Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program
Third Edition
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Which kinds of students benefit from the Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program?
All kinds of students of all ages, who can at least speak and understand simple sentences in English or their own native language, benefit from the Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program and here is a list of them (these groups are not mutually exclusive, and I would also like to add that I have taught almost all of them personally):
Over more than two decades of use in numerous schools and centers in the US and other countries, the Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program has already been demonstrated to work very effectively with the kinds of students listed above. For a more detailed look at reading disordered students of all kinds please see: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS.
Please do NOT label the Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program as only for students with disabilities and disorders. Bright, verbally-competent regular school children romp along much more rapidly, happily and efficiently in reading, writing, spelling and the use of language than they do in regular school reading and language curricula. Gifted students starting near their fourth birthday do extremely well.
Note that the content of the Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program is age neutral inasmuch as students aged 4, 8, 12, 16, 25, 45 or 75 (and all ages in between these) can enjoy it equally.
Are students tied into grade (year) levels as they are with regular reading programs in regular school classes?
Definitely not, because this assumes they can learn to read, write, spell and cope with language skills no faster than those conventional reading programs can teach them. Many of us (both teachers and parents) do not fully realize that it takes a regular student in regular school classes in suburban schools using regular reading programs six or more years of regular instruction to reach the sixth grade (year) reading level. Our research shows that beginning regular students learning through the Bannatyne Program can move along much more rapidly than one grade level per year, and many can read at sixth grade level after finishing the Bannatyne Program in three years (in third grade). The Bannatyne Program is "self-pacing," which means that students progress at a rate consistent with a thorough learning of the Bannatyne Program content. Even so-called ADD students, slow learners, the intellectually handicapped and students with any kind of reading difficulties frequently move much faster than one grade level per year when taught using the Bannatyne Program. In other words these reading disordered students move faster than do regular students in regular reading programs in regular classes who only improve one grade level per year! The relevant research findings and other material on this rapid reading progress when using the Bannatyne Program can be found in TESTIMONIALS AND STUDIES.
Quick Placement Test (Workbook Entry-Point Indicator)
Before students enter the Bannatyne Program please administer the Quick Placement Test to the students to determine whether a particular student should enter the Bannatyne Program at the beginning of the Jewels Series (Pearl Workbook 1) or at the beginning of the Ships Series (Galleon Workbook 6). These are the only two entry points into the Bannatyne Program. The Quick Placement Test takes only a few minutes to administer and score. The result will immediately let you know the required point of entry for that particular student. The Instructions for administering this Quick Placement Test are to be found with the Test itself on DISC 1. For information on the Contents of DISC 1 see: SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS AND CD INFO.
Regular Beginning (Usually Kindergarten Or Grade 1) Students Entering The Bannatyne Program
Beginning regular (Kindergarten or Grade 1) students who cannot read at all should always start in the Jewels Series of Workbooks. Regular students (above Grade 1) entering the Bannatyne Program at the beginning of the Ships Series of Workbooks should go through all eight Workbooks of the Ships and Planets Series provided this is indicated by their results on the Quick Placement Test. The Instructions for administering this Quick Placement Test are to be found with the Test itself on DISC 1. For information on the Contents of DISC 1 see: SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS AND CD INFO.
It is to be hoped that, from the present time onwards, most regular school students entering school will begin their reading, writing, spelling and language instruction using the Bannatyne Program.
The Bannatyne Program is designed to bring these regular students to a high achievement level (far beyond Grade 3 achievement levels--usually to sixth grade or higher levels) of competency by the end of their third year in school (K through 2 or 3) depending on which year they start in the Jewels Series, and this will lay an excellent foundation for all their future language studies.
The Workbooks In The Bannatyne Program Are Not Geared To Actual Grade Levels As Are Almost All Other School Curriculum Books And Programs
It is important to realize that the 13 Workbooks are not geared to so-called grade-levels because the Bannatyne Program moves students much more rapidly than do traditional teaching methods. Moreover, the 88 built-in techniques on which the language content of the Workbooks is carried and through which that content is transferred, determine the sequence of word presentation, syntax, punctuation, etc., and this may vary considerably from traditional reading curricula. Of course the Workbooks are in a set sequence of student progression from 1 through 13. But be reassured that by the end of the Bannatyne Program students will know far, far more, and be much more proficient and fluent in reading, writing, spelling and language than they would be being taught by regular grade-fixed, lock-step programs. And it will take them far less time to reach highly competent reading achievement levels. Most grade-fixed programs are based on nothing more than average levels of performance that arise out of inadequate traditional programs and curricula, such as separating reading, writing and spelling as curriculum subjects. See: MAIN COMPONENTS -- DETAILS for the list of Workbooks and some of their components.
Student Completion Of All Workbooks Exactly As Sequentially Laid Out
As well as completing all the Workbooks (from either entry point) it is also essential that teachers follow the Workbooks exactly as laid out and carry out all the activities, games and exercises in the prescribed manner in the Step-byStep Teacher Guides with, of course, the full participation of the students. Sometimes it is tempting to skip some of the sections calling for the auditory-vocal involvement of the teacher with students (or to skip other teacher participation activities) but it is just these components of the Bannatyne Program that are the most important from both the educational and motivational point of view. Also never skip around within the Bannatyne Program doing a bit of this or some of that, because, if you do, you will destroy the whole effectiveness of this linguistically logical, carefully structured, sequential Program and, as a result, do your students an injustice. The Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program is NOT a patch-up program and when used sequentially and correctly with reading disability students it will work far faster than any patch-up program. The reading teacher will find the Bannatyne Program much easier to use than any patch-up remedial methods.
The Use Of The Bannatyne Program With Students Of Non-English Speaking Communities And Countries
There is every reason to believe the Bannatyne Program would be very successful in countries that desire to teach all their students to read, write, spell and understand English as their fluent second language.
However, two requirements are necessary for any program to be successful in these circumstances, namely, that the children start as young as possible, preferably in Kindergarten or earlier, and that their instructors read, write and speak fluent correct English. I will be happy to consult with any country desiring to give the Bannatyne Program a trial run.
The Use Of The Bannatyne Program With Disabled Readers And Learning Disability Students, The Intellectually Handicapped, Attention Deficit Disorder Students, Etc., And Using The Program Diagnostically With Them (See also: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS)
When used with disabled or handicapped students, the Bannatyne Program does not need any prior academic diagnostic testing or academic evaluations other than the Quick Placement Test. This is because the Program itself is automatically diagnostic and automatically remedial as it is being used, and the reason is that every facet of learning to read, write, spell and cope with language is built into the Program. (Of course psychological work-ups and diagnostic evaluations may be given for other reasons such as class placement, etc.) Therefore, whenever any disabled or handicapped student is a little slower to learn one particular "bit" of the Program, all the teacher, tutor or parent need do is to make sure that the "bit" in question is carefully learned, or in some instances overlearned, before moving on. For example, a student having trouble with auditory closure should spend a little more time practicing that skill each time the auditory closure activity comes along--until (each time) reasonable competency is demonstrated. Similarly, any student having difficulty with the meanings of words should spend a little more time discussing those meanings with his or her teacher and have additional opportunities to use them in conversation with his or her teacher. However, do not insist on perfection before moving on to the next activity--over 90% accuracy will do. Of course, to enter the Bannatyne Program a student must already be able to converse in simple sentences or better.
There are some considerations to be taken into account with specific disabilities and handicaps, and the following information is given here only as suggestions and recommendations. The responsibility for carrying them out lies with the parents of the children and their school system.
Attention Deficit Disorder and related disorders: ADD/ADHD is a catch-all imprecise synonym for "Learning Disabilities" that can include dyslexia, minimal neurological dysfunction, mild emotional disorders, motivational disinterest, poor language environments, and even mild intellectual handicaps. While parents and schools may wish to have a definitive diagnosis from specialists for other reasons, they can be assured that, for over two decades, almost all students with these types of disorders have successfully learned to read, write, spell and cope with language using the Bannatyne Program. Even most hyperactive students find the Bannatyne Program to be engrossing, motivating and rewarding. See: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS
Dyslexia: Dyslexic students have much more difficulty than other students in remembering the correct phoneme-to-grapheme (sound-to-symbol) associations when reading, writing and spelling. They often tend to mirror-image letter shapes and even in some cases turn them upside down. Dyslexic students are, in a way, self-diagnosing, inasmuch as teachers see or hear the results of mirror-imaging or poor phoneme-to-grapheme associations in their presented work. Many dyslexic students are less competent in verbal skills and more competent in spatial ability. The Bannatyne Program is intentionally designed to assist students permanently learn phoneme-to-grapheme associations through a variety of devices and techniques, and to minimize mirror-imaging. For example, the grapheme d has a little upstroke added which makes it distinguishable from the b grapheme. Also, the multi-sensory approach to learning allows the other sensory and motor functions to counteract any residual tendency to mirror-image. By regularizing the phoneme-to-grapheme orthography of English and by overlearning these associations we enable dyslexic students to overcome the above deficits. Numerous dyslexic students in several countries have learned to read, write, spell and cope with language very successfully using the Bannatyne Program. To read more about dyslexic students, as well as other handicaps, see: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS and LEARNING DISABILITIES.
English as a Second Language: Students who have learned to speak a language other than English in their childhood homes benefit greatly from the Bannatyne Program because it assumes no prior knowledge of English, except on the part of the teacher or tutor. The Bannatyne Program has been used very successfully for two decades with Spanish speaking ESL students. I myself, took one very intelligent dyslexic ESL 18-year-old born in the USA, who could read English only at the second grade level (after 10 years of attending US public schools), through the Bannatyne Program Ships and Planets Series in 18 months (tutoring two hours per week). He was then able to pass his High School Diploma examinations and be accepted into the local Community College. Of course, some students may take longer and not reach this level of performance because many factors enter into any student/teacher situation. See: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS
Intellectually Handicapped (Low IQ) Students: The Bannatyne Program is also successful with quite a few intellectually handicapped students who do have some verbal competency in spoken English. For example, one Down Syndrome teenager of 14 worked right through the Bannatyne Program with a qualified teacher. Kay (not her real name) had a test IQ of 58 but could converse in simple normal English when she started the Bannatyne Program. After eight years of instruction Kay could read well at the sixth grade level. Now, before you run off with that "eight years" as a "long time" please remember that it takes a normally intelligent verbal child beginning in kindergarten six or seven full years to reach a sixth grade level of reading in regular schools using regular reading programs. Yet Kay had an IQ of 58! Also, a class of students in Canada with IQs 55-80 (aged 10-14 years) improved 1.7 Grade (year) levels in reading in one school year. See: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS
Note that the Bannatyne Program moves normal children and most disabled or handicapped students along much more quickly than do traditional reading programs. Often, highly verbal intelligent children can read at the sixth grade achievement levels of reading, spelling, writing and comprehension by the end of third grade. Some reach even higher achievement grade levels. See: TESTIMONIALS AND STUDIES
Partially Sighted Students: The size and clarity of the print (large font) used in the Bannatyne Program is very advantageous for teaching the partially sighted to read, write, spell and cope with language. They will need to have an eye examination to see if special lenses are required. One partially sighted student who went through the Bannatyne Program very successfully was fitted, by his ophthalmologist, with special focusing lenses that he clipped onto his glasses. The large font sizes also ensures ALL students correctly identify grapheme shapes so that they instantly recognize them when the print is small. See: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS
Hard-of-Hearing Students: While these students should have an efficient hearing aid in order to hear the phonemes of English, many features of the Bannatyne Program assist hard-of-hearing students to identify the sounds (phonemes) involved. The color-coding of the vowels divides the vowels into color-sound groups, thus lessening the auditory confusion of one vowel sound or "phoneme family" with another.
The very slightly modified shape of all the single consonants which have two phonemes, differentiates between these consonants in terms of sounds. For example, the consonant hard g (as in get) cannot be confused with the soft g consonant (as in gem) because, in the Workbooks, the latter has a tiny curl on its tail. Several other ambiguous graphemes are similarly differentiated, while all 15 silent graphemes have an asterisk above them when they are individually introduced. (If you purchase the Bannatyne Program you can see the Grapheme Book on DISC 1 for details.)
The numerous vocabulary pictures in the Bannatyne Program help present word meanings visually thus lessening the need for long vocal explanations by the teacher/tutor/parent, though further discussion is always emphasized. The multi-sensory "hands-on" Workbook learning situation also helps reinforce the auditory-vocal channel of hard-of-hearing students through the visual and motor-kinesthetic channels. See: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS
Hyperactive Students: Much of the hyperactivity that students exhibit in the classroom is caused by the passive inactivity students are required to submit to, while listening to their teacher expound at length on the lesson content in traditional programs. Because the Bannatyne Program requires the student to be actively participating all the time in continuous ways that involve most of his or her senses, vocal and motor functions, the student's attention is firmly focused, even riveted on, the task in hand. This constant psychological and sensory-motor preoccupation with action-oriented doing as well as the variety of reinforcement rewards that accompany all the Bannatyne Program Activities, leaves almost no room for the hyperactive student to react to peripheral or extraneous distractions. Most hyperactive students are classified as attention deficit disorder hyperactive students (also called ADHD meaning Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder students). See: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS
Who can teach the Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program to students?
Teachers, aides, parents, tutors, literacy volunteers and even some students can teach the Bannatyne Program. They just have to follow the very comprehensive 13 Teacher Guides Step by Step as they work with students. There is one detailed, simple-to-follow Teacher Guide for each of the 13 Workbooks, so you cannot go wrong! The reading teacher will benefit greatly from the extensive lesson plans in these 13 Teacher Guides.
Can the Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program be used in all kinds of learning environments and situations?
Yes! The Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program has been used very successfully in the all following types of learning environments:
Over the years the Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program has been used successfully in regular school classrooms, in group teaching situations, and with one-on-one tutoring for home schooling or learning centers. It is the ideal Program for the Teacher who tutors all kinds of Reading Disability students out of the Teacher's own home or office, so why not start your own business? It has been used successfully in kindergartens, regular elementary schools, middle school and high school special classes and resource rooms, and for adult literacy classes in community colleges. The Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program has been successfully used in private and public schools with a wide variety of students from gifted to handicapped. Note that the Bannatyne Program is not locked into grade levels or other grade categorizations because students almost invariably move through the Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program at a much faster rate than is the case with traditional reading programs. The entire class, on average, usually moves at this faster rate.
Class Grouping In Regular Classrooms
The recommended class groupings for the Bannatyne Program are given below. However, teachers should view the whole business of class grouping as optional and adapt the recommendations to their own needs. Even so, in the experience of the author, the following organization should provide for optimum learning conditions in most regular elementary school classes.
Group One: This is comprised of those few gifted students (usually those who are just beginning school) who are very verbally competent and who can already more or less read on nationally standardized tests above grade level. Of course, if these gifted students can read and spell all the words or almost all the words on the Quick Placement Test then they will not need to go through the Bannatyne Program, but such students are rare. Most verbally gifted students who are entering school will begin in the Ships Series of Workbooks after having been given the Quick Placement Test.
Group Two: Most of the beginning school class will fall into this main group who should be taken through all the 13 Workbooks by the teacher at a steady realistic pace. Group Two should work on the same exercise at the same time and be taught as a unified group.
Group Three: Those few students who have learning disabilities and those who find it difficult to learn to read should form a separate group. This group can work their way through the Bannatyne Program at a slower pace very thoroughly with lots of extra help. The Teacher should teach all the Activities personally but may use aides and/or the verbally competent gifted students to help these students when they are working "on their own" or in pairs as in the Jewels Tic Tac Toe Game, or Ships and Planets Dot Game.
NOTE that the above information is only a brief and cursory look at who can use the Bannatyne Program. Much more information is given in the Handbook on DISC1 which you can read after you purchase the Bannatyne Program.
The Bannatyne Reading Program is a comprehensive, integrated reading program, writing program, spelling program, language program, and comprehension training program. The Bannatyne Reading Program is unlike any other reading programs currently available. This means you will find many features which are only in the Bannatyne Reading Program. In some Commonwealth countries the program may be referred to as: Bannatyne Programme, or Bannatyne Reading Programme.
Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program -- Copyright © 2003 Alexander Bannatyne, PhD
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