Gattegno + AAR?

[Eisakka]

Has anyone here successfully used Gattegno (Words in Color, The Common Sense of Teaching Reading and Writing) as a standalone program or combined with multisensory OG programs (AAR, LoE)? 

 

As background: I started homeschooling my 5-yr-old son in August. Math took a few trials and errors, but we successfully used Math with Confidence and are now using the MEP reception materials. Through MwC, I learned how to accommodate my son's dysgraphia, and while it's a chore for me, I can teach math with games, handmade and purchased manipulatives, etc that eliminate the need for him to ever write.

Teaching reading has been significantly more difficult, in part I suspect because of my son's speech delay. The earlier programs I had tried were a dismal failure, and what is working now is combining the pre-reading levels of AAR and LoE (plus some HELP 1 for fun). We are now at the juncture for truly, actually reading, however, and I don't think I can sustain combining multiple reading programs. Rightly or wrongly, I have decided to go with combining AAR and AAS. I guess if it's also a flop, I can try LoE instead!

But (bringing this back to my initial question), I was disquieted to see that both AAR and LoE encourage students to guess at which sound a particular phonome is making in a word while sounding out the word. So these OG programs teach kids all the sound U can make but then have them guess at which of the four sounds is could be in any given word. Huh. A similar analogy would be having a child guess at what 4+4 equals in a math class.

I don't understand why guessing should be part of any reading program, especially an OG-based one. I had come across Gattegno's works earlier, and his "common sense" way of teaching reading by using color-coded phonograms makes so much sense! Almost...too much sense... I personally cannot understand why AAR adopted the simplistic Montessori red/blue letter tile scheme when Gattegno's way seems far superior.

My poor son will be the lab rat, but I plan on using the color-coded phenome tiles (+ a reference wall chart, like Gattegno's Fidel) with AAR/AAS. Like any manipulative, it will provide short-term scaffolding until he has internalized how to encode/decode on his own. Does this approach resonate with you? Any potential pitfalls to consider?

[HomeAgain]

I have not, but I've been thinking quite a bit about this approach and how to use it.  Usually I bring in Reading Mastery elements (connected digraphs, sound coding) for kids that have learned to read badly.  I have one currently who would benefit from an extra step, and I'm considering redoing my sound cards in white (right now they're blue and pink), and then giving them borders with colored sound markings.

I know that Spell With Color (free) and Spelling You See both use color as a component.  They seem to be spin-offs of G's original work in slightly different directions. By the time my kid was ready for them we already had a color pattern established with grammar and I was unwilling to use it for spelling.  I thought it would confuse him.

[PeterPan]

9 hours ago, Eisakka said:

Teaching reading has been significantly more difficult, in part I suspect because of my son's speech delay.

Nothing you're using is disability-specific. LOE is not OG and AAR is not bringing in the stronger sound-speech production intervention your dc may need. And none of these programs bring in the language intervention and *comprehension* focus a dc with a language disability will need.

My ds has mod/severe apraxia, so what you're doing now is what we did years ago when he was that age. We ended up moving on to LIPS and Barton. At that point he could read but was hyperlexic (yes, a dyslexic hyperlexic), so we started working on language.

For us one of the challenges was getting the SLP testing that would show the issues so we could get the intervention. We still do speech therapy and we use a *team* approach. No one SLP knows everything and almost none (unless they work for a university) will own every test you need. It means you'll continue to have holes and realize one problem after another. To avoid that, you need more testing.

Fwiw, the reading was the easiest thing, even as hard as it was. Comprehension was harder, and going back and working on the auditory processing (ie. understanding words in bits) was a HUGE piece. So even when he could read and comprehend he couldn't spell!! We've worked on it from the APD angle (how he's processing the sounds of language) and NOW he can spell.

So 

eyes processing to read

ears processing to understand the bits of language (prosody, phonemes, morphemes)

social thinking and narrative language to process the content of the reading

metalinguistics 

Leave out any of those pieces and you're likely to have holes for the most complex kids. Every program you're looking at will make *assumptions* about what holes are there and what it's trying to address. OG methodology does NOT do adequate work on the auditory processing and will leave you with holes on that. None of the programs commonly used here for reading address social thinking, narrative language, and metalinguistics. So I would get more testing done before you buy anything. 

Tests that were helpful to us or found things?

Barton prescreening (free)

TAPS (can be done now)

CTOPP

SPELT

TNL (he's on the young side but you can also assess narrative dynamically)

Books:

https://www.amazon.com/Word-Callers-One-One-Research-Informed/dp/0325026939/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1SE1XI9KKJR1U&keywords=word+callers&qid=1642268423&sprefix=word+caller%2Caps%2C157&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Blank-Improving-Comprehension-Spectrum/dp/1934575771/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2KJAXEMTT85AY&keywords=drawing+a+blank&qid=1642268490&sprefix=drawing+a+blank%2Caps%2C100&sr=8-1

There is more detailed testing an SLP can do that will look at how your dc's brain organizes language. Our SLP at the time did *not* want to bother, because it is exceptionally tedious to score and takes a long time to administer. Well my ds, despite his IQ, DID have problems with this!! He could bluff his way through by stating these really out there, crazy complex associations, but he couldn't do something as saying a penguin and a parrot are alike because they're both birds. So there is testing like that with the VB-MAPP (more typically done by a behaviorist as part of autism work) and the tests an SLP can do. I just don't have the names handy, but it's stuff to be looking into. When you read Word Callers that I linked above (which you should), you'll see that that ability to think in terms of categories and meaning is *essential* to reading comprehension. Initially kids do it for single words playing little games (tell me all the animals you know, all the colors you know, naming, describing functions, etc.), but later it builds into the ability to process words multiple ways at once! I think of it as multi-sort processing (reading for phonetics and for meaning at the same time) and Word Callers has them go through games that help them build the skills. It also has a list at the end of all kinds of other things to work on (metalinguistics, etc.) that affect comprehension and shows how. These are things you want to start NOW and run in parallel.

The Barton screening test is free, so first do that and see if he passes. That will tell you if there are any glaring holes to work on before you proceed forward with the OG program of your choice. Beyond that, be well-rounded and work on all the areas to make sure you build comprehension, narrative language, etc.

[Clarita]

15 hours ago, Eisakka said:

But (bringing this back to my initial question), I was disquieted to see that both AAR and LoE encourage students to guess at which sound a particular phonome is making in a word while sounding out the word. So these OG programs teach kids all the sound U can make but then have them guess at which of the four sounds is could be in any given word. Huh. A similar analogy would be having a child guess at what 4+4 equals in a math class.

I think it's because to really dig into the meat of why which ea sound to use they would have to go into the linguistics (roots not sure what the currect word is for this) in english or the fact that English is not a 100% phonetic language. It incorporates a lot more meaning to the spelling of its words than just how to say the word. Which is a lot to teach when the learner is just starting out learning how to sound out words. Look at read and read, you don't know how that is pronounced by just the letters. If AAR works but you don't want your kid to guess, you could encorporate a little bit of "structured word inquiry" stuff into it to tell them why a particular word is pronounced the way it is but spelt the way it is.

Not defending AAR it is not a perfect program. Just if it is working for you this might be a way for you to tweak their lessons.  

[PeterPan]

18 hours ago, Eisakka said:

But (bringing this back to my initial question), I was disquieted to see that both AAR and LoE encourage students to guess at which sound a particular phonome is making in a word while sounding out the word. So these OG programs teach kids all the sound U can make but then have them guess at which of the four sounds is could be in any given word. Huh. A similar analogy would be having a child guess at what 4+4 equals in a math class.

It's not a problem for a non-SLD student, because they're going to figure out the patterns very quickly and not be discouraged. The higher level of supports you're wanting and the more explicit instruction are available if you move over to problems MEANT for intervention.

Intervention programs are labeled with tiers in the ps system, so tier 1, 2 or 3. Tier 3 is the most intensive (1:1, explicit) and what you may end up needing. None of the programs you're looking at are tier 3. You can google for a chart of tier 3 dyslexia interventions and get a list. Actual OG programs, Barton, LIPS, etc. will be there. 

You probably are also not understanding completely the instructional methodology. SWR, for instance, preteaches the sounds using a finger cuing method and the dc is explicitly told which letter to use. The dc only reads words they have previously spelled. Barton and OG will do something similar, encoding words before decoding and only practicing reading in text what they have already taught. So you already know the dc can read the words accurately BEFORE you hand them text.

But again, if it's not present to the degree your student needs, that's because these are not tier 3 intervention programs.

[Kanin]

9 hours ago, Lovinglife123 said:

@PeterPan is it better for a child to first encode a word before decoding?

I'm not PeterPan, but I would say that spelling is a very good way to improve reading. It doesn't go the other way around - reading is not as good a way to improve spelling. 

[Kanin]

On 1/15/2022 at 3:30 AM, Eisakka said:

But (bringing this back to my initial question), I was disquieted to see that both AAR and LoE encourage students to guess at which sound a particular phonome is making in a word while sounding out the word. So these OG programs teach kids all the sound U can make but then have them guess at which of the four sounds is could be in any given word. Huh. A similar analogy would be having a child guess at what 4+4 equals in a math class.

I don't think your analogy is correct. In math, 4+4 always equals 8. In reading, so many of our vowel combinations have to do double-duty (or triple, quadruple...). 

Consider "ou." It makes a different sound in the words OUT, SOUP, COULD, DOUGH, and TOUCH. As someone said above, the reason for this is that English is a conglomeration of other languages, so the reader would have to know the origin of the word to know which sound to use (if the origin would even be helpful in determining this). By placing the word in context, the reader has a good chance of knowing - I suppose, "guessing," which sound to use. For example, "The girl ______ off the diving board and into the pool." Is it "dove" like swimming, or "dove" like the bird? Someone with decent comprehension would know which one. 

HOWEVER, this is entirely different from the "guessing" that is encouraged in other (terrible, horrible) programs like Fountas & Pinnell. In those programs, students aren't taught enough decoding to even know all of the sounds that U could make, so they're really at sea when they come to a word they don't know. That's actual, not-helpful guessing that doesn't lead to good decoding. The kind of "guessing" you're talking about is necessary in our not-always-phonetic language, and it's at least educated guessing. 

I have a really good book called "The ABC's and All Their Tricks: The Complete Reference Book of Phonics and Spelling." It's a super helpful little reference book. It lists all the different letter combinations and the sounds they can make, AND also the number of words in our language that use a sound a certain way. It doesn't go into word origins, so if you want that, you'd have to get an additional reference. 

For example: 

OU as in SHOUT: 279 words in English

OU as in FOUR: 37 words in English

OU as in SOUP: 37 words

OU as in YOUNG: 26 words

So, you could teach all of the sounds, but then direct your student to the fact that certain sounds are more common than others, and to try those first when reading. Notice I said "try," not "guess," because it's more skilled than guessing. 

There's a curriculum called CKLA Skills. It's free online. You can also buy the printed versions for $, but the whole thing, manuals, workbooks, decodable readers, are free online. I love this program with my whole heart, and love that it's free!!! In the manual, the sounds that are introduced also come with a little key like the one I put above, so teachers know which sound is the most common for all of the vowels/vowel combinations. This is not an intervention program, although if you do it slowly with extra practice, it can be. 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Kanin

[PeterPan]

3 hours ago, Kanin said:

I'm not PeterPan, but I would say that spelling is a very good way to improve reading. It doesn't go the other way around - reading is not as good a way to improve spelling. 

Well you can read your way into spelling words if you have crazy good visual memory and strong phonological processing (ie. understand what you're seeing and remember it). It would also assume someone who intuits patterns well. None of that might be true for some kids, despite high IQ, lol.

12 hours ago, Lovinglife123 said:

@PeterPan is it better for a child to first encode a word before decoding?

If you think through what most intervention level programs do, they're starting with encoding or some kind of explicit sound to orthography instruction. Even the SLPs are catching on. I just saw a new program out of https://www.northernspeech.com/articulation-speech-motor/literacy-speaks-later-developing-sounds/ 

So if you want to be cynical, going from written to sound and saying to slog would be what Sanseri called torture reading. It's how I was taught, and I have bad memories of McGuffey readers in a small group in a side room and how frustrating and seemingly impossible that was. 

There is that school of thought (Spalding, all that followed) that we ought to be bringing that kind of explicit, sound to orthography instruction down to ALL kids. It's fine and valid, but it's pretty specialized and requires some training to do. That's not necessarily what programs like OPGTR are doing and that doesn't mean somehow those kids got jipped. If they read well, they read well. 

So you've got the bigger philosophical question (which should you do in a school, over multiple classrooms, for a larger gen ed population) and then what should do you do with a specific given child (the situation in homeschooling or intervention). Teach the child in front of you. I've watched these people on lists like SPELL-Talk argue over reading. Fine, whatever. If you happen to be choosing for a district, it's an interesting question. If you're choosing for one (for homeschooling, for intervention) that answer might be different even from choosing for a family of 6-8! A mom with a larger family and no history of SLDs and no indication of language/processing challenges might do any random reading approach and be FINE. 

But if you ask what *I* did with *my* kids, absolutely I was teaching encoding upfront and using a phonogram based approach that emphasized the sound-written correlation. 😉 

Edited January 16, 2022 by PeterPan