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AVKO Educational
Research Foundation AVKO comes from Audio, Visual, Kinesthetic, & Oral a multi-sensory approach. Chapter
1 Learn
about the Learning-to-Read Process
When
you get to the next paragraph, please turn this book upside down and continue reading. In fact, we want you to always read each chapter
of the book upside down first. Then you can
turn your book right side up. Then, and only then, read it normally. You should notice the vast difference in
comprehension! You will then appreciate the
role fluency in word recognition plays in comprehension.
Are
you now reading your book upside down? If so,
continue on. If not, go back and read the
first paragraph again.
Are
you now reading your book upside down? Good. I would hate to say that you’re not very good
at following directions.
If
you are really interested in finding out for yourself how difficult it is for students to
learn to read and write, I strongly advise
that you begin now to teach yourself how to read and write upside down. After a year of practicing several hours a day, I
can only say that I am in the process of mastering the art of reading upside down and
writing upside down.
I
wish I could say that I started to do this because I wanted to learn more about the
reading and writing process, but I can't. I
got started simply because I enjoy working face to face with the student that I am
tutoring. I find that I can observe my
student's eye movements and facial expressions far better when I am seated across a table
from him than when I am seated at the student's side.
I also sensed that my students seemed more comfortable with a table between
us. I know that I just hate it when someone
is looking over my shoulder when I’m reading.
At
any rate, it was my preference for working across the table with students that sort of
forced me into learning to read upside down. What
I discovered in the process of learning to read and write upside down is that I
encountered all the classic textbook symptoms of "dyslexia."
I read was for saw, I read woman
for women, I even read spider for rapids
and I just couldn't read the word shoes at all. I sat and I sat.
I knew all the letters. I
sounded out sh as /sh/ but all I could come up with was "shows" which rhyme with
"toes" and “goes” or "SHOW eez" a nonsense word that rhymed
with Chloe’s. Here I am, a grown man, a
widely known expert in the field of reading, knowing all the letters s-h-o-e-s and not
being able to read the word shoes until in
absolute frustration I turned the book right side up.
From that point on, I have always been able to read the word shoes. But,
I'll never forget the feeling of embarrassment when I couldn't even figure it out in
context!
That
particular feeling of being embarrassed has occurred many times since then. Many words that I take for granted as "easy
words,” such as easy, precious, special,
institutional, etc., I couldn't sound out or
figure out using context clues. Learning to
read upside down is still a humbling experience for me.
One thing that I have learned is: to
read fluently takes practice, practice and more practice so that you don't read Sheraton
as "She rat on". And, heaven only
knows what Freud would make out of my first rendition of reading the word therapist when I read that word upside down as a
compound word. Since then I have made a
collection of words that could be compound words that are not—words like notice (not ice), herring (her ring), etc.
Because
I always like my students to see what I'm writing as I am writing, the only way I could do
that and still sit across the table from my students was to learn to write upside down. So, I blithely bounced into printing upside down
using the "easy" stick ball routine. Sure
enough, I created real problems for myself. I
wrote b's
for d's,
p's
for q's
and g's. If my only interest had been in becoming
proficient at writing upside down, I should have started with D'Nealian™, which my
good friend Don Thurber developed and ultimately sold to Scott-Foresman. In case you're not acquainted with this system, it
is basically a system of manuscript printing in which almost all the letters are
constructed so that cursive becomes merely a linking of the letters, a natural
easy-to-learn extension of the printing process. Perhaps the best part of the system is
that there are distinct kinesthetic differences between letters—not just a visual
location of a stick and a ball.
But,
I didn't practice what I have always preached. Instead,
I tried to learn how to print upside down the stick-ball way and for a while I thought I
would never correctly write a 2 or a 5. Then,
when I switched to writing cursive upside down, I had to start learning all over again. Even though it is much easier to learn to print
upside down using D'Nealian ™ and ultimately to write cursive this way, I plead with
you not to forgo the truly masochistic pleasure of learning for yourself the problems that
the stick-ball method of printing creates. If
you're right-handed, you'll learn what a left-hander experiences—how messy it is
writing when your hand keeps covering up what you're writing. If you really want to understand the problems of
learning to write (or print) what you should do is to use your opposite hand, left if
you're right-handed and right if you're left-handed and learn to write upside down at the
same time. I know that it isn't easy. I have done it, and I now am far more sympathetic
with the struggles of youngsters to master writing.
I
know that if I have to concentrate on how a letter is formed when I’m writing upside
down, that concentration interferes with my automatic spelling of a word. I also know that if I ever have to think about how
a word is spelled, that concentration interferes with my train of thought while composing. Handwriting must be automatic. Just as a good basketball player dribbles and
shoots without having to concentrate on how to dribble or how to hold the ball, that
automaticity[1]
came only as a result of practice, practice and more practice. I tell my students that the reason Michael Jordan
is so good is that he has missed more shots in one week than I have attempted in my entire
life. There must be drill in school on the
basics.
In
any case, I do believe that before any researchers are allowed to publish their theories
on how reading and writing should be taught, they should demonstrate that they have taught
themselves how to read and write upside down as well as they can read and write right side
up—or almost as well. I think that all
who do will discover, as I did, that there are different types of words, such as the
"SIMPLE," the "FANCY," the "INSANE," the "TRICKY"
and the "SCRUNCHED UP," and that learning these five different types of words
involve different processes of the computer brain.
In
order to properly understand the concepts
involved
in this textbook,
it
is essential that you continue to read the following passage on the next page UPSIDE DOWN
and answer the questions at the bottom
while still reading upside down. “Simple”
Reading Comprehension Test
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