Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program
Third Edition
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Why are there no Creative Writing Activities in the Bannatyne Program before the Saturn Workbook?
The reason why the Bannatyne Program does not have students do any formal written story writing before the Saturn Workbook is simply because we do NOT want students to make any phoneme-to-grapheme coding errors. In the Bannatyne Program the teacher has always already taught the correct phoneme-to-grapheme associations in the words the students will be writing in their stories. The Bannatyne Program is NOT a failure-based trial-and-error program, as are 99 percent of all the reading programs currently in existence, including the idea of getting beginning students to write stories in school from day one. Students in the Bannatyne Program get it right the first time, and get it right the second time, and get it right the third time, etc., etc. Simply put, the Bannatyne Program is a success-based right-and-right-again program. Much psychological research has demonstrated that failure-based trial-and-error programs are nowhere near as effective or efficient for any teaching and learning purposes as are success-based right-and-right-again programs like the Bannatyne Program.
But is not Creativity an important part of learning the English Language?
Of course. But it is a simple psychological fact that creativity and language are in the auditory-vocal mind, and NOT in the process of encoding a phonetic language by writing, printing or typing. Creating stories is only a function of auditory-vocal language, a fact that all story-tellers have known down the ages. Using our natural auditory-vocal language we compose stories in our heads, and therefore we are only encoding them phonetically when we handwrite, print or type them. Therefore we do not need to inflict a failure-based trial-and-error program on our beginning students. English is a phonetic language in which the letter-shapes (graphemes) stand only for the sounds (or phonemes), NOT for word meanings. I once dictated (spoke) a whole 600-page book about reading which my secretary then wrote (typed)! I did not write it--and I am not playing with words here. These days I can even speak my stories directly into the computer using Computer-Dictate and then my computer will automatically write (encode) them. Verbal thinking is always first done auditorially-vocally inside the mind, before it is encoded into handwriting, printing or typing. It is not psychologically possible to go from creative thinking (or any other kind of thinking) directly to writing without our auditory-vocal inner language first composing the words and sentences in our minds/heads. As teachers we need to understand what the words phonetic language really mean, and how a phonetic language operates. If you already own this Third Edition of the Bannatyne Program please look up all the references to orthography, phonetic and phonetic language in the Index to learn more on this topic.
How then can we expose our students to Creative Story composing?
I presume that one main purpose behind the "write-a-story" policy for beginning students is motivation and, while I heartily approve of motivation (see MOTIVATION for over 100 ways of motivating students), it can be much more effectively achieved by having students make up and tell a story vocally to the class without encoding it erroneously in writing. And, if you wish, this method of telling a story vocally is the way creative story-making should be done in the Bannatyne Program right from the beginning of the Jewel Series, at least until the Saturn Workbook is reached. The numerous conversational activities which occur throughout the Bannatyne Program will teach all students much more about creative thinking and story composing than any of these un-thought-out failure-based trial-and-error beginning reading/writing-at- random policies. Moreover the Bannatyne Program actually teaches students HOW to compose stories throughout the Ships and Planets Workbooks, by analyzing (in a series of Special Lessons) the themes and contents of the paragraphs in many of the Stories they are currently reading.
Can you give other examples explaining why this "write-a-story" method with beginners is failure-based?
Yes, but first I would add that this policy of "creative story-writing" with students who do NOT yet know how to write letters and words correctly (if at all) has very deleterious effects on the future acquisition of correct handwriting and spelling skills for several important reasons. First, as I said earlier, it is teaching reading, spelling and writing using a you-fail-first-and-then-I-will-correct-it method. Secondly, in terms of motivation, I can even hear the kids beginning to say after a year or two, "I don't like stories anymore--I always write them wrong and then my teacher scribbles all over them!" Thirdly, as happened with the Initial Teaching Alphabet, their future spelling in standard English will be atrocious because no fixed sound (phoneme) to symbol (grapheme) coded memory associations (there are hundreds of them) are being systematically taught--or they are being taught in a random haphazard fashion. The top verbally gifted students may eventually work out much of the complex phonetic code of English for themselves, but many in the less verbally able half of the class will go down the reading disability drain as usual. And our dismal national illiteracy and reading disability statistics will continue.
I would ask all the teachers who believe that this beginner "write-a-story" policy is in any way valid, to consider this exact parallel. Shorthand is another English phonetic coding system. Now, what if teachers of shorthand instructed their new students to handwrite spontaneous stories in complex shorthand from day one without any prior formal instruction in how to form those shorthand symbols or words? The shorthand teacher, after asking what the "story" said, would then correct their incomprehensible scribble by writing a correct version beside it. Then the shorthand teacher would ask for the next spontaneous story to be written in shorthand! We would soon see what a failure-based method this policy is! Another exact parallel would be teaching musical notation using a "creative music composition" you fail first and then I will correct it method--and what a muddled mess that would be! The orthography of music symbols, shorthand English, and handwritten English are all so extremely complex that they must be taught by using systematic, logical, success-based right-and-right-again programs if chaotic confusion in any of them is to be eliminated--right from day one.
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 Alexander Bannatyne, PhD
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