Hints On How To Help Your Students Work Well On The Fidel
Caleb Gattegno Â
Educational Solutions Worldwide Inc.
First published in 1978. Reprinted in 2009. Copyright Š 1978-2009 Educational Solutions Worldwide Inc. Author: Caleb Gattegno All rights reserved ISBN 0-000000-000-0 Educational Solutions Inc. 2nd Floor 99 University Place, New York, N.Y. 10003-4555 www.EducationalSolutions.com
INTRODUCTION Before you begin working with your students you will need to be as well acquainted as possible with the sounds that are to be associated with the various colored columns on the Fidel. Each sound has been given a color: dipthongs and combination sounds have two colors. By looking at the Fidel you will find that in many cases the relationship of sounds to the columns is selfevident — especially among the columns for the consonant sounds (lower half). Even among the vowel sounds (top half) you will quickly find that many columns contain common English words which have the sound given to the whole column, For example: I and eye in one column; owe and oh in another; you and yew in a third. Others contain such a common set of spellings at the top of the column that they are almost unmistakable, For example: e, ee, ea in one column; a, ai, ay in another; oi and oy in a third, etc. For the few columns whose associated sound is not easily identified, you can consult the KEY which is part of the Spelling Kit. You will find your own ways of being sure of the sound associated with each one because of certain spellings you discover in that column, or from their location close to other sounds or in a particular place on the total Fidel, or just by their color.
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Hints On How To Help Your Students Work Well On The Fidel
When you begin working with your students you can start by pointing out words which use only a few vowel sounds (columns) of your choice, touching the sign in the column required by the spelling of the word you have chosen to form. You may begin with words containing the simple common spellings, which are deliberately placed at the top of each column. You can then shift to words using the more unusual spellings in these columns when you feel comfortable to do so, and when it is needed to increase the challenge for the students. They will experience that it is as easy to touch a complex or unusual spelling for a sound when needed for a certain word, as to point to the simpler spelling with which they are more acquainted, and they will develop a similar ease with using the correct spelling when they write words down. Since you are the one who will decide which columns and how many to include each day (as well as how long to work) you will move with confidence in your work with your students. You and they will gain facility in pointing out both words and sentences as you work together and help each other. We suggest the following DOS and DON’Ts for making use of the Fidel as an instrument for working on spelling.
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Hints On How To Help Your Students Work Well On The Fidel
1 DO find out to which colored columns your students can quickly associate a sound — as you did — by having them watch carefully as you form words and sentences which you are reasonably sure a number of them will say because they already know the spelling. 1 DO NOT take for granted your students’ knowledge, or lack of it. words like:
I, am, up, wet, stop, she, do, day, is. . . . . . . .
sentences like: I am not upset ouch it hurts
the air was cold on my neck
is it good luck I owe you
just fix it for me quickly
look out
don’t go too far once upon a time there was a. . .
Your students, along with you, will soon find themselves more aware than ever before of how the sounds of English speech are linked with its spellings. This will provide the bridge to words using more and more complex spellings. All of this will begin to define for you the areas of the Fidel with which the students can become acquainted with ease, and those on which you need to linger somewhat longer to be sure the sounds are understood. As you observe their individual responses you will find yourself helped in individualizing your teaching so that each of them moves towards mastery of spelling.
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Hints On How To Help Your Students Work Well On The Fidel
2 DO encourage the students, when they say a word being pointed to, to say it with the same speed, intonation and stress that they do in speaking naturally. This means they will either •
say the whole word after it has been pointed out, or
•
wait until the vowel in each syllable (“beat”) is touched before they begin uttering it.
2 DO NOT have students say the alphabet names of the letters touched, since it is the sound indicated by the colored column that is wanted. DO NOT let students sound consonants separately as “puh, tuh, suh, uhm.” Insist that they utter consonants blended with the vowel sound either just before or after the consonant in the word being pointed out. In this way the students will become aware that consonants in English are only sounded when blended with vowels. For example: act/ing —
Students can begin uttering as you touch the sign for the vowel in each beat and let their voices slide naturally into the
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Hints On How To Help Your Students Work Well On The Fidel
consonant sounds as the pointer moves to the signs which represent them. try/out — Students hold the sounds for the first two signs — t and r — in readiness and only utter them blended together with the vowel sound for the third sign — y — once you reach it with the pointer. On the second beat they may start with the pointer since it begins with a vowel. straight — They hold the sounds readiness and utter together with the vowel pointer reaches it, and voices into the t.
s, t, and r in them blended (aigh) when the then slide their
3 DO find ways to introduce those few sounds that your students may be unconscious of using in speaking, by pointing out frequently spoken sentences or words. For example: •
•
point out the sequence of words,
point out the sentence, “I love to watch televi____ .”
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Hints On How To Help Your Students Work Well On The Fidel
and let the students finish uttering the word before you point out the last few signs. In the process they can catch themselves using a sound which they previously may not have been aware of using — the sound of the s in vision. Now all that is needed is for the students to watch how the teacher finishes the word on the Fidel and in this way mentally link the sound just discovered with the colored column of signs in which the s in vision was touched. At this point division, collision, etc. could be shown to make the students sure of which colored column carries this sound. 3 DO NOT be eager to tell students what are the sounds that go with the colored columns. 4 D0 have students, when they write down words that are pointed out on the Fidel (visual dictation), watch and wait until the whole word or the whole sentence has been formed, and only then write it down. 4 DO NOT have students write down each letter or sign in a word or each word in a sentence, as it is touched. 5 DO have students pronounce words of more than one syllable (beat) which they point out or want pointed out on the Fidel in a manner which maintains the true sound value of the unstressed beats. However, the articulation may be done as slowly as is needed for all the beats as well as the stress pattern of the spoken word to be heard clearly and completely. In this
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Hints On How To Help Your Students Work Well On The Fidel
way, while working on spelling, the sounding of the word which comes into the mind of the students while writing spontaneously is maintained. 5 DO NOT encourage students to distort the pronunciation of a word in order to remember the spelling. This will make students’ retention link their speech with their perception and imagery which in turn will mobilize recall and recognition when they want to “talk” to someone by writing on paper, and help them to know with certainty when a word “looks right.” 6 DO give students time to work out for themselves or with each other which signs to show when they are pointing out a word or which sounds to make when someone else is moving the pointer on the Fidel. 6 DO NOT point out or say again and again the same example words. In this way of working, you command the students’ attentiveness and help them to be watchful without depending on you for their learning. Besides, you are free to watch them and learn about their learning. 7 DO encourage the students to accept their mistakes, and let them feel the delight of putting them right; either by themselves, or with the help of other students or through the questions you
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Hints On How To Help Your Students Work Well On The Fidel
raise which result in their sharpening their criteria for what is correct. 7 DO NOT demand perfection at once, or generate complacency. Looking at mistakes as an integral part of learning enhances learning. Self-correction on the basis of one’s own observations helps retention. With the Fidel as a reference, this is easily accomplished by a gesture of the pointer. 8 DO give your students, through the various games proposed in the booklet included in this Kit, a lot of practice in moving from column to column to show words and sentences on the Fidel. Let them learn to go to the specific signs in each column for the specific words and sentences that are being formed. 8 DO NOT provide your students with a “color-sound” key. DO NOT provide them (or yourself) with any static clues for the various columns — such as “key words,” diacritical markings, or key pictures placed over the columns, etc. . . All this delays the direct relationship they can develop with this complete code of their spoken language. DO NOT ever ask them to memorize the color-code.
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Hints On How To Help Your Students Work Well On The Fidel
Whenever beneficial, have the students write down the words and sentences they have seen formed on the Fidel or have uttered as they were being formed. Ask them to read these as they appear on each others’ papers and to judge their correctness. These extra steps will give you and them further evidence of their learning and of their ability to immediately transfer what they have learned from the Fidel to the written page, and thus become independent of the instrument. The Fidel very soon makes users aware of the following two facts of written English which ordinarily make spelling confusing: 1
that one particular sound may be represented by a number of different spellings,
2 that one particular spelling may stand for a number of different sounds Through practice on the Fidel students will find they develop confidence in spelling which is immediately transferable to their spontaneous and creative writing because what was in the beginning outside of them becomes permanently part of their inner resources. The complete written code for their spoken language becomes part of their mental dynamics in the same natural way as the spoken language did before they were yet in school.
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