[senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondary pupils

Dictation was the one thing that worked for a severely dyslexic

---
'Practice' (dictation) will not necessarily guarantee improvement in
listening skills generally. There are several reasons why effective
listening may be difficult including environemntal issues such as
acoustics. I am making a distinction between hearing and listening as
'hearing' may be fine but the acoustics of a room, background noise and
various other outside influences may make 'effective listening'
difficult. Listening also involves extracting some meaning from what is
heard so there has to be some previous relevant knowledge and an
appropriate level of comprehension to make listening 'effective'. I
would argue that dictation is only one(very limited) way of assessing
listening. The ability to complete a dictation accurately is not a
life-skill. Dictation may be a teaching 'tool' in some subjects but it
is should not be used as the main way of teaching children to listen. In
fact, Dictation relies on memory, fine-motor skills, speed of
processing, phoneme detection etc. which are difficult skills  for many
children (and adults) so I'm not sure that the ability to complete a
dictation is necessarily the most useful way to assess or remediate
general poor listening. It is certainly an extremely stressful activity
for many dyslexic and language-impaired individuals and, while it may
serve a purpose when teaching literacy, I really doubt whether it would
improve listening ability in real-life situations - which is what I
thought the original query was referring to.

Clare

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-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Eddie
Carron
Sent: 18 August 2006 11:25
To: The Bodiens; Olanys at aol.com; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondary
pupils

.....The only components of a skill that respond to practice are in
fact, the 
mechanical aspects such as decoding/blending in reading, steering and 
changing gear in driving etc. The listening skill has fewer mechanical 
components and therefore it is the most difficult one to exercise and 
assess. Having said that, there is nothing any teacher can do to improve
the 
listening skills of any child, other than to provide opportunities for 
positive practice. The teacher's skill lies in ingenuity of matching the

child to an appropriate resource., whatever the nature of the child's 
learning difficulties.  Blanket condemnations such as 'dyslexics should 
never be given dictation' are injurious and destructive!

Dictation, (in the modern sense of the word), is just one of these 
approaches which is not only very practical but also extremely
productive 
provided the level of challenge it poses is appropriate for the
particular 
child.  And is does centrally involve listening. When it is a computer 
programme of supported dictation exercises, ten children can be working
on 
different but appropriate topics and each at their own speed. Where the 
child produces an exercise book with a reasonably accurate transcription

from dictation, that is unassailable evidence that a good quality of 
listening has taken place. If you can get the child to do this
routinely, 
you are winning the battle of listening skills and in very measurable
way. 
Where the quality of the transciption improves over time, listening
skills 
as well as general literacy skills, are inevitably also improving.

This holds true whether the child has a specific or a non-specific
learning 
difficulty.

Eddie C.

PS To the off-list enquirers, email me again at the end of October.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "The Bodiens" <bodiens at emirates.net.ae>
To: <Olanys at aol.com>; <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Friday, August 18, 2006 10:18 AM
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondary
pupils

> Dictation was the one thing that worked for a severely dyslexic
student 
> that I taught.  First of all we used Acceleread Accelewrite which
raised 
> his nonword score from 1st to 24th percentile then we did dictations
3x 
> weekly with more from Mum at home, using text to speech software.  The

> previous year we had followed the standard dyslexia intervention but
come 
> the Septmeber my student had forgotten most of what he had learned. 
> Practise of the connection between speech and print through dictatiosn
led 
> to him becoming a reader.
>
> Perhaps it depends how you pre-teach basic skills, then use dictation?

> Dictation for the purpose of learning to read/spell, with the right
tools, 
> can be very helpful.  Dictation for note-taking and dissemination of 
> information at secondary school is probably another matter.
>
> Philippa
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <Olanys at aol.com>
> To: <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
> Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 8:13 PM
> Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondary
pupils
>
>
>> When I worked with severely dyslexic children the dyslexic  resource
base
>> teacher informed the staff that these children were not to  take down

>> dictation
>> under any circumstances - it is a nightmare for them and a  futile 
>> exercise
>> when pre-printed information sheets can so easily be provided  with
very 
>> little
>> extra effort by teachers.
>>
>> Taking down dictation involves a myriad of skills and stages, many of

>> which
>> are extemely difficult for pupils with SpLD and for some impossible
and 
>> very
>> distressing...not to mention unnecessary. The same applies to the
awful 
>> time
>> consuming task of copying from textbooks in these days of scanners
and
>> printers.
>>
>>
>> Training  children who struggle to do so is a cruel waste of time and

>> effort
>> for all  involved. I also think exercises like this are an
unnecessary 
>> waste
>> of time  after a long and arduous day trying to cope at school and
endure
>> homework.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Aly
>>
>> Chair Auditory  Processing Disorder in the UK/APDUK
>> www.lacewingmultimedia.com/APD.htm
>> www.apduk.org
>>
>>
>> -- 
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> 