Visual Perception (The diagonal lines are parallel.)

Teaching our eyes/brains what to expect

Acts of Perception Expectancy Attending Sensory Reception Trial/Check Decision Change Over Time p. 157

There are no curved lines in this drawing. A ruler would prove the point. What do kids see when they compare their letter formation to the words in books?

1 l I I 2 S 5 Z 3 E S 0 o O 6 g b 9 g q p 8 g

l ih n m r o c a d

b d p q u n

Samples From The Batak Alphabet

Samples From the Simalungun/Timur Alphabet

For emerging readers, letters are three times more difficult to identify when located within text than in isolation.

However, this does NOT mean that we should wait until a child has learned all of his letters before we begin to teach him to read continuous text. This item knowledge can continue to accumulate as the child works on continuous text.

“Writing can contribute to the building of almost every kind of inner control of literacy learning that is needed by the successful reader.” By Different Paths to Common Outcomes Marie Clay p. 130

What Can Writing Offer to Learning to Read? Writing fosters slow analysis, forcing attention to detail. Writing highlights letter forms, letter sequences, and letter clusters. Writing seduces the learner into switching between different sources of knowledge (that is, levels in the hierarchy of information in print.).

Links can be made from known information to new information. Comparisons and contrasts can lead to self-corrections in writing analogous to self-correcting in reading. Writing extends the child’s bank of known words with which to monitor and hold together sentence structure when reading.

The Flexibility Principle How far may a letter vary and retain its identity? A a A a a A A a A a a a A n n n h n r n u n h

When Can Writing Behaviors Hinder the Development of an Effective Visual Processing System? When the child has significant letter confusions When the child has a limited writing vocabulary to assist him in reading When writing is slow and labored rather than fluent

How do I assist a child in straightening out letter confusions? Don’t make assumptions which allow him to continue to practice the confusion. Teach proper letter formation rather than allowing the child to draw his letters. Teach letter formation by describing the pattern of movement rather than the visual image.

Three Ways of Remembering Guidebook p Movement - Parietal Lobe 2. Words - Temporal Lobe 3. Visual Form - Occipital Lobe “Parallel processing of motor and cognitive functions also helps us when we are experiencing learning difficulties. For example when a child is having difficulty remembering how to make a letter, saying the words to direct her attention will generally assist recall.” Teaching Struggling Readers p. 37

“When the eye and ear and hand are jointly involved in the management of a task they send three different messages to the brain, messages picked up by different senses.” Change Over Time p. 16

“Through repetition the action sequence will become myelinated and a memory will begin to form that will help with recall.” Teaching Struggling Readers p. 98 “The more the action sequence is repeated, the more myelin is produced and the stronger and faster a memory of that action sequence will be formed.” Teaching Struggling Readers p. 105

“One way of remembering a word in all of its detail is to be able to write it. This requires one to have learned a little program (like a computer program) which produces the word from the beginning to end, with all its parts in the right order.” Guidebook p. 27

Continuing to Foster an Efficient Visual Processing System When Using Emergent Texts Use books that provide known information with which to monitor. Hold children accountable for monitoring with what they know. Avoid a steady diet of patterned texts.