June/2000 - Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association

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LIVINGWELLbecause life has dealt us a terrible blow. Some peoplefeel guilty and blame themselves for something theymay or may not have done which they believe couldhave prevented the loss. Emotions seem out of controland can include uncontrollable crying, fear, loneliness,hurt, sadness, helplessness, and hopelessness. It may beat this point when we take stock and see things moreclearly and acknowledge what has been lost.There are practical ways that people can begin tostart the process of healing. The first begins with namingthe losses. The difficult work of grieving does notstart until we actually accept the loss and understandthat our lives have changed and will probably never bethe same again. After the death of my father, I canremember when the finality of his death finally dawnedon me. It was at that time I truly accepted that he wasgone permanently and realized what was left were pictures,stories, and memories of my relationship withhim. It was during that time that many people who hadknown him shared stories I had never heard and ithelped as a way to celebrate and honor his life.There are ways of dealing with the loss that can behelpful in the healing process. The reality of loss canbegin to be felt by attending the funeral, visiting thegravesite, or by building a memorial when someone youcare about dies. If a marriage is over, it can help toremember the good memories as well as the bad. If youhave lost a job, find someone who is a good listener withwhom you can share your feelings. If your school is destinedto close, it is important to have time to celebratethe good things that your school brought to the community,to the staff, and to the students who attended.Eventually we have to start living again and adjustour lives without that which has been lost. If that is notaccomplished we might find ourselves living with awhole host of grief substitutes. These could includeaddictions, emotional shutdown, fixed rage, depressivedisorders, physical symptoms, and disease, to name afew. Instead, we have options that can help us heal. Ifyou find you are stuck, you might consider grief counseling.You can also use the power of rituals such aslighting a candle, visiting the graveyard, writing to theperson who died, or writing your thoughts and feelingsin a journal. You can read books on grief and the journeyof healing. You can use your pain to grow and, inturn, offer something back to yourself and to others inthe future. Grief is often misunderstood, but in applyingit to our losses we can use it constructively to start anew beginning and get on with the task of living in ameaningful way again.Kathy Burford is an EAP Coordinator with the EmployeeAssistance Program for teachers. For confidential assistancecontact Kathy Burford (ext. 242) or Claudette Coombs (ext. 265).the bulletin 25 june 2000
RESEARCHA SOLUTION FOR READING AND SPELLING DIFFICULTIESDyslexia:Part Vby DR. CATHERINE G. PENNEYThe dyslexic’s difficulty with reading andspelling results from an inadequate representationin memory for the sound of words and theway words are pronounced – what linguistscall the phonological representation of the word.Dyslexics have difficulty analyzing a word into the individualphonemes. English has about 40 phonemeswhich are the sounds represented by the letters of thealphabet. Some phonemes are represented by two letters(such as the “ch” and “th” sounds), and vowel soundsare often represented by several different spellings. Thesame sound is represented by the letters “aw” in theword “awful”, the letters “augh” in “caught”, the letters“au” in “Paul”, the letter “o” in “hot”, the letters “ough”in “thought” and the letter “a” in “small”.In order to learn to read and spell, it was thought thatthe child must first analyze a word into the phonemes,and then associate the phonemes with their letters. Thisview of reading has increased interest in phonics programswhich explicitly teach associations between lettersand their sounds, and in programs which developphonemic awareness – the ability to “hear” the individualphonemes in a word. Marilyn Adams reviewed a lot ofresearch on reading in her 1990 book called “Beginningto Read” and concluded that reading programs whichexplicitly taught letter-sound associations produced betterreading achievement than programs which did not.Another view of reading suggests a different approachto teaching reading. Usha Goswami of Oxford Universityreported that six-year-old children were able to readunknown words by analogy with a known word. If achild was shown a word like “beak” and told what thisword was, he or she was more likely to read a word like“peak” correctly than a word like “bear”. It seems there issomething special about the last part of a word.Before children can analyze a word like “cat” into itsthree individual phonemes (“kuh”, “ah”, and “tuh”),they can often segment an initial consonant sound.Young children or older poor readers can take the “d”sound from “dog” but if asked to take the “s” soundfrom “smile” will say “I’ll” rather than “mile”. An earlystage in the development of phonemic awareness is thestage at which the child can break a syllable into twoparts: (1) the initial group of consonants (called theonset); and (2) the vowel and any consonants that followthe vowel (called the rime). The child in Goswami’sexperiment was using the rime to read the new word.English spelling of vowel sounds is complex andirregular, but spelling and pronunciation are simplerand more regular for rime units. The letter pattern “to”has only one pronunciation as does the letter pattern“aw”. Even a difficult pattern like “augh” has a limitednumber of pronunciations (“caught” and “laughter”).What happens if we teach dyslexic students to pronounceletter patterns corresponding to rime units?Keith Greaney, William Tumner and James Chapmantrained poor readers to read and spell groups of wordsthat contained the same rime units. A child might betaught to spell “seat”, “beat”, and “neat” and asked toread a bigger word like “heater”. When tested at the endof the 11-week training program and again one yearlater, students given the rime-based training did betterthan children taught to use context to figure out thewords they could not read.In my research I am evaluating a rime-based trainingprogram with poor readers aged 8 to 18. Poor readerspractice spelling and reading words that have rime unitsin common such as “and”, “band”, “candy”, “handstand”,and “understand”. To ensure that they applytheir word attack strategies to meaningful reading, thestudents also read text containing the word they havepracticed. Here are results for two students.Margaret’s listening comprehension and learningability were in the top 2% of the population, but herspelling was in the bottom 15%. Her reading comprehensionwas slightly above average for her age (13) andgrade (8). After 30 hours of private tutoring with therime-based spelling drills (spread over about 16months), her score for reading isolated words went fromgrade 4.7 to grade 5.5, and her reading comprehensionincreased from grade 10.8 to grade 14.4. Her spellingscore increased from grade 4.3 to 5.2.the bulletin 26 june 2000
Page 1 and 2: NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR TEACHERS
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTSLETTERSFeatures12 From the
Page 5 and 6: ON LOCATIONWHITBOURNECareer Fair a
Page 8 and 9: ONLOCATIONEdward HancockNLTA staff
Page 10: ONLOCATIONONTARIOOntario teaching c
Page 13: FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORThe Year
Page 16 and 17: HATSOFF!PRIME MINISTER’S AWARDS F
Page 18 and 19: PROFESSIONALDEVELOPMENTMy Internshi
Page 20 and 21: PROFESSIONALDEVELOPMENTTHE YOUTH MA
Page 22 and 23: PROFESSIONALDEVELOPMENT“Together
Page 26 and 27: RESEARCHPeter was eight years old a
Page 28 and 29: FOR YOUR INFORMATIONIreland, Liecht
Page 31: UPCOMING FROM THE EDITOR EVENTSCALE

June/2000 - Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association

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