Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program
Third Edition
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CHUNKS, CHUNKING
This is a technical term used by memory specialists to describe the process by means of which we remember (recall) telephone numbers, and the linked sounds (phonemes/ articulemes) and symbols (graphemes/ optemes) in words. Chunking transfers the material being memorized from short-term memory to permanent long-term memory, which is an essential step to establish reading, writing, spelling and language word skills. Research shows that most people have a chunking memory for a maximum of seven linked phonemes and graphemes. But longer series of numbers or the spelling of longer words can be learned by chunking them in discrete groups--which is why area codes and phone numbers are separated by parentheses and dashes. Syllables and word parts are discrete groups, therefore when the words are split using common prefixes (e.g., ex-, un-, en-, mis-) and suffixes (e.g., -ous, -ion, -ize, -ness) they are easier to memorize permanently. Learning to recognize root or core words (e.g., -tract-, -form-, -ject-) also helps chunking and hence reading recognition and spelling. Blends (e.g., spl-, str-, -mpt) also help. The Bannatyne Program teaches students to chunk all common prefixes, suffixes, blends, core words and many frequently used short words. For any given word, chunking is done only after all the other word-learning processes are completed. While Chunking is a Key Word and Story Word Activity in its own right, chunking is also learned through all the Speed Reading Activities and Spelling Activities. Because of all these chunking activities and the regularization of the orthography in the Bannatyne Program, there is never any need to teach any sight words. (See: recall, recognition, memory, orthography, silent letters, BANNATYNE PSYCHOLINGUISTICS)
CLOSURE
Closure is a process of completing an uncompleted set of stimuli which, through past experience, suggest a correct missing or distorted piece fill-in. Closure may occur in any sensory modality.
CODE-BREAKING
(See: coding, decoding)
CODING
When one set of symbols (usually visual or handwritten) stand for another set of symbols (or sounds or things) the first set of symbols is a code for the second set. The symbols printed on this page are a phonetic visual code for the speech sounds you would hear if the page were read to you. Sound (articuleme/ phoneme) to symbol (grapheme/opteme) matching is thoroughly taught in the Bannatyne Program. In passing, it is worth noting that all sight methods of teaching reading completely ignore the phonetic code of English which students then have to deduce (very chaotically) for themselves. Verbally competent students may manage this feat by piecemeal imperfect deduction, but as reading achievement statistics show, most other students become poor readers and spellers. Other examples of symbol language codes are: shorthand, Morse code, semaphore, and computer binary code. The Bannatyne Program also uses color-coding for the 17 vowel phonemes of English. Please read the disability entry below. (See: color-coding vowels, color names, decoding, disability)
COLOR-CODING VOWELS
In the Bannatyne Program the 17 vowels in the words that students are learning are coded with a color. The first vowel in the actual color name (Copper, Pink, Azure, Green, Scarlet, etc.) is the actual vowel phoneme/articuleme with which the students are currently learning to associate the appropriate articulemes, graphemes and optemes. Thus, for example, using the green color pencil a student will trace over (or in some places print) the vowels in the words me, bee, leaf and funny. An ordinary lead pencil is used to trace over or print the consonants in the words. As the vowel colors and their names are introduced one at a time in Vowel Color Sections (and widely separated by numerous Activities) in the Student Workbooks, students and teachers find them very easy to learn. When you purchase the Bannatyne Program the Grapheme Book contains a complete set of all 17 vowels in color complete with their 76 spellings, as well as their correct articulation. (See: vowels)
COMPREHENSION (MEANINGFUL UNDERSTANDING)
The primary process of comprehension lies in ideas, concepts, reasoning and cognition (intelligence). Mostly these original comprehensions or meanings are the visual objects which we have perceived and of which we now have a mental picture. Thus we carry a visual picture of a tree in our heads and that picture is the meaning we comprehend when someone says the word /tree/ to us. But we have to go another step away from the meaning and the auditory-vocal word when we read the printed word "tree" in a book, because in a phonetic language the printed letters (graphemes/optemes) are coded symbols for the auditory-vocal sounds (phonemes/articulemes) in the spoken word. Stating all this in reverse, we can say that when we read, we go through the following process to comprehend the meaning of, say, hair: The printed word hair is decoded as the auditory-vocal word /hair/, then this heard-in-the-mind word /hair/ is associated in the mind with an inner image of hair which is its meaning. Of course you may then touch your own hair to experience that image as one of the external objects that gives rise to the meaning. In the Bannatyne Program all comprehension is taught at the auditory-vocal discussion and visual levels through interesting conversations and (often) pictures. Most Story Words are associated with pictorial representations of their meanings. Also extensive Comprehension Questions for detailed discussion are provided after the Stories are completed. In the Key Words Activities the meanings (comprehension) of the words are fully discussed conversationally before the Workbooks are opened to do the remainder of that Activity. (A much more detailed discussion of the nature of comprehension is presented in the section entitled COMPREHENSION)
COGNITIVE, COGNITION
The processes and functions and contents of the mind related to our reasoning processes, understanding, thoughts, ideas, concepts and principles, but not to our emotions or drives as aspects of mind. (See: comprehension, intelligence, memory)
CONSONANTS
Any speech sound (articuleme) produced:
When you purchase the Bannatyne Program, the Grapheme Book (on pages 20-28) contains actual AUDIO examples of articulemes/ phonemes, blending and splitting that you can listen to on your computer.
(See: vowels and voiced/voiceless phonemes for much more about consonants)
CORE WORD OR ROOT WORD
In many words we can strip the prefixes and suffixes from words to reveal their core word or root word. An example is the core word -tract- which means pull. This core word occurs in the following whole words: tractor, traction, extract, extraction, retract, retraction, protract, protraction, subtract, subtraction, contract, contraction, detract, detraction, distract, distraction, attract, attraction, abstract, abstraction. The Bannatyne Program teaches many core words so that the meanings of the variations of that core word can more readily be understood (comprehended).
DECODING
When a code is deciphered we decode its symbols by converting them systematically into the sounds (or other things) they represent. We decode when we read the printed symbols (optemes) in printed words and convert them into sounds (phonemes, or rather sequences of phonemes). This is also called code-breaking. Sound (articuleme/ phoneme) to symbol (grapheme/opteme) matching is thoroughly taught in the Bannatyne Program. Please read the disability entry below. (See: coding, disability, orthography, color-coding, consonants, vowels, voiced/voiceless, directional constancy)
DIAGNOSIS (of a student's educational/academic weaknesses in reading and spelling)
The Bannatyne Program does not need any prior academic diagnostic testing or academic evaluations other than the Quick Placement Test. (Of course a diagnostic psychological or medical work-up may be done for other valid reasons.) This is because the Bannatyne 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 Bannatyne Program. Therefore, whenever any student is a little slower to learn one particular "bit" of the Program or discrete task, all the teacher, tutor or parent need do is to make sure that the "bit" in question is thoroughly 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) at least 90% 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. (See: disability, dyslexia, also: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS, RECATEGORIZATION OF WISC)
DIGRAPH AND TRIGRAPHS
When a word has within it a single phoneme/articuleme composed of two letter shapes (graphemes/optemes) it is called a digraph. Examples of digraphs are as follows: the th in think, ph in phoneme, and the sh in sheet. When a single phoneme/articuleme is composed of three letter shapes it is called a trigraph. Examples of trigraphs are: igh in light, owe, and eye. Do not confuse blended letter-shapes (i.e., symbols for articulemes and phonemes), such as sp-, bl-, spl-, and -lth, with digraphs and trigraphs. The introduction of digraphs and trigraphs is systematically controlled in the Bannatyne Program and they are almost always underlined when they are first introduced to distinguish them from blends. When you purchase the Bannatyne Program you will find all the common consonant digraphs listed in the Grapheme Book on Page 15. (See: blending, blends)
DIRECTIONAL CONSTANCY
Objects have the same "identity" (a car is a car) whatever direction they are viewed from, but most letter shapes (optemes) can change depending on whether they are approached from the left or right, above or below. Thus a written or printed b can become d, p, or q, and u becomes n, and a rounded w becomes m, etc. Thus, in general, optemes only symbolize the phoneme they represent (i.e. have constancy) when that opteme is read from a left to right direction. The right-to-left version of a printed or written symbol is called a mirror-image (not a reversal). The Bannatyne Program is designed to facilitate unambiguous directional constancy, even for dyslexic students. (See: object constancy, reversals, dyslexia)
DISABILITY (ESPECIALLY READING)
A specific human disability, whether physical, intellectual or emotional, can be defined in terms of a significant insufficiency deviation from the so-called average, normal functioning of the group in which that specific function is required and beneficial for that particular group. Thus all functional disabilities and handicaps are relative to the specific human group in which the individual lives. A person living in a rural community 500 years ago could not be "reading disabled" because almost no one in that community could read. If our modern literate societies required everyone by law to be able to draw a fine portrait of the human face, or compose a symphony, how many of YOU would be disabled artists, or disabled music composers? Learning to read, contrary to popular belief, is not an inborn human ability but very much an educationally learned one--like learning to read and write music, shorthand or the Morse code. Of course learning one's auditory-vocal language as a baby and infant is an inborn ability, but coding and decoding that language (as printed symbols) is not. Therefore much of what we call "disabilities" or "disorders" are nothing more than a lesser ability to easily learn a very useful modern artificial skill that has been imposed on everyone by everyone by law! Ten thousand years ago no one could read. If you still think the learning of a printed code for English is perfectly spontaneously natural then why can you not read and write shorthand? Why? Because you have not been formally taught shorthand! Even so, in the case of reading, writing and spelling, if the correct methods are used as they are in the Bannatyne Program, almost all "reading disordered" students can be taught to efficiently code and decode even an irregular phonetic language such as English. (See: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS)
DISCRIMINATION
(See: auditory discrimination or visual discrimination)
DISTRIBUTION
(See: Statistics)
DYSLEXIA, DYSLEXIC
When any student over the age of, say, seven finds it difficult to read because letter-shapes (graphemes and optemes) are frequently seen as mirror-imaged or inverted, the disability is called dyslexia. For example the dyslexic student may read and/or write dab for bad. Dyslexic students are those who habitually mirror-image letter shapes. They also have much more difficulty than other students in remembering the correct phoneme-to-grapheme (sound-to-symbol) associations when reading, writing and spelling.
All dyslexic students are, by definition, of average or above average intelligence.
The reason is that dyslexic people have both a mediocre short-term and long-term memory for retaining arbitrary (non-logical, irregular) associations such as are found in the orthography (sound-to-symbol association system) of any phonetic language. This mediocre short and long term memory difficulty is further compounded when a series of these arbitrary (non-logical) associations are sequenced in sequencing memory, as they are when learning to read, hand-write and spell words. These sequential associations are equally arbitrary, especially when the coded symbols and their arbitrary associations with phonemes (sounds) are used and reused in thousands of words without any "rhyme or reason." Consider the arbitrary jumbled confusion of graphemes (letter-shapes), phonemes (sounds) and sequential associations in the following words:
I could go on and on with endless examples, but suffice it to say here that the Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program regularizes all the irregular arbitrary, orthography of English, thus making it much easier for dyslexic (and all other) students to learn (in a logical manner) the orthographical and sequencing associations of our disorganized language. (See below.)
Note that the short term and long term memory of dyslexics for logical, regular associations and combinations, especially within a single sensory system (vision, or auditory, or touch, or taste, or smell) is usually not only normal but often very good, especially in terms of recognition memory. However, this does not include "left" and "right" which are verbal labels for the two mirror-imaged sides of the body and the way it is facing. If you turn around, the external objects that were on your left are now on your right! This is very confusing and arbitrary to spatially competent dyslexics.
It needs to be made clear that the vast majority of spatially competent, DYSLEXIC students are perfectly normal human beings in that they are neurologically, physically and psychologically normal. Remember that reading, writing and spelling are genetically NOT natural to human beings; if they were everyone who could talk would automatically learn to read, write and spell from birth.
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. Dyslexic students learn to read more easily and quickly when they learn word parts, syllables and core words, and when they are taught the structure of language, all of which is exactly what the Bannatyne Program does. The Bannatyne Program is also intentionally designed 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. A sign of mild dyslexia is when a student over twelve has extreme difficulty in learning a foreign language, because dyslexic people also have difficulty in remembering arbitrary sound-to-symbol associations in phonetic languages, especially when the orthography in those languages is irregular--and English has very irregular sound-to-symbol orthography. Please read the disability entry above. (See: diagnosis, disability, spatial ability, also: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS, LEARNING DISABILITIES AND DYSLEXIA)
The Bannatyne Reading Program uses over eighty-eight techniques and is based on the results of studies and research findings. 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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