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AVKO Philosophy
See also: About AVKO
| The Teaching of Reading |
Homeschooling
Methods | AVKO
Curriculum
On Teaching
- Reading/writing upside down are excellent skills for
tutors to have. This teaches empathy (teacher has
to struggle to read basic words) and facilitates comfort
of the student (not crowding/intimidating them), etc.
- Words that are easier to spell should be taught
first.
- Using multisensory techniques helps facilitate the
learning process, especially for students with learning
disabilities.
- Everyday, household items can make excellent
teaching aids.
- Drill work, memorization, and large blocks of
instruction/lecture should be avoided.
On Learning
- Studying and lessons should take place in short,
frequent sessions.
- Mistakes are opportunities to learn. In order
to make learn from mistakes, you must make them (try).
- Low self-esteem and fear of making mistakes are two
big problems that usually need to be addressed before
real learning can take place.
- Copywork is fine (albeit boring) for teaching
handwriting, but it is not effective for teaching
spelling. However, we find that teaching
handwriting through the backdoor of spelling (with word
families) is much more useful and will make the students
less resentful.
- Immediate student self-correction is very important
for learning and self-esteem.
- Daily reading and writing are important for engaging
in the language and becoming fluent.
On Spelling
- Students should be able to spell almost all English
words, even if they don't what they mean.
- The English language is not as "crazy" as people
make it out to be. There are just many, many patterns
(not "rules") that are direct imports from foreign
languages; these just happen to be seldom, if ever,
systematically taught.
Learn more about the phonic patterns that are seldom
systematically taught.
- The phonic patterns of large (multisyllabic) words
are different from those of smaller (monosyllabic)
words.
On Handwriting
- Ball and stick handwriting exacerbates dyslexic
reversals.
- Handwriting can be taught through the backdoor of
spelling; spelling can be taught through the backdoor of
handwriting. See Let's
Write Right.
On Reading
- Phonics AND whole language instruction should go
hand-in-hand when teaching reading.
- English cannot be read from left to right (like the
Romance languages, Russian, etc.).
Saying "just sound it out" to a student is therefore a
very cruel (and unhelpful) thing to say as it implies
left-to-right phonetics.
- Reading comprehension is not (just) the ability to
answer a multiple choice question about a paragraph just
read.
- The human brain automatically and spontaneously
tries to make things make sense. It's important to
ensure that students can read the words based on the
constituent phonic parts -not the picture (drawing) of
the word. See Readings
for Fluency.
- It is a faulty assumption that, from grades 1-3, students
learn to read and from grade 4 and up, students read to
learn.
On Dyslexia
- Dyslexia testing is only beneficial if you are in
need of special services through the ADA, for insurance
reasons, etc.
Learn
more about dyslexia.
- Dyslexia-related learning problems are largely the result of
poor teaching methods
and inexperience with working with Orton-Gillingham-based
teaching methods.
Learn about AVKO's
methods.
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