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Alexis Bywater
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 24, 1999 - 12:26 pm: | 
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My daughter (7yo) has a real problem with recognizing the curly kind of g. She comes across it repeatedly and asks "what letter is that?" Would doing it in clay help? How does that work with one letter and not a word outside of including it with the alphabet?
It seems to me that doing two g's while doing the rest of the alphabet might be more confusing than not.
Could you do it like you do other words (we're still working on the alphabet and we haven't moved on to the small words list yet) and make some sort of symbol like g = g (obviously one of those would be the curly g like you see in times font) out of clay?
Thanks in advance,
Alexis |
Ann Benson
| | Posted on Saturday, February 19, 2000 - 03:22 pm: |
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I need to know how much time I need to spend per session with a 7 year old on symbol mastery. Do I need to do it every day. Will he forget the word he has made with a clay picture? Should I follow with a short reading session using the words that he has just made pictures with? Could I have a class of dyslexic children all making the pictures for the same trigger words and then reading text that includes these words?
These are many questions but I need them answered because it may be possible for me to have a summer remediation session using symbol mastery but I need it to fit into an hour long session, everyday for two weeks. What are your thoughts?
Ann |
Abigail Marshall
| | Posted on Saturday, February 19, 2000 - 09:40 pm: |
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Ann,
Because 7 is on the young end for the program, you will be doing shorter sessions than you would with an older child. You should be sensitive to the child's needs. You don't have to do it every day, but since you have the time, it might be a good idea to devote half of your session each day to the clay work, and the other half to reading or other exercises or activities.
If the child is mastering the word, he will not forget it, but sometimes the first few words need to be repeated. The main point is not to rush the child - if you sense that he is becoming overwhelmed or frustrated during a session, you might want to simply take a break and come back to the same word the next session.
It is o.k. to follow the Symbol Mastery with a reading session, using Spell-Reading techniques, but not necessary. Again, with a 7 year old you are going to need to provide more breaks and move more slowly than you would with a somewhat older child.
As to having a class of children make the words, you don't say how many kids are in the class. I think that it would be difficult at first for you to work with more than a few kids at a time doing the clay mastery, until you and the kids are more comfortable with the technique. So you might need to break things up, so that you can go over the process with all the kids in small groups.
It's fine for all the kids to be working on the same word, as long as everyone is making their own unique models. In a group situation, it is easy for one kid to start copying the work of another, instead of creating their own model - the essence of the mastery process comes from the child's own ideas and creative involvement.
Best regards,
Abigail |
Ann Benson
| | Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2000 - 03:29 pm: |
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Thanks Abigail,
What do you think of using American Sign Language for some of the trigger words instead of clay?For instance, say the child triggers on the word "in". He makes the sign for the word, then makes the word in clay, then uses the word in sentences , touching and recalling the clay word forward and backward while spelling it. Since signing is using the hands to create a visual, couldn't the student visualize his sign as well as, or instead of, a creation that he has made from clay? Would a sign serve the same purpose as clay model?
I don't know how many would be in the class? It would be up to me to limit the enrollment. |
Abigail Marshall
| | Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2000 - 08:48 pm: |
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Ann,
For Symbol Mastery to work, a child must(1) model the meaning of the word in clay (or a similar 3-D, tactile medium) and (2) that model must be the child's own creation or invention, based on the dictionary definition of the word being mastered.
Using sign language in lieu of clay would not work. The signs of ASL are merely another symbol, perhaps more graphic than a written word, but they are still a symbol. They are also standardized, hence learning the signs does not invoke the child's creative thought processes.
We do not want the child visualizing another symbol for the word when he reads - what we want is for the child to understand meaning so implicitly that he visualizes his own mental picture for meaning.
I would advise against introducing ASL in this context, as it is potentially more confusing. I have seen signing work well in other contexts - for example, my son learned high school French in an immersion class where signs were used in conjunction with the vocabulary being learned - but in that case the signs are being used for a different purpose.
As to the enrollment in your class - I personally think you should hold group size as small as reasonably possible, especially as doing the Davis Symbol Mastery in class for you is new as well.
Is there any way for you to attend one of our Davis Learning Strategies K-3 Teacher Workshops? We have workshops scheduled in 6 different states in June, July & August - these workshops are specifically geared to teach classroom teachers how to implement Symbol Mastery with children in the age range you are working with.
You can see the current schedule of workshops by clicking this link:
K-3 Workshop Schedule
The workshop is described in detail here:
http://www.dyslexia.com/k3reading.htm
-Abigail |
Ann Benson
| | Posted on Monday, February 21, 2000 - 04:56 pm: |
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Thanks Abigail,
I'm from Illinois. I would like to attend one of those workshops. Maybe someday there will be one here. In the mean time I'll study the book and try out Ron's techniques. I also bought the videos and I have been watching them over and over again. I tried the visual perception assessment and the orientation on two children( different times) and they responded with excitement and enthusiasm. My problem is: I don't have the time to work on symbol mastery with them. I teach Kindergarten and they are 1st graders. That is why I am considering a summer reading program for them and a few others who I think would benefit, but I really want to do it right. So far I don't have anyone in my corner who understands the concept and will work with me.
There is some light though. I am getting a student teacher in April. Maybe she'll be able to help me.
Thanks for your help, Abigail. |
Abigail Marshall
| | Posted on Monday, February 21, 2000 - 10:25 pm: |
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Ann,
A student teacher is really a godsend! I was going to suggest that you would do better with a classroom aide - but then I didn't post that because I realized that in many districts, you might as well ask for the moon. But with two adults in the classroom, it is much easier to give individualized attention to the kids who need it.
I'm crossing my fingers that your student teacher turns out to be capable, enthusiastic and energetic.
-Abigail |
Debbie E.Ouillette
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 05, 2000 - 03:44 am: |
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This is in response to Ann Benson's message. I have been working with my daughter on symbol mastery. We do one or two words from the list just about every week night but sometimes she has a friend over. When this happens, I put up a little barrier between the 2 kids so they can't see each other's work but they can see each other. I ask them not to talk about what they are modeling and it's working well. I sometimes will make a model myself and put up the barrier. This makes it more fun for her.
Debbie |
z.c.
| | Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2000 - 01:06 pm: |
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Dear Abigail,
Thanks for your message.I am going to try the orientation on my daughter this week-end.Hope it works.Have been doing the reading with her spelling the words she cannot read...interesting to see which letters she is not sure about and the amount of guessing that actually happens.Thanks for an amazing website
Z.C from S.Africa. |
Mary Lou Johnson
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 08, 2000 - 06:43 am: |
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I just started the Davis Symbol Mastery Program with my son, Jacob, in May. We have gone through the process of learning the alphabet/punctuation and have completed 20 of the trigger words. I am seeing some progress, but we have hit a wall in the last week. He seems to be picking up on the trigger words learned, but gets so frustrated with the spell reading because of the phonics method that has been drilled since he was in 1st grade (he is entering 3rd grade/repeated 1st grade). How can I help him overcome this barrier?
Sincerely,
Mary Lou |
Abigail Marshall
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 08, 2000 - 11:33 pm: |
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Mary Lou,
Did your son go through a program with a Facilitator? If so, it would be best to consult with the Facilitator who worked with him, as that person is familiar with Jacob and can best answer your questions.
If you did not work with a Davis provider, but are working on your own, it's possible that you are using Spell Reading when you don't need it. Spell Reading should done only when Jacob needs it for new and strange words he encounters and for which Sweep Sweep Spell does not work. It should not be done regularly unless the Jacob has very minimal beginning reading skills - almost a total non reader -- and even then it should be discontinued once he can read most of the words at grade level after after spelling them once, without you having to tell him what the word is.
Once Jacob has "graduated" to Sweep Sweep Spell and then Picture at Punctuation, Spell Reading and Sweep Sweep Spell should only be used "as needed." Otherwise, continuing to ask your son to do Spell Reading or Sweep Sweep Spell can act as an invalidation of the progress he has already made, and this will naturally lead to resistance.
The work with the Trigger words should be continued but kept independent from the Reading Exercises.
If you are working on your own, I would suggest that you re-read the chapter, "Three Steps to Easier Reading" to make sure you are using Spell Reading only when necessary.
Best regards,
Abigail |
Mary Lou Johnson
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2000 - 12:58 pm: |
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Dear Abigail,
I am trying to do the Davis Symbol Mastery on my own. We did take Jacob to a lady in Memphis in May who said she was an Davis Orientation Counselor (not facilitator). She had taken her son to the Davis Center in California and had helped him with the program. We live in Mississippi and she was the closest to our home. I found out about her after contacting some parents who were using the same computer program I was leasing from a center in Tupelo, MS to help Jacob with his dyslexia. We had been referred to the center by Jacob's pediatrician. He was tested at a Dyslexia Center in Meridian and we confirmed that Jacob was dyslexic. By the way I have been a special education teacher in MS for 7 years. It has always been so frustrating that I could not seem to truly help my students (many of whom I'm sure were dyslexic). Then I learned 3 years ago that my son had a reading disability also! He repeated 1st grade. I suspected he was dyslexic by the symptoms he displayed, he was tested by my professors at MS State Univ. after 1st grade and they said they believed Jacob was pre-dyslexic. He spent another totally frustrating year in 1st grade. He had another teacher whose husband was dyslexic and she agreed that Jacob showed the same problems. He was seeing the pediatrician that year for severe headaches - determined they were perhaps allergy related (he is on medication - shots and was on Claritin, now on Zrytec) I saw a response today on allergy medications possibly causing disorientation - which now has me freaked out! Back to the long story - I know I'm going around the world, but believe the info might help. We spent last year working on the Essential Learning Systems Computer Program that the Dyslexia Clinic recommended - this absolutely did nothing! I leased the program for $200 a month! I desperately started calling parents and ran across this lady in Memphis. I took Jacob and she did the exercise to set Jacob's point (May 2000). Jacob read that day a page that he could never have read before. We started this summer working on the alphabet, punctuation, and have completed approximately 20 trigger words. Jacob remembers most of those and can read on a pre-primer/primer level. He has problems remembering some of the words we have completed, so I have started going over those with him again. I was doing the Spell Reading with him after we completed a trigger word or two. We are down to one per session because he seems to be loosing them if we do too many. He is almost a non-reader and seems to not be grasping the words as I though he would. He will say "I know that word, I see it in my mind, but I can't say it, Momma." He gets so frustrated and I am afraid I am doing more harm than good. I didn't realize that I should be keeping the trigger word session and reading separate. If you can make any sense of this, please help! I truly believe that the Davis Method could work for Jacob. I just need pointers, suggestions, anything to help! It has always been a burden of mine to help people learn to read, and now even more so since my child is one of those "people"!
Sincerely,
Mary Lou Johnson |
Abigail Marshall
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2000 - 04:52 pm: |
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Mary Lou,
We do not have any licensed Davis providers in Memphis. I am sorry to have to say this, but this situation illustrates the reason why working with an untrained provider is not a good idea.
From what you say, you went to this person on one day and she did "the" exercise to set Jacob's point. Orientation Counseling cannot be done in one day; it must take place over at least 3 days, through the phase of fine tuning. Furthermore, Davis providers are prohibited by our standards from doing Orientation without the rest of the Davis program.
I'm concerned now because I don't know of Jacob really has a proper Orientation point. If he didn't do fine tuning, it's possible that much of the Symbol Mastery work has been done while he's disorienting.
I would suggest that you take Jacob to a licensed Davis provider, or at least consult by telephone, for a consultation and assessment - at least so that the provider can assess to see whether he has the concept of orientation right. As noted above, if he does not have it, the provider can not teach him Orientation without providing the full Dyslexia Correction program. However, at least you can get some feedback as to where Jacob stands right now.
If that is out of your realm financially, then go back to the book and do the fine tuning exercises for Orientation. You might find the instructional video on Orientation Counseling and the Davis Symbol Mastery kit to be a big help, if you don't have these items already.
Best regards,
Abigail |
Rebecca Rouzer (Rebeccajane)
| | Posted on Friday, May 02, 2003 - 12:44 pm: |
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One of the answers above says: "We do not want the child visualizing another symbol for the word when he reads - what we want is for the child to understand meaning so implicitly that he visualizes his own mental picture for meaning."
I've talked to a few people about this and am beginning to understand it, but I wanted to ask again just to make sure. It seems to me that his-own-mental-picture would add confusion and not clarification if the word were used in a different context - which it will be 99.9% of the time. For example, the book uses a snakelike thing coming out of a man's mouth while he points to a ball for the word 'the'. So a dyslexic child who made that representation, when he reads the sentence, "The boy put the book on the table" Will see in his mind the following sequence of pictures:
man-pointing-at-ball boy putting man-pointing-at-ball book on man-pointing-at-ball table
How, exactly do all of those men pointing at balls make the meaning of boy-book-table clearer?
I hear people say that it works but when I imagine doing it myself it seems so confusing to add all of those unrelated pictures - I have a hard time seeing how they can do anything except add visual clutter to the mental images formed when reading. |
Liz Jolly
| | Posted on Sunday, May 04, 2003 - 12:30 am: |
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Hi Rebecca, symbol mastery takes time to get your head around! To some it clicks in an instant to others it takes a little longer. Every so often I get a crystal clear picture but at other times I am fumbing around in the dark. I think I have reached the stage when most of the time I have the feeling when my model is not clear. The focus is what the word actually means rather than the clutter in the sentence that you make up.
The idea is if you still trigger on that word you go back and clay the other meanings.
I have been lucky that Matt has had clay days once a month with his facilitators, I have attended parent clay evenings and he is almost finished his trigger word list. We have been doing it for 2 years but it has paid off as he reads so well now.
I use plenty of dial and release when doing trigger words!!!! Liz |
mcg (Mcg)
| | Posted on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 07:55 am: |
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Hello Abagail,
After reading your response above regarding the reading exercises, I have a related question.
I have been working with a 10 year old girl with the trigger words once a week since Feb. It was suggested to me that we always do spell read and sweep, sweep spell for a warm up exercise (two minutes or so) prior to getting into picture at punctuation. Someone else told me that is should be done for the first 3 months - so it becomes automatic - This girl is now reading material at grade level. Should we be continuing with this warm up? Do we still need to be doing picture at punctuation? Can we just focus our sessions on the trigger words? She feels good about her reading and doesn't think she has a problem anymore. She has very few triggers when we read together. We have completed approx. 30 words.
Also, should a person be able to recall/ tell about their clay models for every word they have done? I think that would be like asking them to recall the definition of every word they have done.
Thanks |
DDAI Webmaster (Abigail)
| | Posted on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 02:05 pm: |
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Rebecca,
I don't think it's really easy for a word-thinker to understand how the clay modeling works. When we model the trigger words, we are modeling abstract concepts, and I think that the reason that it works is that the picture-thinker remembers that part of the model that related to the concept. That is, the mental picture for "the" may include the man and the ball in abstract, but when reading a sentence the child uses only the "pointing at" part of the model. So for "The boy" the mental image will be a pointer directed at "boy", for "the book" the mental image will be a pointer directed at "book".
I know that for my son, words like "the", "that", or "it" were very confusing because he would automatically consider all possibilities, and become very frustrated - which boy? which book? "The boy" clearly referred to a specific boy, but perhaps it came up in a story with several characters -- how did my son know whether it was John or Mike or Tony? So I guess for my son, the model of an arrow was needed to take his mind away from contemplating every possible boy or every possible book.
In a sense, rather than adding to visual mental clutter, these images may be anchors that prevent the dyslexic mind from wondering away.
Hope this helps.
-Abigail |
DDAI Webmaster (Abigail)
| | Posted on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 02:19 pm: |
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Mcg,
I think you have to follow your own inclinations. When a child is reading comfortably and doesn't seem to have any hesitation with new words, then there really isn't a need for sweep-sweep-spell any more. I think picture-at-punctuation is ALWAYS a good tool. Even when a child is an excellent reader, this will help when trying to work with more difficult material, like a textbook. But that doesn't meant that the child always needs to do this for YOU -- in the end it should simply become a natural habit for the student to use visualization while reading.
The student does NOT need to be able to report to you their remembered picture, if it is clear that the word is no longer a trigger. This is somewhat similar to Rebecca's question, but I'm not sure that the student always retains a complete, exact mental picture of the model, or whether their working mind simply relies on the portion of the model that they need. Nor is there any particular reason to think that the student has to be stuck with the model they did in clay, if at some time or another they mentally come up with a better model, assuming that their mental model is accurate and works for them. Keep in mind that dyslexics tend to have very vivid and active imaginations, and even when they are making a model, their mental image may be far more intricate and detailed than what they were able to produce in clay.
I do think that it is important that the student is able to explain what the word means, but not necessarily with any particular picture or set of words -- and definitely not as a "test". That is, don't start quizzing the student on words, but if she seems confused or stumbles over a word that has already been modeled, you can address that confusion, and one question to ask is "do you remember what that word means?" Some triggers have multiple meanings, so if there is confusion it may be necessary to model some of the alternate definitions of the word.
Best wishes,
Abigail |
Rebecca Rouzer (Rebeccajane)
| | Posted on Saturday, July 05, 2003 - 05:29 pm: |
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Dear Abigail,
Thank you for responding to my post. I've been thinking about it for 2 months and still don't get it. I've even done some trigger words myself, but haven't felt a diference. You say that word-thinkers don't understand but I'm definitely a picture thinker. It's just that I can't see the benefit of all those extra pictures - they look confusing. My facilitator said that I needed "pictures to think with" but I already HAVE images or feelings for most of the small words. And they are created within the context of the sentence I'm reading at the time. So I don't see how my measuring cups that I used to model "as" are going to help me when I'm reading about someone being, say, "as sick as a dog." I will now imagine: measuring cups girl with nauseated facial expression measuring cups dog vomiting...what good are the measuring cups? HOW exactly do I use the picture-to-think-with?????? I want to understand and I just don't. |
DDAI Webmaster (Abigail)
| | Posted on Saturday, July 05, 2003 - 06:42 pm: |
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Rebecca,
Now you have me confused. If you have a Facilitator and have gone through the Davis program yourself, PLEASE contact the Facilitator directly and let her know of the problems you are encountering.
I am also puzzled about your saying that you have done "some" trigger words yourself -- if you went through a Davis program at least 2 months ago, wouldn't you have completed more words by now? You aren't going to notice much of a difference until you've modeled quite a few words, including those that are your most significant triggers.
To try to answer your question: if you don't have a mental picture for "as", then a picture thinker would read "as sick as a dog" and see a mental image of a sick dog, missing the point entirely that the sentence was meant as a simile. After modeling the triggers "as" and "a", the MEANING of those words would be automatic. For a picture thinker to make sense of the word, there must be a mental image, but it's generally going to be experienced subliminally and very quickly. I don't know how your model of measuring cups related to your the definition and example sentences you modeled -- you might look at http://www.symbolmastery.com/A.htm for a different example of a model for the same word.
But in any case, what should be happening is that your understanding is enhanced by the fact that the words now hold meaning for you.
If you have images or feelings for most of the small words already, and they accurately represent meaning, then model the words that you DON'T have images for. If you aren't sure which ones they are, try to observe yourself when reading to see where you get stuck or slow down - you could even tape record yourself reading a passage aloud and then listen to see if there are some words you seem to pause or stumble over frequently.
Again, if you have worked with a Facilitator, PLEASE go back to the person you worked with for more help. That is the person who is best able to help you understand the process and what you need to do.
Best wishes,
Abigail |
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