Reading

A Basic Guide for Parents and Teachers

Pamela McKeown

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780815372714
• eBook ISBN: 9781351236683
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Originally published in 1974. This is an enlightening guide to the teaching of reading in response to the desire to motivate children to read and write, and rapidly and permanently teach them these techniques. It gives an account of the modern methods of teaching these skills, based on the natural learning drive of play, the environment, and on the normal sequence of child development. The author shows parents what and how their children are being taught, and suggests ways in which they can develop their children's pre-reading skills before they go to school.

Review of the original edition:

" McKeown's common sense approach to the problems involved in learning to read, her very practical suggestions for solutions, and her emphasis on the harmful effects of forcing children into reading too early, make this book most useful contribution..." - Jean Hudson Reading

1 Language development

Collingwood: ‘Every piece of language is an offshoot from an
original language of total bodily gesture.’

In July 1970 the Department of Education and Science issued Reports on Education no. 64, in which was stated:

Research and experience are bringing greater understanding of how children learn and the difficulties they encounter. The teacher’s task is to make the best possible assessment of children’s needs and to use professional skills to meet those needs. This involves creative thinking and imaginative work; it also demands a careful selection of books and materials from among the profusion of commercially produced reading schemes which purport to help children to learn to read but sometimes impose language upon them. Even a systematic approach will only succeed if motivation to read is considered at every stage.

Time was when such commercial books and materials were only advertised in professional journals which teachers can be presumed to read. Nowadays some publishers seem to be cashing in on the anxiety of parents to speed up the process of learning to read and some advertisements seem designed to increase this anxiety. There is even an American book which exhorts parents to start teaching reading to their babies! It is the writer’s view first, that parents can do a very great deal to help their children want to learn to read, but that, unless they have studied the techniques of teaching reading—in the way that student teachers do, for three years, in a good college of education—they can do most good by being imaginative parents, and by leaving the teachers to do the job (which indirectly they are paid for by all parents) for which they trained. Why keep a dog and bark yourself?

Second, trained and experienced teachers are daily under pressure to examine and select from the enormous volume of books and materials on the market and are frequently bewildered as to what to choose, and even whether a new idea is a worthwhile vehicle or a bandwagon! The only thing we can really all be sure about is that the development of language is essential if we are to read and write effectively. Language only develops if we want it to; and who was the cynic who wrote: ‘If we taught children to speak they’d never learn’? It really all depends on what you mean by teaching. The good mother teaches her child to speak, and want to speak, from the day he is born.

What is the difference between speech and language? The dictionary draws this distinction:

Language—the expression of ideas by words or articulate sounds. Any manner of expression.

Speech—faculty of uttering articulate sounds in words. Language which is spoken.

It is worth spending a moment or two on considering proverbial sayings such as:

‘Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you.’

‘Actions speak louder than words.’

‘Why don’t you say what you mean?’

‘Words fail me.’

‘It was too lovely for words.’

While poets take us further with:

Kahlil Gibran,The Prophet , ‘And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue.’

Abraham Cowley wrote in The Prophet: ‘Words that weep and tears that speak.’

Thomas Gray, Progress of Poesy, ‘Thoughts that breathe and words that burn.’

Charles Reade: ‘The human craft of writing, which, though commoner far, is so miserably behind the godlike art of speech.’

Publius Syrus, ‘Speech is a mirror of the soul: as man speaks, so is he.’

Lewis Carroll wrote ‘Jabberwocky’, and other writers have contributed new words to our vocabulary by inventing nonsense words, which we use because they are more expressive than traditional ones; and how is it that the rearrangement of neutral letters—even the phrase ‘four-letter’ word—can result in such emotional disturbance? ‘Love’, ‘work’, ‘life’ and ‘word’ are all four-letter words, yet we all know that these are not the ones in mind.

One of the most telling differences between man and other animals is his power of speech. Animals communicate but man’s words are more effective than their sounds, being capable of finer interpretation. Words can communicate facts and ideas, and, when recorded, cross barriers of time and space. Some human sounds are more subtle at times than words; equally words gain or lose force according to the way in which they are spoken. The very fact that I am compelled to use italics demonstrates the loss of emphasis in the written as opposed to the spoken word, and hence the loss in meaning. Words can arouse physical and emotional desires; cause bodily changes—for example most people’s mouths water at the mention of lemon or frying bacon; lead to actions that change the course of history—‘Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?’; have legally binding significance in the form of vows or oaths; or be of totally ephemeral importance. Words can make or break tension, cheer or depress, antagonise or comfort, be said seriously or in jest, but none of this can happen until they are understood. Misunderstandings can have serious or comic results—and words can be used with intent or without knowledge of the consequence. All this adds up to the fact that words can be the instrument of communication; but equally that words can be a barrier to the transmission of thought.

Words are frequently used in an attempt to transfer knowledge or information, spoken or written. First-hand experience is often considered to be the best way of learning anything. So indeed it is; and at first, and in the early part of human life, the only possible way. But this is too slow a method for the short span of human life and the demands made on a human being. It is too slow. We need other people’s ideas and discoveries—every sort of investigation that has been recorded.

Words—the essential tools of thinking

Dr Susan Isaacs wrote:

Words are the essential tools of thinking, and without them the child’s understanding will inevitably be handicapped. Think of the passion of the ordinary child for naming things, and his delight in new words and phrases! Much is going to be lost to the child who has not this fine instrument of knowledge and communication—much of understanding and of social experience.

Note that Dr Isaacs says that without words the child’s understanding will inevitably be handicapped. Many people would consider the reverse to be true, that without understanding a child will not learn to speak. This might appear a paradox—and both statements are, in fact, true. This book is not the place for an academic study of language, speech or the development of intelligence (there are plenty of books available in these areas for those readers who wish to consult them) but there is no shadow of doubt nowadays that the development of intelligence is inextricably interdependent and interwoven with the development of language, and that speech is a vital part of language development (concept formation is referred to in more detail in chapters 3 and 4). Equally the development of language and the development of an emotional balance are closely bound up.

Words—the release of emotion

Every parent and teacher has personal experience of the emotional release of language used by children in anger—and how the need to express aggression in physical terms is reduced when insults and angry words can be offered instead. There are few adults who never resort to swearing—and even inanimate objects can be the provocation, though living creatures, animal and human, are similarly stimulating (provoking?). Some people feel less in the wrong if they swear in a foreign language. We need to recognise that a swear-word would lose its value as an emotional release if we did not intend it to be shocking and out of context. ‘Bloody’ when applied to a cut hand has a totally different significance when used as an expression of annoyance—and some users are quite unaware that it is a corruption of ‘By our Lady’, which was once a religious oath and therefore distasteful on religious grounds to those who do know.

Summary Language is intensely personal—closely interwoven with the development of intelligence—and is both the cause of and the result of emotions in the originator and receiver.

Language

Language is also given extra point and significance in the context of the culture pattern in which it is used; and whether it is associated with religious or civil ceremony.

Language has special significance in ritual. Many civilisations have believed that the use of someone’s name gives the speaker power over the person. As a result some names were too holy even to be spoken, or written, in full. Spells and incantations almost invariably include the name of the person who is to be influenced, blessed or cursed. Fairy tales include such magic sayings as ‘Open Sesame!’ (in fact the name of a food grain!), ‘Abracadabra’, or nearer our own day, ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’. Parents and teachers alike know very well the power of names as applied to children—to be able to name a child is a great steadier of his behaviour! We all like to be remembered by name—it gives us importance, status and/or prestige. This is recognised in general social intercourse, in phrases like ‘a name to conjure with’ (note the reference to magic), ‘name-dropping’, ‘lending your name to a transaction’, ‘a name which opens doors’ or ‘a name it will pay to remember’.

We usually adapt our manner of speech and choice of words to the social occasion. There are formal and informal styles of address; technical words which we reserve for occasions when we are in a selected group of people who share a skill or background or a particular craft; we speak differently when we are sure of our position or are seeking acceptance; when we have nothing to gain or everything to gain; we flatter; we seek to diminish; we take infinite trouble to be understood or we may even try to confuse; we use words with intent to encourage, shame, help or hinder—and all this has to be learned.

Summary Speech is not a skill which will develop automatically with the maturity of the nervous system—like walking for example. Children learn to walk (unless they are prevented from moving) as their nervous system develops.

Illingworth: No amount of practice can make a child sit, walk, talk or acquire other skills until his nervous system is ready for it. On the other hand, delay in the acquisition of skills may be caused by depriving the child of the opportunity to practise them when sufficient maturation has occurred.

We call these moments ‘sensitive’ or ‘critical’ periods (ref. Plowden Report, para. 28).

A good mother teaches her child to speak and want to do so

It is common knowledge that parents wait with some excitement to see if their baby will walk or talk first; and take a real pride in either achievement, whether or not they have actually helped their baby to progress. Earlier, I wrote that a good mother teaches her child to speak and want to speak from the day he is born. The wish to speak is, of course, the essential, and this is developed chiefly by being spoken to. Had the parents waited in silence for their baby to talk this would naturally not have encouraged him to do so.

Normal sequence of speech development

A baby reacts to birth with a shriek of protest and if, as sometimes happens, he does not cry, the doctor or nurse takes steps to see that he does, for the baby must immediately breathe for himself if he is to live. Before he is born his oxygen supply is provided by his mother through the delicate membranes which separate her bloodstream from her baby’s, but, at birth, he starts the long journey from total dependence to independence and begins to learn to make contact with his fellow human beings by sound, gesture and later words. Some authorities claim that the unborn child makes sounds—certainly he reacts to loud noises with a sudden start.

At first a mother may be quite unable to recognise the cry of her own baby and to distinguish it from those of other babies. Sooner or later, not only can she single out the cry of her baby but she can eventually recognise the feelings (emotions) which prompted the crying. This is by no means always misery. Paediatricians tell us that babies cry for exercise and gain satisfaction by so doing. Obviously no response is then required by the mother. Other cries are very different and may be appeals for help. In ascending order of importance, they are probably pain or discomfort, caused by hunger, apprehension, fear (particularly of noise or falling) or dirty nappies. This is a shrill, piercing cry and we feel an urge to respond. Rage or disappointment is different and is usually unaccompanied by tears. A more musical and rhythmical cry—but poignant—expresses grief and is always accompanied by tears and demands comfort. The most harrowing of all is luckily seldom heard—the cry of the baby in despair, accompanied by the breakdown of personality and the end of the will to live.

Babies appear to experiment with different tones of crying, especially while awaiting sleep. Later as a baby gains more control over his speech organs he plays with his voice too—discovering that he can coo and gurgle, moan and whimper—and that his lips and tongue allow him to make explosive sounds. Repetition results in spontaneous sounds becoming intentional and he learns to imitate the sounds he hears. Some babies learn to mew like cats for example. Most important of all he learns the social value of certain sounds and begins to understand cause and effect in his efforts. Certain sounds bring his mother to him, make her smile or frown, even result in company and being played with! Soon he communicates—that is, makes sounds with consciously desired results—or responds to his mother. (N.B. The use of a dummy may well prevent a baby from vocalising and may thus retard speech development.)

If the mother is imaginative she will talk to the baby whenever she is near and he is awake, as well as when she handles him in her daily care. There are many studies of babies which prove beyond doubt that the one-to-one relationship of a mother and baby (or mother substitute) is essential if satisfactory emotional and language development is to take place. Babies in institutions are less vocal, even before they are eight weeks old. Tests have shown a correlation between the development of intelligence in the three-year-old and the mother’s concern with language during this period.

Gwen Chesters: ‘A little baby feels and then he behaves: he feels angry and he cries with rage. An older child feels and then thinks before he behaves.’

The earliest perceptions of the baby

Food, warmth, comfort, or lack of it, are intensely emotional in reaction and as well as responding physically the child immediately responds in sound. As anyone knows who has taken a baby out of his bath, he becomes angry all over—very often rigid with fury and scarlet from head to foot and there is no difficulty in interpreting his cries as anger. Equally the change to relaxation and pleasure of a feed when he is hungry may again be accompanied by sounds as well as gestures. Loving physical contact and successful feeding experiences are a major contribution to the effective development of speech.

As with feeding, so with excretion. It has been known for centuries that a baby urinates on those he loves; similarly his stool is his first gift—speedily withheld as a token of disapproval. If wisely and sensitively handled by his mother, excretion experiences lead to a generous, warm and loving relationship with her...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Language development
• 2 Reading readiness
• 3 Symbolism
• 4 Matching, sorting and grading
• 5 Visual discrimination
• 6 Auditory discrimination
• 7 Look and say
• 8 Phonic methods
• 9 Writing
• 10 Spelling
• 11 Summary