrible speller. When I started teaching phonics, my spelling improved greatly.

 

I think it's good to teach explicitly for everyone, a student who picks up things quickly gets the quick explanation with one or two examples, someone who needs more repetition gets more repetition and a more in depth explanation if needed.

[IsabelC]

Thanks for the replies, lots to think about.

 

Btw, it's quite likely I did state the rule incorrectly, because I don't know the rules :lol:

 

And yes, most of my formal grammar knowledge, such as it is, was picked up during 6 years of studying German.

[ElizabethB]

Btw, it's quite likely I did state the rule incorrectly, because I don't know the rules :lol:

 

No, you stated the rule correctly, it's just a bad rule to teach! Ironically, it's one of the most commonly taught rules.

 

I have rules that actually work linked at the end of my how to tutor page, although the suffix rules are not included, there are so many of them and they are only useful for older students, they are too complex for a young student.

 

The suffix rules are in my phonics lesson 22 and in some of the lists of rules in this thread, a nice summary of the best rule lists out there online.

[Lovedtodeath]

Here is one experience of mine: I flew through school incredibly bored and making straight A's. I felt school was a waste of my time. I slept or wrote songs or letters through Geometry class. I was getting 104%. Out of all of the classes only one person had a higher grade than me. I was tutoring football players. I rocked Geometry 2. I definitely did not need all of that explicit instruction. The teacher and the classroom were a waste.

 

So I thought.

 

I was taken out of school and expected to finish up on my own through a correspondence course. I could not finish Geometry 2. I called my brother's best friend and he helped. I called the girl who had the 106% at my high school. She helped. It was very difficult for me. I am flabbergasted. I dropped out and switched to Algebra 3. Why was Geometry so easy when I was in school? Why did it suddenly get so much harder?

 

It seems all of that instruction that I was ignoring and thought I didn't need must have been doing something.

 

Now, looking back... I probably could have finished the course. I was used to sailing through schoolwork and just didn't want to put the effort in. But I think that it must mean something that I was able to sail through it when I had a teacher.