A post by Dr. Diana Sharp

(1) We got this game for our 7-year-old daughter who is struggling with her reading. She loves the game and her reading has improved significantly since she started playing the game. Our 5 year old also loves it.

(2) One of my areas of interest is struggling readers, so as far as I can tell, I am also really liking the adaptability of the game for older readers who might be struggling. It is such a challenge to find age appropriate materials that also match ability level for readers who continue to struggle into the upper grades – this seems like a game a 6th grader would enjoy as well as a 5 year old.

Most of the ItzaBitza user comments I see on Amazon or other sites describe how children ages four to six enjoy the game, so comments like the two above really catch my eye.

Struggling to Read Builds Roadblocks to Learning

I wrote in an earlier post about how important it is to consider children’s temperaments as one of the factors that can affect their early reading success. It’s also become clear to me lately that researchers need to learn more about how to overcome the emotional side effects that children who struggle with reading can experience.

When we were designing ItzaBitza, we looked for ways that we could use the technology to take away the frustration that some early readers start associating with books. After all, if you’re a kindergartner or first grader reading a book, and you can’t figure out a word, and there’s no one to help you, you can get stuck. And that’s frustrating.

What we didn’t spend much time discussing then – in part because we hadn’t read much scientific research on it – is how this kind of frustration can build for struggling readers, so that they develop additional roadblocks to learning. When that happens, and you have a child in second grade or beyond who’s still struggling, then you, the parent or teacher, now have three problems:

(1) You have to figure out why the child had trouble with the kind of beginning reading instruction he or she got

(2) You have to find a different way to teach the child the beginning skills needed

and also

(3) You have to overcome the negative emotions that the child now associates with reading because of those earlier failures, which includes finding a way to keep the child from getting even more frustrated.

This last one is not some touchy-feely problem to overcome; it’s as much a cognitive and skills-related problem as learning the letter sounds.

Shame, the Dark Heart of Reading Difficulties

Why? Two reasons:

(1) Think of the amount of attention you have as water in a bucket. Every beginning reader, whether a new reader or an older, struggling one, needs to devote lots of attention resources (water) when reading text, and you only have a certain amount in your bucket. Emotions that cause thoughts like “I hate this, this is hard, I’m stupid” use up lots of these attention resources, making it impossible for the child to devote the amount of cognitive attention needed. It’s like watering an oak tree with a teaspoon of water: it’s not going to work.

(2) It’s important to learn phonics skills, but researchers also agree that the amount of reading a child does plays a huge role in the development of reading comprehension. If children have negative emotions associated with reading, they won’t choose to do it, and they won’t read enough to develop fluency and comprehension skills.

The best place I’ve found for understanding this emotional side to reading skill development is the “Children of the Code” website, where they’ve collected video interviews with top researchers in the field.

At first the title of the video collection on this topic may seem a little melodramatic: “Shame, the Dark Heart of Reading Difficulties”.

But once you watch the clips of children and hear from the researchers, it’s hard to dismiss the importance of the problem. I especially encourage you to watch the clips – particularly those under the “cognitive disabling” label – if you have or work with children older than first grade who have struggled with reading all along.

http://www.childrenofthecode.org/Tour/c3c/index.htm

If you have experiences with your own “older” struggling reader and ItzaBitza or ItzaZoo, please share them with our team. (I put “older” in quotes because I admit it’s a bit strange to think of even a 7 year old as old. But these days, by age 7 a child might already have experienced a significant amount of reading failure.) I’m beginning to think that the anti-frustration factors designed into ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo, combined with all the fun factors and laughter, may be even more important than we first thought. And I’d love to find out more.

        

When our kids were younger, I spent many hours watching SpongeBob SqaurePants with them.  For me, SpongeBob episodes are not only hilarious but motivational.  In fact, SpongeBob episodes were a big motivator in formulating my vision for what games like ItzaBitza can be – as much fun as watching a SpongeBob episode (particularly if you’ve seen the episode more than two times), while gaining expertise in critical work-life skills like creative thinking and reading comprehension.

We’re not cavemen.  WE HAVE TECHNOLOGY!

My favorite SpongeBob episode is the one in which Mr. Krabs has SpongeBob and Patrick paint the inside of his house, with a strict rule not to get paint on anything besides the wall because the paint is permanent. But they accidentally spill paint on Mr. Krabs’ first dollar.

SpongeBob and Patrick struggle to get the paint off.  Finally Patrick exclaims:

Wait a minute, SpongeBob!  What are we doing?  We’re not cavemen.  WE HAVE TECHNOLOGY!”   Patrick grabs the computer and starts pounding it on the dollar bill.  SpongeBob makes the astute conclusion: “It’s not working.”  REALLY?  Technology for technology’s sake doesn’t solve every challenge?  No kidding.

Creativity – We Have It!  What’s with CAN’T?

Clearly the creators and writers of SpongeBob think very creatively.  And it is wonderful they share their genius with us.  But wouldn’t it be a great thing if our kids were not only recipients but active participants in creating amazing things like the next SpongeBob or creative solutions to ..umm…let’s see…the financial crisis?  The great teachers do it – why can’t all of us ignite our children’s imagination and provide engaging opportunities for mastering critical work-life skills like reading comprehension?

The most fun I have at Sabi is talking with the parents and children who are familiar with ItzaBitza.  Both parents and kids love the way the game brings their drawings to life and the problem solving opportunities found in the game.  After the giggling amazement of watching the kids use Living Ink in the game to turn what they draw to life, parents start to appreciate the approach we took to providing a reading experience that is not only implemented in a way our early readers can succeed, the kids are motivated to read.  Yet when I talk with the parents and kids for an extended period of time, asking them what they like, what they think of their drawings, and other stuff, inevitably I get an “I CAN’T” from the kid.  What?  You’re 5 years old and already you can’t? If a kid THINKS he can’t do creative expression what happens when they are adults and we need them to tackle hard challenges through creative problem solving?  This from the same country that was on a mission when I was a kid to put a man on the moon?

Straight to the Moon!

This was the directive President Kennedy gave us in 1961:

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

— Pres. Kennedy, May 25, 1961

The section of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum website devoted to the space program is a great resource to get inspired by what can happen when $$Billions go to a vision we can get behind versus the current bail-out stories our news hammers out to us e-v-e-r-y—s-i-n-g-l-e—d-a-y.  When imaginations are ignited and challenges bring opportunities.

Can you please tell me what our education vision is?  I get very hopeful as I follow educators on Twitter dedicated to the integration of technology.  When I Tweeted “How are you using technology to improve learning?”  One teacher’s Tweet back totally inspired me “…global collaboration and tearing down the walls of classrooms!  For students and teachers alike!  I followed up with her and asked what technologies she used.  Her answer: “email, nings, wiki.”  I got excited as I envisioned a flat world in which projects consisted of virtual classmates from all over the world.  Each child adding their context and culture to the workflow.  I saw a scenario in my head in which a fifth grade class simulated running a global business using the same Internet tools and business software that I use.

I get very excited when I talk with my children’s computer specialist and find out what positive effects are happening when technology is deployed in their schools.

I get hopeful when I think how the next crop of teachers will have known only a digital lifestyle.

What’s the Vision?

Yet – I am not clear on the vision.  Not the way I was when we were all behind getting that man on the moon.  The 40th anniversary of the moon landing is July 20th, 2009.  I remember being a kid and being very, very proud and stunned that this was happening.  Even with all the distractions – like the Vietnam war – we accomplished a vision set out for us by a man who wouldn’t be there when it happened. The vision was that strong in all of us.

Yes, we have technology.  Yes, we have exceptional teachers and others who are very gifted in how to use them.  Yes, we have a government that “gets it.”  What vision for education we can all rally around like we did 40 years ago when purpose, spirit, creativity, and technology combined forces for a decade and met its goal?

The good news is so many of us share a passion to shape technology – and content running on technology – in ways that bring out 21st century skills.  Whether the skills are about learning how to work in a flat world, or creative thinking.  The good news is 40 years later there are so many social tools that allow us to share what we are doing and explain it in 140 characters or less.

Stop with the CAN’T and Start with Paradigm Shifts

But I can’t help believing a stronger vision that plugs us all in can take those darn CAN’TS out of the thoughts of our children as they realize the power their minds are capable of.

None of these ideas are new or perhaps as paradigm shifting as a man on the moon.  But they’re a start.  How about:

• From 50 to 5 pound backpack in 5 years.  Who cares if it is the Kindle or some other gizmo – clearly lugging text books, insisting on online books being always connected, insisting on tons of supplemental material has past its prime.  Yes we have technology TODAY to address this.
• Instead of No Child Left Behind, how about Education Adapts to Every child.  As John Medina pointed out in “Brain Rules,” each person’s mind is wired differently.  We all learn from a different context and at a different time in our lives.  Thus, one size doesn’t fit all.  Technology is ideal to provide feedback on what a child likes, what they are struggling with, and can make recommendations.  All of this does not displace teachers, but DOES allow a teacher to treat each child individually.  Heck – probably Amazon.com’s engine that determines what our likes/dislikes are is a good a starting point for an adaptive engine as anything.  If you agree we should start with likes/dislikes and integrate ability assessment, not the other way around.
• 50,000 Global Lemonade Stands (50,000 is just a number I pulled out of something) – the idea (not completely baked) is Internet tools that small businesses use are used by virtual classmates to run small businesses.  Give each small business a micro-loan to start going and who knows?  Perhaps a global 5th grade class can tell us a thing or two about turning a profit.

So these are a few ideas that I’ve been kicking around.  I am sure you can come up with your own.  Regardless of ours – what’s the bigger vision?  This is what I’m missing.

        

(Another great post from our reading specialist, Dr. Diana Sharp)

Dear Dr. Sharp

When my son started first grade, he was reading words just as well as the other kids. But his reading never took off, and he ended the year reading below grade level. Other kids with the same teacher did fine. What made my son different?

It’s possible that your son’s difficulties have less to do with his basic reading skills than with something researchers call reading temperament.

Reading temperament is the way that children naturally react to the challenges they face in learning to read. Some children are natural risk-takers: they seek out “harder” books on their own and love to read aloud with expression. Other children avoid risks and become easily frustrated. They may mumble when reading aloud because they don’t want to take the chance of reading a word incorrectly.

When it comes to predicting a child’s success with early reading, most teachers these days are very knowledgeable about the importance of basic word-reading skills like phonemic awareness and alphabetic knowledge, as well as oral language skills like vocabulary. But a recent article in The Reading Teacher

http://www.reading.org/Publish.aspx?page=/publications/journals/rt/v62/i5/index.html&mode=redirect

stresses that personality traits like reading temperament are also important. By themselves, skills and test scores don’t tell the whole story about which children are successful in beginning reading and which ones aren’t.

Anxiety and risk aversion aren’t the only kind of reading temperaments that can cause problems for early readers. Children with impulsive temperaments can also find it difficult to exert the kind of self-control it takes to master the English code. Keep in mind that reading is likely the most difficult mental challenge your child has ever faced up to this point!

The good news is that researchers and teachers are becoming more aware that it’s important to help children develop the social and emotional skills they need for learning to read as well as phonics and language skills. And here’s where new technologies like ItzaBitza might also play an important role.

How? By providing a way for children who are risk-averse or impulsive to spend successful time with print while they gain confidence in their ability to read. ItzaBitza text is carefully leveled, so that the length and difficulty of the sentences starts out short and gradually increases. And the universal word help means that children never have to struggle with a word. Children can also have a fun and meaningful reading experience by skipping around in the game and reading the different sections in any order they choose. You can also do that with some information books, but don’t try it with a story!

The important thing when using something like ItzaBitza to help a struggling reader is to make sure that you know why you’re using it. It’s not meant to provide a way that this child can read and live without books. It’s to help the child overcome some obstacles that can keep him from having fun first experiences with books and can promote a negative attitude toward reading. If a child’s obstacles include a reading temperament that makes it difficult to face the hard work of reading sentences, then I’m all for trying something besides books just until the child has the reading confidence he needs to be successful.

Don’t forget that what every child needs to become a skilled reader is lots of time spent reading, and so even if you don’t start with books, you’ve got to entice every child into books. There simply isn’t enough child-appropriate print in any other form to supply the amount of reading every child needs.

With all this mind, please talk to your son’s teacher when school starts to find out more about what held him back last year and what might help him overcome those obstacles this year. Check out that article I mentioned from The Reading Teacher – it’s got lots of ideas for teachers on how to deal with children who have different reading personalities, and it uses some great examples from an effective second grade classroom. Here’s the full reference:

McTigue, E. M., Washburn, E. K., & Liew, J. (2009). Academic resilience and reading: Building successful readers. The Reading Teacher, 62(5), 422-432.

http://www.reading.org/Publish.aspx?page=/publications/journals/rt/v62/i5/index.html&mode=redirect

        

Dr. Diana Sharp has devoted her professional and much of her personal time instilling a lifelong passion of reading into children.  Diana served as Sabi’s  children’s reading specialist. Diana blogs regularly for us with advice for parents and teachers about reading development. As the “Tampa Reading Examiner,” she also writes articles for Examiner.com, searching for ways to help Florida families read more, laugh more, and live better.

Dear Dr. Sharp –

I love how ItzaBitza helps my preschooler explore words inside sentences. But what’s the best way for me to make sure she’ll be able to “crack the code” and sound out words herself when she’s learning to read?

One of the things that children need to successfully crack the reading code is an oral language ability called phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear the individual sounds in spoken words and the ability to do things with spoken sounds, like blend them together into a word.

Children without phonemic awareness have trouble, for example, hearing three separate sounds in the spoken word “cat.” That makes it hard for them to know which letters to use for writing the word, even if they know the sounds that letters make. It also makes it hard for them to figure out what the teacher is talking about when he or she explains the way readers blend sounds together to read words.

Phonemic awareness is closely related to another early reading skill: knowledge of the alphabetic principle. Children who have developed this knowledge understand that reading and writing work like this: (1) Printed letters stand for sounds. (2) When we see a new word, we can say the sounds for the letters and blend them together to help figure out the word. (3) When we want to write a word, we can say the word slowly and use letters to write each sound.

Fortunately there are lots of fun and easy ways that parents can help children develop phonemic awareness and deep knowledge of the alphabetic principle. Here are my top ten favorites:

1. Read rhyming poetry and rhyming stories.

Rhyming is an early skill that children develop on the road to phonemic awareness. Ask your librarian for some great rhyming classics. Be enthusiastic about rhymes and your child will be too. If you read about a green mouse in a purple house, get excited and say, “Hey, look at that! Mouse rhymes with house!”

2. Celebrate rhymes in everyday talk.

If you happen to say to your child, “Come here, my dear,” stop right there and say, “Did you hear that! Here rhymes with dear!”

3. Play word-sound games

In the car, while you’re fixing meals, or while eating breakfast together. Make them up yourself, or use these examples: Rhyme Riddles. “I’m thinking of a rhyme for like. The clue is that it’s something you ride.” Part-of Party: What’s yo? “Part of the word Yogurt!” “What’s li?” “Part of the word library — and also part of the word like!” Beginning-Sound Riddles. “I’m thinking of something that starts with the [mmmm] sound. The clue is that it’s one of your favorite foods.”

4. Name toys artfully

If your child likes to give toys personal names, suggest names with minimal contrasts that will focus attention on individual sounds. For example, two dolls might be named Sally and Tally. Two stuffed dogs might be Ritto and Rotto.

5. Get a set or two of magnetic letters for the refrigerator for kitchen games.

Research shows that letter-sound instruction doesn’t have to wait until children fully develop phonemic awareness; in fact, it can help this development. Here are a couple of fun games you can play with your letters.

- Letter-Picnic. “Boy I’m hungry. Please pass me some peaches.” When your child hands you a ‘p’, say, “That’s great! Peaches starts with the [pppp] sound!”

- Presto-Chango. Look! I can change ‘cat’ to ‘bat’ and ‘bat’ to ‘bit,’ like magic!

6. Use bath time for sound play.

We used to have a ritual where each bath ended with announcement “Attention! The toys are leaving the tub!” Then the floating foam letters would each make their sound as they marched out of the tub. “Here goes the ‘F’! [fff] [fff] [fff]!” Each toy object would make the first sound in its name too. “Here goes the car! [c] [c] [c] [c] car!”

7. Explore words in the world.

Talk about the letters and words on signs and buildings, newspapers, magazines that you and your child see together.

8. Make everyday writing fun.

Let your child watch as you write things down. Point out how the different letters make the sounds in the words. Give your child writing materials to use in playing store, office, or restaurant. Encourage your child to make cards for family members, even if the child can’t really write yet.

9. Write and make memories.

Find a small box and use an index card or piece of paper for each day of the year. At the end of each day, write together a couple of short sentences about something that happened in your family. Talk about how the letters make the sounds in the words you’re writing.

10. Sing songs that play with sounds .

Here are some twists on folk songs, as suggested by researcher Hallie Yopp and used by kindergarten teachers I’ve worked with:

– Tune: “Jimmy Cracked Corn.” (Say the sound, not the letter name): Who has a /d/ word to share with us? Who has a /d/ word to share with us? Who has a /d/ word to share with us? It must start with the /d/ sound. Dog is a word that starts with /d/ Dog is a word that starts with /d/ Dog is a word that starts with /d/ Dog starts with the /d/ sound.

– Tune: “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” Again, sing the sound, not the letter name. What’s the sound that starts these words Daddy, duck and deep. (wait for a response) /d/ is the sound that starts these words: Daddy, duck , and deep With a /d/, /d/, here, and /d/, /d/, there Here a /d/, there a /d/, everywhere a /d/, /d/ /d/ is the sound that starts these words: Daddy, duck, and deep. At a more advanced level: What’s the sound at the end of these words Duck and cake and beak /k/ is the sound at the end of these words Duck and cake and beak With a /k/, /k/, here and a /k/, /k/ there Here a /k/, there a /k/, everywhere a /k/, /k/, /k/ is the sound at the end of these words: Duck and cake and beak!

– Tune: “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands” If you think you know this word, shout it out! If you think you know this word, shout it out! If you think you know this word, Then tell me what you’ve heard If you think you know this word, shout it out! (Say a segmented word such as [c] [a] [t], and have children respond by saying the blended word. Later children can contribute the segmented sound for you to blend).

– Tune: “Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah” I have a song that we can sing I have a song that we can sing I have a song that we can sing It goes something like this: Fe-Fi-Fiddly-i-o Fe-Fi-Fiddley-i-o-o-o-o Fe-Fi-Fiddley-i-o Now try it with the /z/ sound Ze-Zi-Ziddly-i-o Ze-Zi-Ziddley-i-o-o-o-o Ze-Zi-Ziddley-i-o Now try it with the /h/ sound

Songs from: Yopp, H. K. (1992). Developing phonemic awareness in young children. The Reading Teacher, 45, 696-703.