Here are some sample words during this year’s competition have caused contestants to exit the event:

• fustanella
• dysautonomia
• phytoplankter

It is amazing how children are required to  spell these challenging words by only using their ears.  The first step in mastering spelling – and possibly mastering The National Spelling Bee is to understand and be aware how written English is constructed.

By our count, there are 59 sounds (including diphthongs) in English, and these sounds must be made by a combination of only 26 letters in the alphabet.  What makes English even more challenging is the fact that some of these sounds have many different spellings – hence why the National Spelling Bee is so entertaining.

The first challenge a participant has to face is the need to break down the word he or she hears into its sounds and spellings.  How many beats and how many sounds do the words fustanella, dysautonomia and phytoplankter have?  By breaking the words into sounds, the participants can then start to mentally rebuild the word based on the various spellings. This requires years of practice to master – however, it can be done simply as I will show you in a minute.

One of the common ways to confuse the participants is the use of the schwa.  The schwa is a low energy vowel sound used in words such as father, mother, chicken, ever, chorus and restaurant.

The following image shows the words fustanella, dysautonomia and phytoplankter with our universal color code.  Our universal color code attaches one unique color to every sound (including the diphthongs which are given two colors).  The schwa is in bright yellow.  As you can see from these words, the schwa is represented by the letter a, o and e.

Another major benefit to our universal color code is that it makes words easy to deconstruct.  If we ask the questions how many sounds does a word have, the color code makes it easy.

• fustanella  - 9 Sounds
• dysautonomia – 11 Sounds
• phytoplankter – 12 Sounds

As mentioned before, the participants would then have to reconstruct the sounds based on the appropriate spellings.  Herein lies the challenge, the schwa sound for example has 23 different spellings – this requires the participant to know which one to use.

Our Words in Color program is designed specifically to help students to master reading, writing and spelling.  You can take a look at all the spellings in American English organized by sound and color on our Fidel Phonic Code – can you find the schwa?.  (Note: once you are on the page, simply click on the image to view a larger size.)

We will be posting some of the winning words in an upcoming blog post.

Written by Sister Mary Leonore Murphy, the book is very easy to go through and worthwhile for parents and teachers of children with special needs.

“Barnaby” is on sale for $9.99 at our online store. We have a very limited supply of these classic books (originally printed in 1968), so once they are gone, they are gone.

Description:

“Barnaby is diagnosed with dyslexia.  He is nearly ten years old and he cannot read,” said our school inspector to me one day towards the end of June. “He has been attending the X Clinic since early last year. The speech therapy program he is receiving there is splendid but he needs a course of remedial reading.” Then he challenged me, “Do you think that you could teach him to read using the Words in Color method?”

Barnaby’s case is more than one child learning to read when every investigator of his case had concluded that he might never. The book will be perhaps an eye-opener for all teachers who will read it. It tells that they must be less quick at putting all the blame on the learner who fails to learn. Because there is so much we miss about learners with the ordinary tools of testing centered on teaching, we should be more guarded.

The IRA is the leading reading association in the world with over 90,000 members.  We look forward to interacting with the over 10,000 teachers, principals and reading specialists that will be attending the convention.

If you are attending the convention we would like to meet you…we will be in booth #746

We hope to see you there!

I also know that if I someday use Words in Color and the language charts I should see how they are used in a real classroom!   So what better place to go to fulfill these needs than the pre-eminent school in North America fully dedicated to using Gattegno’s approach, The Bronx School for Better Learning.

This blog will document briefly some of the experiences and learning I had there.  Out of the many different activities I observe each day I will highlight the ones that apply most to the teaching approach and tools of Gattegno.

Monday Jan 25^th

I arrived on Monday morning just as classes were starting.  I was invited to sit in on a grade 1 class.  When I arrived they were working with shapes and blocks at group tables – a sort of free play with blocks and other shapes– and obviously busy and having fun with the task.  After some time the teacher asks them to come over to the carpet area and sit quietly.  Once they are settled and quiet he asks each in turn what they did with the materials they were using. Some made patterns, stairs,  many made spinners, one girl described building a castle to protect the King and Queen.  I noticed that they were very attentive to the teacher and each other during this time.  They wanted a turn to say what they did and hear what the others did also.

The Spanish teacher arrived to give a 30-minute lesson to the Grade 1’s using the Spanish charts.  The teacher used the Fidel to help the class say some of the vowel sounds and other word charts for numbers.  The kids were very excited to be using their Spanish words and often shouted out answers and repeated their answers several times. While the class was working on some Spanish numbers, one group of kids started using their knowledge of Korean numbers and started a discussion on that!  While it was all a little less “orderly” than some lessons, the level of interest and engagement of the students was very high and many were working hard to learn to say the words well.

During two visits to grade 1 classrooms to see English language arts lessons, I observed students who knew the color rectangle chart very well.  From the teacher’s silent direction of pointing to a sequence of colors, they were able to say the words.  The lesson was handled on an orderly way; each time the teacher pointed to a sequence, many hands went up, all excited to tell their answer.  Next, some students came up to point to the colors to show the word they wanted the class to know.  The teacher did not tell the student they were right or wrong but asked the class for a vote.  This seems like a clever way to delegate responsibility onto the class for deciding on correct answers.  It was very energizing to see the teacher and students using the charts so comfortably!

At the end of the day I was fortunate to participate in  a seminar for new teachers on using the language charts.  Two teachers, new to the school, had some questions and concerns about how to use the charts effectively.  They suggested the charts were difficult and possibly confusing to use with some students.  One question asked was about the order of the words on the charts and the order of the charts themselves.  There was also some concern about the order of letters on the Fidel.  Rather than addressing these concerns directly, the seminar leader simply led them through the approach that they could use with the materials.  He started with the “quay” (pronounced key) and led us through the steps of how to say it correctly, then showed us using a table and wall what it a “quay” was.  We also worked on how to pronounce “blackguard” using the Fidel.  The point I believe, is that the colors help them through the process of how to say some words.  They can then be asked to use the words in sentences to show meaning, and so on.  The colors (the Fidel) help them solve the problem or the challenge of learning English.

We then worked on using the Fidel to say the sounds, sliding our arm/pointer down the column of different spellings for the same sound as we did so.  The leader of course did not once tell us how to say any words or sounds correctly.  He did not “model” the sounds!

This was only the second time I had seen how the charts could be used to advance vocabulary with correct pronunciation. Although I came to this seminar just to observe, I found myself eagerly particpating in the learing process.  At the end, we all had a more clear idea of how use the charts and a better sense of their rational organization.

Looking forward to the next day!…….

Spanish, Italian, German and Haitian Creole Fidels

French Language Fidel

Eaton Donald, President of Educational Solutions, believes parents should look beyond their child’s letter grade.

“Parents may not otherwise ask if their child is really engaged and truly learning the subject matter.  Often times parents are satisfied with an A+, A or B grade without truly understanding what it means.  What we are providing parents of grade-school aged children is a way to engage the teacher, principal and even bring up these points with the school’s Parent Teacher Association,” he said.

Re-inventing Literacy Education Conversation Starter Kit

The kit complements Educational Solutions’ Re-inventing Literacy Education using Words in Color white paper which was released as a part of the launch of the 2010 Edition of Words in Color.

“We want both parents and teachers to be aware of not only what is happening in the classroom but why it is happening.” stated Mr. Donald.

If you look closely there are three instances of the symbol ‘e’ in the word and each instance can have a different pronunciation.   These 3 ways of reading ‘e’ may cause problems for your students in learning, reading and writing the word.

The image below shows how Words in Color can simplify the task of reading, writing and pronouncing the word December.  Each color is a signal to the student that there is something different about the three ‘e’.

Since each region of the country has a slightly different way of saying the word we have presented four options.

Enjoy!