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LITERACY AND THE LEFT
A PROGRAM TO TAPE-RECORD
Channel 31, Melbourne community TV, Saturday, September 27 at 8.30 a.m.
is broadcasting a new experimental half-hour self-help cartoon
video literacy program that anyone can tape and copy for their own use
and their family, for self-help watch-at-home learning, to watch and
re-watch, and as a take-home aid for courses, schools and second
language learners.
< ABC GO!
HELP YOURSELF TO READ AND SPELL
or FIND OUT WHERE YOU GOT STUCK
This is the premiere of Experimental Version 7 of a world-first innovation.
Copies of the videos and CDs, including earlier versions can also be
bought from the New International Bookshop.
It is a step in campaigning for 'Literacy for the Left' because so
many people cannot read, or cannot read anything worth reading.
That is a tremendous handicap for democracy and any hope of a just society.
(As a recent poster to Leflink remarked: It is certainly a stark
contrast when a relatively poor country like Venezuela builds 3000
new schools and has 100,000 volunteers waging a national literacy
campaign, while a rich country like Australia closes schools and
privatises education! And when the Left in Anglo countries
does not regard it as urgent that everyone should be able to read
books - more than just forms and labels.)
The video/CD program has been developed over 20 years, and is based
on research and my
experiences as a clinical child psychologist and teacher. So many
people labelled dyslexic
are confused and have gaps about how to read. It is a disgraceful situation
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FURTHER INFORMATION
The aim is free or cheap re-useable kits that learners of any age
can copy, borrow or buy from courses, libraries, schools, workplaces,
video and bookshops, or download from the Internet, of especial value
to distance learners, to those who cannot or will not attend courses,
and to English-language learners who need assistance with English
speech sounds.
Top learning principles!
Overview of the English writing system
Starts from scratch
With advance-organizers
Self-help for independent learning
Cognitive understanding as the key
Chunking information for economical learning
No activities except reading
Intrinsic entertainment with no diversions,
Lots of surprises,
and Learning to Read by reading
Not suitable for group viewing
See also http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/lthytr.html
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/vchecklist.htm
In the future, I hope that it will be taken for granted that everyone
setting out to learn to read, or with literacy difficulties, at any
age from five to eighty, will be able to watch and re-watch at home a
lively half-hour cartoon video/DVD with animated text. It will give
them an overview of the English writing system and what it helps to
know to learn to read. It will be a self-help tool that can help
learners and teachers in three ways - instruction, diagnosis and
intrinsic interest. It will make phonics and print interesting,
while using a Whole Language approach of 'learning to read by
reading'.
Encouraging learners' self-help will not supersede teachers - rather,
it would be an invaluable aid to free them for imaginative and
inspiring teaching with students who were not bogged down.
ADVANTAGES
* It can help adults and adolescents who have failed to learn
by conventional methods because it is not 'more of the same'. It
builds on the strengths of older learners, in the ability to learn by
understanding, and to bring to the task a background of experience.
It uses principles of adult learning such as advance-organisers,
chunking, linking concepts, use of cognitive structure, and
self-help, making independent learning possible.
* Most learners do not know what they do not know, in order to
negotiate how they are to learn it. The video shows them what they
may need to know, so they can know what help they need, and feel
encouraged to attend courses.
* It starts from absolute scratch - since many adult learners
fail in literacy courses because neither they nor their teachers have
realised where they may have an elementary gap or confusion that
sabotages everything else. This video can show them where they got
stuck, where their gaps and confusions lie.
"There are only 26 letters? I thought there were thousands!"
"Oh, you don't have to learn every word separately? I gave up after
the first hundreds!"
* It uses computer graphics to present complex concepts in a
visually simple and fascinating way.
* The visuals and the structure simplify the task, using George
Miller's principles of 'chunking' to facilitate comprehension and
recall.
* Ideally, it should be of such high quality as a production
that it could win a prize at Cannes. Literacy learners should be
given the best.
* Earlier experimental versions have also been used by teachers
to give themselves an overview of the English writing system.
EVALUATIONS
Market research prior to release of Version 2 showed the demand was
there - in video-libraries, adult literacy centre, bookshop, and
municipal library.
The 1993 Version 2 is still in use, and is regularly borrowed from
local libraries - ten years on!
Detail of evaluations is available.
Rationale, research basis and content are described in <Take-home
video for adult literacy> UNESCO International Review of Education,
42.1-3: 187-203, 1996.
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Please note change to OzIdeas Web-page
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas
Alternative OzIdeas
of the Australian Centre for Social Innovation (ACSION)
Last update: September 9 2003
.
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