Bannatyne Reading Program -- GLOSSARY E THROUGH G

Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program

Third Edition

GLOSSARY -- E through G

EMOTIONALLY DISORDERED STRESS-SURVIVAL (EDSS) CHARACTERISTICS OF STUDENTS

This term is self-explanatory in that it describes students whose behavior is, by explicit situational standards, described as "abnormal." There are many types of emotional disturbances and the causes do not always originate in environmental/ social/ cultural/ family situations and upbringing. Many identical twin studies show that approximately 80 percent of our emotional behavior patterns are inherited and therefore emotional disturbance is often a complex mixture of genes and environmental influences. Minimal neurological dysfunctions may also contribute to emotional disturbance. Even the failure associated with reading disorders and scholastic pressure at home and school can, in itself contribute to emotional disturbance. In other words, reading disorders can exacerbate emotional problems because of the frustration or shame such students feel. Please read the disability entry above. (See: hyperactivity, disability, also STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS, EDSS section)

ESL -- ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

This term is almost self-explanatory. Students who learned another language as their native language before they learned English are placed in the ESL category. They may have been born in a non-English speaking country and come to the USA (or other English speaking country), or have been born in the USA (or other English speaking country) but raised in a family where English was not spoken at home. ESL students may be of any age, and many ESL adult immigrants to the USA attend ESL classes. Even students who are Native Americans can sometimes be categorized as ESL if they learned English from outside sources (such as on school entry) when they were older. Do not confuse ESL with true bilingual people who have been raised from birth to speak two or more languages fluently, or who, being verbally gifted have learned their second language to the point where they can think in it. (See: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS)

EYE MOVEMENTS

(See: fixation, saccadic)

FAMILY OF WORDS

In the Bannatyne Program a family of words is a group of words that contain some identical phoneme/grapheme component. Thus health, wealth and stealth make up a word family containing -ealth. Squabble, squash and squad are another word family containing squa-. Almost invariably the common part of the words in a family have the same spelling and the same sounds (pronunciation or articulation). (See: blends, digraphs, core words)

FIXATION

Fixation is the ability to control eye movement and direction so as to align the "gauge" (sometimes spelled "gage") accurately, especially in terms of distance, with the object we wish to see. We can, for example, fixate on a static tree, on a moving car--or on print at the end of a saccadic movement. We can even fixate on a moving vehicle when we are located in another moving vehicle. What is important here is that the eye only reads when it is quite still and fixated on some part of a word. When reading the eyes move along a line of print in jerky movements with brief fixations in between, and it is only during the brief fixations that the eye actually reads. The jerky movements between these fixations-to-read are called saccadic movements and the eyes do not read during them. Research has shown that most reading disabled students have very erratic saccadic movements that may overshoot or undershoot the "mark" and so their eyes tend to make an extra series of tiny saccadic movements to center on and find the target opteme or optemes. Beginning readers of any age usually read in very tiny saccadic movements opteme by opteme until, gradually they are able to fixate on and recognize opteme-to-phoneme associated "chunks" within a word, such as blends, digraphs, syllables, prefixes, etc. All this eye-movement training is done very thoroughly in the Bannatyne Program. (See: saccadic movements, chunking, association, opteme)

FLUENCY AND SPEED READING

Fluency is the skill of being able to read words in sentences (or groups of words across the page) smoothly and reasonably quickly with precise clear articulation and correct pausing. Even efficient silent reading requires the reader to be fluent. In other words if a student can read fluently out loud then that student is fluent when reading silently. Fast, fluent reading is thoroughly taught in the Bannatyne Program mostly by means of Speed Reading Activities. Speed reading in the Bannatyne Program has nothing in common with adult speed reading/scanning courses. (See: chunking, eye-movements, overlearning)

FRICATIVE

This term refers to those phonemes (articulemes) which are produced by means of the breath being forced through a narrow slit (or slits) at some point in the mouth producing friction. Examples are /f/, /v/, /s/, /th/, /z/, /h/, as in /feather/, /vivid/, /hisses/, /zither/ and /hither/. 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.

GESTALT

Concept of form wherein an object is not perceived as component parts but rather as an entity or whole.

GRAMMAR

This term is a very broad one that covers the morphology (word forms and formations) of a language, the syntax of sentences, the meanings of words, and the order and organization of words and sentences in a language. Of course, it includes punctuation as well. (See: syntax)

GRAPHEME, GRAPHEMIC

A grapheme is the handwritten or hand-printed (letter or letters) equivalent of the auditory/speech unit of sound, the phoneme. If the orthography of the language is irregular (as in parts of English), the matching of phonemes to graphemes is not consistent. For example, the phoneme /eye/ can be handwritten as the graphemes: eye, i, I, igh, ei, ie, uy, y. Graphemes composed of more than one letter shape (digraphs and trigraphs) are often indicated in the Teacher Guides and Student Workbooks by being underlined, e.g., igh. A person blind from birth may not know any optemes but may be able to type or even write graphemes. To experience writing pure (motor/kinesthetic) graphemes, sign your name on a piece of paper with tightly closed eyes. (See: digraphs, orthography, optemes, articulemes, phonemes. Also see the Grapheme Book for complete listings of vowels, consonants, graphemes, phonemes, and sample words)

GROUPING STUDENTS ACADEMICALLY

One efficient way to make the learning and teaching of academic skills easier for both students and teachers is to divide a large class up into three ability groups and then teach each group separately. This is much easier to do than it sounds. (See: WHO CAN USE PROGRAM)

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.