Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program
Third Edition
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HAND/EYE COORDINATION
The ability to control the hand movements in coordination (in concert) with the visual-perceptual (retina and brain) and visual-motor (muscles of the eye) activities of the eyes as a whole. Efficient eye/hand coordination, which is essential when tracing, printing and writing, is thoroughly taught in the Bannatyne Program. (See: oculomotor, fixation)
HANDICAP (See: disability)
HAND LATERALIZATION
Traditionally, this term refers to the hand which is used for writing and other everyday functions (as the dominant hand) which for most people is the right one. Note that each hand is controlled (i.e., motorically activated) by the appropriate motor and kinesthetic areas of the motor cortex on the opposite side of the body to the hand in question, e.g., right hand control is in the left (usually verbal) hemisphere. (See: hand-eye coordination, hemispheric dominance)
HEMISPHERIC DOMINANCE
In most people the left hemisphere of the brain (and in particular the left cortex) processes language functions even though the right hemisphere may also be involved, particularly motorically. In a few people language functioning may take place in the right hemisphere. The side of the brain which processes language in any given individual is often called the dominant hemisphere. However it is also correct to say that the right hemisphere is the dominant hemisphere for spatial ability in most people, but that does not mean spatial ability is their preferred way of operating in this world. (See: spatial ability, verbal ability, also: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS)
HYPERACTIVITY
Hyperactivity is a behavioral symptom which includes a kind of restless nervousness which can range from restless leg syndrome to continuous, edgy agitation, especially of a physical nature. Hyperactivity may have its origins in neurological dysfunction, which in turn may result from genetic factors or from a physical trauma. Minimal neurological dysfunction (MND) is the commonest cause of continuous hyperactive behavior. Hyperactivity may also result from an emotional trauma (being mildly frantic all the time as in a continuous abuse situation), or from the students social/cultural environmental upbringing. An example of the latter would be a student, who is being raised in a local culture and family that has no interest in education, being placed in an academic school setting by law; this could be called the "fish-out-of-water" cultural hyperactivity. Almost every one of us becomes hyperactively restless (frantic) in situations and locations we desperately want to get out of. Most students I talk with, even the academically successful, do not like their school lessons or homework. Please read the disability entry above. (See: MND, ADHD, and STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS)
INTELLIGENCE [Please read all of the following entry]
Intelligence is the cognitive ability to understand from experience, to acquire knowledge, and to solve problems. Intelligence can range from poor ability to high ability in differing areas of everyday human functioning. Most teachers (and others) think that there is only one kind of general intelligence but this is not true, and worse, they believe that intelligence tests (constructed by psychologists like me) are an infallible measure of general intellectual ability, which is also not true. But before I discuss intelligence tests, let us explore what intelligence actually is. There are at least five kinds of intelligence which (with their verbal illustrations) are:
For over a century there has been an argument going on amongst cognitive psychologists as to whether there is a genuine "general intelligence factor" (called "g"), or whether "g" is just an amalgam or mixture of various levels of the specific forms of intelligence (in bold type, above). The problem in deciding the nature of "g" is that our intelligence tests are composed of all kinds of tasks which intrinsically involve combinations of verbal skills, spatial skills, mathematical skills, motion/movement skills, and more indirectly, human relationships (social situations in test materials, and rapport), and all too often these tasks are a potpourri of several of these intellectual skills. We can only sort them out into "factors" by using statistical procedures such as factor analyses or ANOVAS, and these too are also fraught with both vector problems and problems of interpretation.
But measuring intelligence has even more built-in "problems." All intelligence test tasks involve information that the student or adult has already learned, or worse, not yet learned. Therefore in many ways intelligence tests are only measures of how much information a person has already learned, and how well that person has already learned to manipulate that information "intelligently"--much like any other academic test. Therefore, intelligence tests are circular in that what people have successfully learned in the past in school and at home and in their culture determines how likely they are to learn the same stuff in the future so they can pass future academic tests (e.g., SATs)! Since all schools are always heavily biased toward verbal learning and teaching, it is only those students who have good verbal intelligence who have high IQs. Even those students who have good spatial ability or mathematical ability must also have good verbal intelligence to succeed academically. Because our education establishment is wedded to this dubious intelligence testing as well as to genuine verbal abilities, the only way a student with high spatial ability and not-so-good verbal ability can succeed (academically and get into college) is by learning to read, write and spell with an extremely efficient and highly motivating program such as the Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program. For the Bannatyne recategorization of the subtest scores of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children WISC (any version) please see: RECATEGORIZATION OF WISC. Also please read the disability entry above. (See: cognition, memory, spatial ability, verbal ability)
LANGUAGE
Always remember that our primary native language is the spoken/heard (auditory/ vocal) language, not the printed/written visual one. Teachers, especially, tend to think the printed words are primary and tend to forget the English language is phonetic. In all European languages, the secondary written/printed symbols on the page (graphemes/ optemes) represent the primary language sounds which are articulated and heard. The visual symbols are meaningless without their associated sounds (articulemes/ phonemes). All meanings are associated to (and with) our auditory/vocal language, not the printed symbols for that language. To prove this try reading a page of Greek if you do not know that phonetic language. Please read the disability entry above. (See: orthography)
LATERALITY
The internal, conceptual awareness of the two sides of the body and their differences. (See: hand lateralization, left to right tracking, left and right as concepts)
LEARNING
There are many kinds of learning but, as parents and teachers we tend to lump them all together. But for our purposes I want to distinguish between natural spontaneous learning and artificial formal learning. Learning to walk and talk before the age of four are examples of natural spontaneous learning because even if no one ever formally instructed us in how to do these two activities we would develop them naturally just by being in the environment where they occur. When children do not naturally learn to walk and talk before the age of four we know there is something abnormal about them; almost every infant everywhere in the world does spontaneously learn to walk and talk. But many children in the world (currently some 15%) do not learn to read even simple sentences in their own native language because they are not formally taught in school, and school is an artificial organization in so-called civilized cultures. No one learns to read, write and spell without years of formal teaching in school or (these days) through homeschooling.
Also note that we can learn (as a process) by rote-memorizing (e.g., multiplication tables), by insightful understanding (e.g., deduction), by imitation (watch me do this), by trial and error (Ouch! I burned myself), by discovery (my pet died, and I learned about death), by frequent practice (catching a ball), by visual illustrations (a labeled picture of the human body), etc.
What we learn can also be classified: We learn factual content (the Himalayas are the highest mountains on Earth), skills which facilitate doing other tasks (reading, writing, spelling, riding a bicycle), and principles (which explain how systems operate, e.g. relativity, quantum theory, psycholinguistics).
We also learn in the three human modalities: physically (how to high jump), intellectually/ cognitively (how to solve a geometrical theorem), and emotionally (I will allow my anger to mature into determination and dedication in order to solve my personal problems). Many tasks involve all three functional modalities (driving, loving, teaching).
Please read the disability entry above. (See: reading, language, memory, intelligence, comprehension)
LEFT AND RIGHT AS VERBAL CONCEPTS RELATIVE TO THE FRONT OF THE BODY
The words left and right are arbitrary verbal concepts invented by humans to designate the two sides of the body relative to which way the front of their body happens to be facing. When you walk North on a street, the right hand side of the street becomes the left hand side when you return coming South because your body has turned around. In many ways it is preferable to use the terms left hand side and right hand side, especially with children. The left and right sides of the body are approximately mirror-imaged in most people which means one side has the same external structure as the other. As a result people with a strong left hemisphere language dominance have little difficulty remembering which is left and which is right, but those people who use both hemispheres equally (the right hemisphere is for spatial intelligence and abilities) see the two sides as the same and cannot easily remember which is labeled left and which is labeled right. Try staring into a mirror and then raise your left hand without aforethought! The Bannatyne Program uses several devices to prevent left-right mirror imaging and reversals when reading, writing and spelling. (See: hand lateralization, left to right tracking, left and right as concepts, mirror-imaging)
LEFT TO RIGHT TRACKING
In order to read efficiently the eyes must learn to move in jerky saccadic movements and fixations in one dimension from left to right along a single line of print at a time. This left to right tracking is trainable during the teaching of reading, and the Bannatyne Program do so. (See: hand lateralization, line to line tracking, saccadic movements, eye movements, fixation, left and right as concepts)
LINE BY LINE TRACKING
As the eyes move down lines of print, they must move rapidly from the right hand end of one line (just read) to the left hand end of the next line (to be read). Good readers do this rapidly and accurately. It is a skill that is best trained by reading practice, especially by using separating drawn lines for beginners. The Bannatyne Program is designed to facilitate line by line tracking. (See: eye movements, oculomotor)
LINGUISTICS (including Psycholinguistics)
The science of language is called linguistics. This implies the study and analysis of phonetics, morphology, syntax and semantics (meanings) in any language. When psychology is added to Linguistics it is known as Psycholinguistics. Naturally these are studies (disciplines) in the context of both spoken and written words, word components, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and grammar. Psycholinguistics is the study of how language is processed by the human brain and sensory-motor systems. In order to organize the content and sequence of words, word-parts, etc., in the Bannatyne Program I did an in-depth linguistic and psycholinguistic analysis of English, important aspects of which are included in the Technical Information Book (See: BANNATYNE PSYCHOLINGUISTICS). However, it is important to understand that the coding and decoding in print of a phonetic language has to be formally taught and learned, usually in school, so please read the disability entry above.
LINKS, LINKAGE
The basic sounds (phonemes/articulemes) of the orthography of the English language are linked "vertically" with their visual symbols (graphemes/optemes). This vertical phonetic linkage is demonstrated here using the word "enlightenment."
Phonemes/articulemes: /e/-/n/-/l/ -/i/- /t/-/e/-/n/-/m/-/e/-/n/-/t/
(Vertical linkage with)
Graphemes/optemes: e - n - l - igh - t - e - n - m - e - n - t
In a phonetic language, such as English in which the basic sounds (articulemes and phonemes) are individually linked with their visual/written symbols (optemes and graphemes) these "vertical" sound-to- symbol (phoneme-to- grapheme) linkages become extremely important when reading, spelling, writing and typing. For efficiency in these skills these linkages must be learned to a high degree of fast, automatic memory processing, and this is the aim of the Bannatyne Program. (See: orthography, association, memory, recall, chunks, recognition)
LONG VOWELS
(See: vowels)
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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