Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program
Third Edition
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TASK-ANALYSIS
When a person is interested in how usable objects and processes actually work in a "task" (such as language in my case) it is advisable to carry out a detailed analysis of all the discrete items in that "task." For example, if you want to know how a mechanical watch works you have to take it apart in sequential order and then reassemble the system of cogs and springs in the correct order. You would discover that a spring powered the watch and that the escarpment regulated the timing. Because human languages actively involve almost every aspect of the functioning of the human being (try reading when you are dizzy or very ill) the task analysis of language is a monumental task. It involves an in-depth study of every discipline known to the sciences of the human body and mind, and many of the creative arts too, such as literature. To complete the task analysis of the English language I had to lay out every "bit" or "piece" of the language in the correct sequential order for ease of learning by students of any age. Thus each and every actual phoneme, grapheme, digraph, blend, syllable, word part, vowel, consonant, word, syntactical construction, piece of punctuation, declension, part of speech, sentence structure, etc., had to be laid out in the correct learning sequence, a job which involved organizing thousands of individual pieces of our language. All this task-analysis had to be accomplished in order to assemble, compose and construct the Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program. (See: reading)
TRACKING
(See: left to right tracking, and line by line tracking)
TRIGRAPHS
A trigraph is three graphemes which together are linked to one phoneme, such as eau in plateau. The word eye is also a trigraph. (See: digraphs)
TRILL
This term refers to those phonemes (articulemes) which are produced by a very rapid faint vibration of the tongue and/or uvula (at the back of the throat). The main consonant trill in English is /r/ as in /rarer/. (See the Grapheme Book, Pages 20-28)
UNVOICED (VOICELESS)
(See: voiced and voiceless)
VERBALLY COMPETENT, VERBAL ABILITY
Students who learn their native language fluently and easily from birth to five years, and who later (in school) learn to read, write and spell easily, quickly and efficiently may be described as "verbally competent." In the case of verbally competent students, research shows the Bannatyne Program increases the speed of their learning to read, write, spell and cope with language, two or three times more rapidly than traditional methods. (See: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS for more on verbally competent students and their disorders)
VISION
The ability of the eyes to see and interpret the environment. (See: visual tracking, visual-spatial, spatial ability, saccadic movements, left to right tracking, etc.)
VISUAL ACUITY
The ability to see objects sharply and clearly. Poor acuity means the object is seen as a blurred image. The initial large size print and handwriting (printing) training used in the Bannatyne Program facilitate the learning of reading, writing, spelling and language in students with below normal visual acuity. (See: vision training, visual closure, visual discrimination, visual sequencing memory Also see: WHO CAN USE THE PROGRAM Section--Partially Sighted Students)
VISUAL CLOSURE
When a person is able to complete an incomplete picture containing one or more part-objects or recognize a whole object from only part of that object he or she is able to close visually on that picture or part of an object. Every time you do a jig-saw puzzle you are exercising visual closure. Visual closure on the graphemes and phonemes in words becomes important in fast accurate reading at the final stage (within any one lesson Activity such as Key Words) of chunking and speed reading. The Bannatyne Program trains these rapid visual closure skills in those Chunking and Speed Reading Activities. (See: fluency, chunking, auditory closure)
VISUAL DISCRIMINATION AND IDENTIFICATION
Visual discrimination is the ability to distinguish visually between or tell apart two similar objects, designs, letter shapes (optemes). For example, can a student tell a lemon from a lime, a triangle from a diamond (shape), or an h from an n? The visual discrimination of graphemes and optemes is important to efficient reading, writing and spelling. The Bannatyne Program explicitly trains visual discrimination skills in several Activities, and implicitly trains visual discrimination in all Activities. Of course, visual discrimination also depends on a visual identification of the objects when each is presented in isolation from each other. The Bannatyne Program teaches the visual identification of each individual grapheme very thoroughly before exposing students to any Activities involving visual discrimination.
VISUAL SEQUENCING MEMORY
To date the research evidence indicated that pure visual sequencing is unrelated to reading or even written spelling. Pure visual sequencing memory is the ability to remember the correct order in which a series of single (unit) designs come unassisted by meaning or sounds. In a phonetic language such as English, what we think of as "visual sequencing" is dependent on, and triggered by, auditory (phonetic) sequencing. Remember that the natural language is only auditory. Normal children absorb their basic natural auditory/vocal language by three or four years of age, but reading, writing, spelling and formal grammar have to be taught in school or by tutors for years. Remember that, historically, in the middle ages very few people could read because most never went to school; however they could speak the language normally. Please read the disability entry above.
VISUAL-SPATIAL and VISUAL-MOTOR
Visual-spatial refers to the neuropsychological ability of an individual to perceive and manipulate objects in space. In this context, it does not refer to motor activity or dexterity for which the term visual-motor is used. (See: spatial ability, apraxia and STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS)
VISUAL TRACKING
This is the ability of the eyes to track objects or print through the use of eye muscles. Visual tracking using saccadic movements is quite a different function to visual sequencing. The Bannatyne Program facilitates the acquisition of all visual tracking skills. (See: saccadic movements, left to right tracking, line by line tracking)
VISUAL TRAINING
Most (but not all) so-called "vision training" has been shown by research to be fruitless. This includes following swinging objects, creeping, crawling, and visual sequencing, discrimination and closure exercises. Note well that in the Bannatyne Program the visual training of essential saccadic movements and fixation, as well as visual tracking, are all built in as part of the fully integrated, interlaced system. One research determined that the best situation to learn the disciplined saccadic visual movement training uniquely involved in reading was to learn to read! (See: saccadic)
VOICED AND VOICELESS (OR UNVOICED) SOUNDS IN LANGUAGE (ARTICULEMES)
An articuleme is said to be voiced when it is articulated with the simultaneous vibration of the vocal cords in the throat area. All vowels are voiced. Most consonants are also voiced but when articulated without a following vowel (as in blends or as isolated articulemes) the voiced sound should be kept to a minimum. For example, by itself, the articuleme /b/ should be articulated as /bih/ but in such a way that the /-ih/ part of it can hardly be heard. Similarly when articulating /m/ keep the throaty rumble to an absolute minimum. This policy will enable student not to mix the minimal "vowel" associated with the pronunciation of the consonant with the following vowel in any given word. For example, it is easier to blend /b/-/u/-/t/ than /buh/-/u/-/t/. As another example, articulate /m/ as a soft humming /m-m/ rather than as /muh/; it is easier to blend /mm/-/u/-/mm/ than /muh/-/u/-muh/.
Voiceless (unvoiced) articulemes are those in which the vocal cords do not vibrate. Examples of consonants without voicing are /t/, /p/, /s/, /k/, /h/, /f/, /th/, /sh/ and /ch/. These consonants are articulated with only a puff of air coming through the lips and not even the tiniest vowel should be added to them. By exploding air from the lips (voicelessly) they can be easily heard across a classroom.
The actual sounds for all the consonants and vowels as they are used in the Bannatyne Program, are presented in the audio provided in the Grapheme Book in the section Phonetic Articulation of Consonants and Vowels in English and Audio Pages 20--28. To hear them you have to buy the Program! (See: vowels, consonants, phonemes, articulemes)
VOWELS
The voiced sounds of most prominence in almost all syllables are called vowels. The vocal cords move and make noise with all articulated vowels. Examples of vowels are the middle sounds (phonemes/articulemes) in the words, /bat/, /but/, /bet/, /pot/, /pit/, /team/, /toot/, /tart/, /tight/, etc. The short vowels are those that are articulated quickly. Examples of the five short vowel sounds (articulemes) are to be found in the center of the words: pat, pet, pit, pot, and putt. Most other vowels when articulated in English are classified as long vowels even when said quickly. Examples of some long vowels are: Green /ee/, Brown /ow/, Rose /o/, Gray /ay/, Lime /i/ and Blue /u/. Note that these are spoken and heard sounds, not written or printed letter-shape (grapheme) symbols. The sound-to-symbol (phoneme-to-grapheme) correspondence in English (its orthography) is quite irregular, especially in the case of vowels, and that irregularity is the difficulty we have to solve when teaching reading as the phonetic language it is, and the Bannatyne Program does that very efficiently by completely regularizing the orthography of English.
In the Bannatyne Program all 17 vowel phonemes are color-coded in order to identify which specific articuleme/phoneme group they belong to, even when they have different vowel spellings, e.g., bee, leaf, me, funny, chief, ceiling, ski, money. In this way the Green vowels are discriminated from other (also colored) phonemes/articulemes with the same opteme/grapheme vowel spellings, e.g., eight (vs. ceiling), dye (vs. funny), myth (vs. funny), time (vs. ski), leg (vs. me), head (vs. leaf), steak (vs. leaf), grey (vs. money). Note that, in English, there are 76 discrete vowel phoneme/grapheme combination spellings (as articulemes represented by optemes) of which those given above are only a few. For example, consider the graphemic spelling ou in the following words each of which has a different vowel phoneme: double, you, journey, four, scout, could, boulder. The Bannatyne Program makes each of the 76 vowel spellings unique by color-coding the vowels. The students supply the color using color pencils because the Workbooks are deliberately printed in black and white. (See: consonants, voiced/voiceless, color-coding. The Grapheme Book has a complete listing of vowels, consonants, phonemes, graphemes, and sample words, but to see it you will have to buy the Program!)
WISC (All Versions and Revisions)
This is an acronym for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children published by The Psychological Corporation, USA. The WISC has become (more or less) the global standard test for measuring the intelligence of children in many Western countries. My Recategorization of the WISC subtests into four groups of three tests each has been used by some psychologists for many years to give a somewhat more accurate analysis of the types of intelligence we humans have. My Recategorization is based on a century of research into the composite factors by thousands of psychologists that go to make up the vague cognitive skills we collectively call intelligence. (See: recategorization above, and also: RECATEGORIZATION OF WISC)
WORD PARTS
Any discrete part of a word, almost always containing more than one phoneme-grapheme, such as a syllable, prefix, suffix, core word, digraph, trigraph, or, in a few cases, plural endings (e.g., ox, oxen). Note that the "syllables" used in the Bannatyne Program are for facilitating ease of word pronunciation and may not correspond to the grammatical syllables in dictionaries. (See: syllables, digraph, core words)
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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