Strategies to Use With Kids Who Read Sound by Sound

Memory Strategies for Students: The Value of Strategies

Past: Regina K. Richards

The purpose of this commodity is to provide a sampling of strategies to assistance students raise their learning experiences.

Strategies tin can be used in many different ways. They tin can be used to introduce a concept in a way that will stick and provide a palette for the student to use as he works to expand his understanding of the concept. Strategies tin as well be used to reinforce a concept in a way that provides a tool to aid the student retrieve the known data.

As Mel Levine explained in May 2000, International Dyslexia Association workshop entitled "Enabling Without Labeling," using strategies intrinsically means slowing down when you lot practise something. It is a process of deceleration then you can exercise quality control.

Strategies can be used by teachers, parents, or by students themselves. Teachers using strategies will exist able to vary their presentations so that they use a variety of didactics styles. Since each student learns all-time in his or her own preferred way, when information is presented using varied formats, the teacher increases the probability of "reaching" a larger proportion of the students in the classroom. Parents tin can incorporate strategies when helping with nightly homework assignments. This has an added benefit of modeling skilful learning and studying techniques that the student can then employ independently at a later time.

An overall goal for students is to develop automatic strategy use, as this increases efficiency when learning and studying. Initially some strategies may have more time for students and they may be hesitant to spend the actress time. But eventually they will find that the use of strategies enhances their ability to organize and retrieve the information, consequently increasing learning efficiency.

Many of the strategies use a technique called mnemonics, which are basically "retentivity tools." Mnemonics can help capture information for later retrieval because they help the student form a pattern.

Nosotros've all seen children who can hands echo silly mnemonic sentences such as commercials. Why is that? There are several answers to that question. The silliness triggers a focus because there is something "different," and the blueprint helps hook the information together. Employ of multisensory techniques such as colors, visual pictures, songs, rhythms, or move often capitalize on students' strengths. Children who learn differently, especially dyslexic children and those that struggle with language development, tend to larn best with active learning and creative involvement with the job or concept.

Preplanning is important

Prep leads to generalization of the concepts as well as greater efficiency in organizing data. Dr. Levine and Dr. Meltzer, in their audio-tape series Reaching Minds talk over the importance of strategy utilize and the issue of generalization. They present a proffer of "strategy grades" instead of "endeavour grades." Dr. Levine states,

I thought that before a exam, kids ought to be asked to hand in a memory plan, the 24-hour interval before. The way a pilot would hand in the flight plan. In other words, how are you going to go most getting stuff into and out of your retentiveness? And they ought to be graded on their programme as much as they are on the exam. Information technology might exist very prissy, as a matter of fact, to eliminate something called "try grades," which are very morally tinged and inappropriate, in my stance, and substitute strategy grades, and grade a kid non so much of how he did on the examination, but how he went about preparing for information technology. That may be much more meaningful as a part of the assessment.

Strategies that aid innovate or organize a concept

Visual organizers, such equally the post-obit examples from my book Larn: Playful Strategies for All Learners, are very useful for introducing new concepts. They help the educatee develop a pattern that connects new information with other, more familiar, information.

For instance, in English, many vocabulary words take more than than ane meaning. The meaning varies dependant upon the content or the situation in which the word is used. Some of these words are spelled the same (homonyms) while other words may exist spelled differently (homophones).

The homonym flavour can mean "flavor" or "flow of the twelvemonth." Students can be encouraged to describe a picture to illustrate each pregnant separately then write (or dictate) a unmarried sentence that uses both meanings. An case sentence could be, "permit's flavor the flavor with parties."

The homophone needle can hateful "tease or bother" or "a sewing tool." An example related sentence might be "don't needle me about threading the needle." Students may wish to apply more creativity and depict a picture that represents both meanings of the sentence equally in the following motion-picture show for the words hair or hare.

Is Mr. Magic losing his pilus or hare or both?

Other strategies that apply student'southward strengths in visual patterns involve the broad variety of visual organizers that are available. Visual organizers can be used to compare and contrast ii related aspects as in the Venn diagram which compares mammals and reptiles. In this Venn diagram, the information in the centre represents what is similar near mammals and reptiles.

A Venn diagram comparing mammals and reptiles

Bones visual organizers, also called mind maps or clusters, can be used to summarize information from a lecture or reading materials, or to prepare for a writing assignment. The principal idea is placed in the middle and then the supporting facts tin be attached in various formats. Heed maps tin likewise exist organized to show cause and effect or a sequence of events, such as the following episodic organizer.

Episodic organizer

Strategies that help students review and think known information

These types of strategies are very valuable for students. That is considering many times students larn information but then don't have a plan to hands call up or recollect that information when information technology is needed (during a test, for instance). It is important that the students know the data well, because otherwise the mnemonic, whether it is a silly sentence or a flick, will not serve its role. For example, how useful is it if the educatee knows that the letters in the word HOMES represent the start letter of each of the five Bully Lakes, but does non know the names of the lakes. Will information technology help him to know that one of the Great Lakes starts with the letter of the alphabet H if he cannot retrieve the word Huron?

Sense of humor is valuable with these strategies because our brains are adept at remembering unusual or silly things. Imagery or picture associations can be encouraged through modeling or using actual pictures. A short sentence or a sequence of letters is often used to aid in the recall. These are technically called acrostics (a short sentence with the initial alphabetic character of each word matching the first alphabetic character of the names or words to recall in the correct sequence) or acronyms (a sequence of letters that may or may not form a word, with each letter of the alphabet representing one of the keywords to exist remembered). HOMES is an case acronym for the 5 smashing lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior. Some examples of acrostics follow:

The Mnemonic	The beginning letter of each word helps recall:
Chiliady Very Easy Thousandethod Just Speeds Up Northaming Planets	The planets in order: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto
Ky Very Due eastager Chiliadother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas	The planets in order: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto
A Rat In The House Might Eat The Ice Cream	The spelling of the word arithmetic
Dear Miss Due southally Brown	The master steps in long partition: divide, multiply, subtract, bring down
Does ThousandcDonalds Sell CheeseBurgers	The main steps in long partitioning: divide, multiply, subtract, bring downwardly
Roy G. Biv	The colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet
Nalways Eat Shredded Wheat	The sequence of directions, going clockwise: north, east, south, west

Strategies that help students recall and recollect information

These types of strategies are very useful for students who take difficulty learning associative information, such as sound/symbol correspondences or math facts. Some students have an easy fourth dimension remembering such data, such as the fact that the letter a has the /a/ sound or that 9x3 is 27. Other students may struggle profoundly to recall these "uncomplicated" associations. Using strategies with these tasks tin be particularly valuable for students who learn differently because some of their processing issues may interfere with associative recall. As well, appropriate strategies can assist them have advantage of their substantial processing strengths, which in plough helps increment their cocky-esteem every bit well as their learning.

Sound/symbol correspondences

Sound/symbol correspondences can be recalled using visual mnemonics. This type of strategy presents a picture cue that can be used to assistance trigger the clan to exist remembered. For example, the word apple, along with a picture, can be used as a keyword to recall that the letter a has the /a/ sound. When words are combined into a silly phrase, the connections and patterns get even stronger. For example, keywords for the five main short vowels can be combined into the phrase, "apple tree Ed is on umbrella" as in this picture from my book Memory Foundations for Reading.

Math

Memorizing math facts, especially multiplication facts, can be a claiming for many students. Some students memorize the facts simply so struggle to retrieve them when they are doing actual calculations. Students who struggle should be taught to await for patterns inside the numbers.

An case pattern is evidenced when multiplying nines: calculation up the digits in the answer volition always result in the number ix. For example, in 9x1=9, 9x4=36, or 9x7=63. The answers (nine, 36, or 63) each add up to 9.

Students can use their fingers to calculate many of the multiplication facts. The easiest strategy is for multiplying a number by 9. To apply the strategy, students place both easily in forepart with the palm side down and fingers outstretched. Each finger is numbered (either mentally or with an actual sticker) beginning with the pinkie on the left manus.

Numbering of fingers for 9s

The number that is beingness multiplied is folded over, as in the diagram. The educatee then counts the number of fingers to the left of the folded down finger (in this case of 9x5, there are four fingers to the left). This number represents the tens digit (iv). The student and so counts the number of fingers to the right of the folded down finger (in this instance, at that place are five fingers to the left). This number represents the ones digit (5). The answer to this problem (9x5) is 45.

Process for figuring 9x5

The value of strategies

Learning strategies assistance all of usa learn how to learn past focusing on the process and the plan rather than but the outcome or the content of learning. The goal is for students to comport many of the strategies and habits learned during the school years throughout life to enhance lifelong learning. While it is true that as adults we are generally not asked to calculate a folio of math facts, it is as well true that we will exist asked to larn new information, analyze tasks, organize data, and program our activities. These are the lifelong skills that are critical for all of us to larn in school.

Likewise much as well fast… it won't last!

Several years ago, a Farside cartoon was published showing a classroom state of affairs. The student was raising his mitt and asking if he could exist excused considering his "brain was full." This highlights an important caution to remember in using mnemonics. Go slowly. Too many strategies at one time may confuse the student rather than help.

• Use strategies to take fun with your students
• Use them as examples to create more strategies that volition assistance enhance students learning
• Vary the strategies and include different sensory patterns
• Help students realize the importance of strategies every bit a lifelong skill

Doing so will help heighten students' self-esteem because they will be more successful. When students learn to continue through a task systematically, it will seem less overwhelming.

As my son and I institute when writing the book Eli, The Boy Who Hated To Write: Agreement Dysgraphia, when nosotros feel calm instead of frustrated, information technology is actually easier to go through the piece of work.

References

References

Click the "References" link above to hide these references.

Lavoie, R. How Difficult Can This Be? - The F.A.T. City Workshop (video)

Levine, M. and Meltzer, Fifty. (1998). Reaching Minds audiotapes. Chapel Hill, NC: All Kinds of Minds.

Levine, M. (1994). Educational Care: A System for Understanding and Helping Children with Learning Problems at Home and at School. Cambridge, MA: Educators Publishing Service, Inc.

Levine, One thousand. (1990). Keeping A Caput in School. A Student's Book near Learning Abilities and Learning Disabilities. Cambridge, MA: Educators Publishing Service, Inc.

Marguiles, Due north., MaaL Northward., and Wheatley, M.J. (2001). Mapping Inner Space: Learning and Instruction Visual Mapping. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Printing.

Polacco, P. (1998). Thank You, Mr. Falker. New York, NY: Philomel.

Richards, R.Thou. (1997). Memory Foundations for Reading: Visual Mnemonics for Audio / Symbol Relationships. Riverside, CA: RET Center Printing.

Richards, R.G. (1999). The Source for Dyslexia and Dysgraphia. East Moline, IL: LinguiSystems, Inc.

Richards, R.G. (2005). When Writing's a Trouble: Understanding Dysgraphia and Helpful Hints for Reluctant Writers. Riverside, CA: RET Center Press.

Richards, Regina Grand. and Richards, Eli. (2008). Eli, The Boy Who Hated To Write: Agreement Dysgraphia. Riverside, CA: RET Eye Printing.

Schumm, J.Southward. (2000). School Power: Study Skill Strategies for Succeeding in School. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing.

Sonneman , 1000.R. (1997). Across Words: A Guide to Drawing Out Ideas. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.

Tarquin, P., and Walker, S. (1996). Creating Success in the Classroom: Visual Organizers and How to Use Them. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Richards, R. (2008). Memory Strategies for Students: The Value of Strategies. Exclusive to LD OnLine.

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