Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program

Third Edition

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS

Q & A: WHY ARE THE STUDENT WORKBOOKS OF THE BANNATYNE PROGRAM NOT ALREADY COLOR-CODED? WOULD NOT THAT HELP STUDENTS "GET IT"?

Why are the student Workbooks of the Bannatyne Program not already color-coded? Would not that help students "get it"?

There are several answers to this question. But before I give the answers it is important to say that, in the Bannatyne Program, each of the specific vowel color-codes is thoroughly taught by the teacher before students have to provide any particular color-code association from memory. Having said that, here the are the answers:

• First, the Bannatyne Program is a student-active program, not a passive one like almost all traditional programs. The Bannatyne Program utilizes all of a student's sensory-motor systems and brain actively and continuously, which makes for faster, more thorough learning, higher interest, and a more intense focus of attention.
• Second, from region to region in a country, there are slight variations of vowel pronunciation in some words, and because students themselves do the vowel color-coding under the teacher's direction, these local pronunciation differences are accommodated within the Bannatyne Program.
• Third, having students actively do the color-coding of the vowels, requires the students to operate in the recall memory mode rather than the recognition memory mode, and this continuous repeated recall fixes the phoneme-to-grapheme association in their memory banks, thus enhancing their ability to spell and write (or print) the words correctly. (See GLOSSARY for definitions)
• Fourth, students find the color-coding motivating not only because it is colorful, but also because they are constantly reinforced by the satisfaction of simple success whenever they meet a vowel. The deliberately built-in recurrence of each phoneme-to-grapheme vowel color combination is so frequent that an occasional miss is of no consequence. (See Chapter 10 for research results)

Finally, please remember the color-coded completed Workbook pages in the Teacher Guides are there for the guidance of the Teacher or parent, and are not written in stone! While the solutions given for the Crossword Puzzle and other games are fairly fixed, the color-coding can be varied according to local pronunciations. However, Teachers should try to stick as much as possible with standard US pronunciations, just as other countries using the Bannatyne Program should stay with their standard pronunciations. This region-to-region adaptability and flexibility is just one of the many benefits of this student-done color-code vowel identification with color pencils, as used in the Bannatyne Program.

The Bannatyne Reading Program is an excellent, tested reading 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 © 2003-2005 Alexander Bannatyne, PhD

Last updated: August 8, 2005