Application The Multi-Strategy Method

3.3. Comparison of the Gudschinsky and Multi-Strategy Methods

The main difference between the Gudschinsky and Multi-Strategy methods is the addition of holistic activities which focus on meaning at the textual level and are structured to form the Story Track in the Multi-Strategy method. The basic patterns for these activities were originally taken from two sources: publications from the Reading Treatment and Research Centre 1983 and Fairfield Park Primary School Duggan, Halley-Coulsen, Johns, and McFarlane 1983 in Victoria, Australia. Both booklets described different methods for teaching with meaning focus at the textual level. Ideas were gleaned from the methods and adapted to the socio-cultural situation in which the Multi-Strategy method was applied. These ideas were developed into the Story Track lessons as described above. In the booklet from the Research Centre, three basic convictions underlying the methods outlined were stated: 1. Reading is the process of getting meaning from print. It is an active, thinking process, based on experience, competence in language, and perceptual competence. 2. The reader uses syntactic, semantic, and graphophonic cues to scan the reading material and derive hypotheses which are then tested for meaning using the same cueing systems. 3. The primary objective of the teacher is to improve the strategies which the child is already using to get meaning from print Reading Treatment and Research Centre 1983:2. It is important to note that specific focus is on meaning in each of these basic convictions; in the methods described there were only three incidental references to graphophonics. This same focus on meaning is the basis of the Story Track. In this track, attention is not given to specific teaching of graphophonics within a meaningful reading or writing event. This lack of focus on graphophonics enables learners to concentrate on the reading and writing processes from the aspect of meaning, not from the aspect of specific parts of words which in themselves have no meaning. In the comparison between the Gudschinsky and the Multi-Strategy methods, this inclusion of meaning focus in text-based activities in the Multi-Strategy method allows learners to interact with a variety of culturally relevant, idiomatic text material separate from the systematic teaching of graphophonics in the Word-Building Track sessions. There is a different purpose for the connected material in the Word-Building Track primers. The short, idiomatic pieces of prose are included for two reasons: to give practice in reading the syllables and phonemes that are in focus in a meaningful context, and to satisfy a sense of closure in the learning process for that lesson. This focus of the connected material adds to the ease of development of the materials. As mentioned above, one of the difficulties of developing materials for the Gudschinsky method is generating idiomatic, interesting texts for reading practice with a limited set of phonemes. Apart from the difference in the focus on the connected material, the Gudschinsky method and the Word-Building Track are similar, especially in basic principles and purposes. It will be recalled from the research cited in Chapter 2 that to identify syllables, and to segment words into syllables was easier and more spontaneous than to identify and segment writing into phonemes Adams 1990, for English; Ferreiro 1994, for Spanish; Pontecorvo 1994, for Italian. In both the Gudschinsky method and the Multi-Strategy Word-Building Track the syllable is the unit of pedagogy, and awareness of phonemes is learned through contrast, but the material is presented in different activities for each method. In the lesson presentations, both methods include • culturally meaningful key pictures and key words as the focus in teaching particular letters • teaching from the unit of the syllable in contrast • word building activities • connected reading material, and • the mechanics and form of writing. There are differences in the lesson presentations, however, which extend to differences in the learning processes in each method. Firstly, in the analysis of the key word in the Gudschinsky method, only the syllable in focus is separated from the word and the word is learned by sight. For example, to teach the letter t using the word tamiok ‘a small axe’, the syllable ta is isolated, then the vowel a is further isolated. The syllables mi and ok are not taught and tamiok is learned by sight. The presentation would be as follows: tamiok ta a In contrast, in the Word-Building Track lessons the whole word is analysed and all syllables learned. In each key word lesson there is one new syllable in focus in which there is only one new letter. All letters in other syllables are known and generally all of the other syllables have been introduced previously. For example, the word tamiok is analysed as ta - mi - ok then the syllable to be learned, ta is isolated. The syllables mi and ok would have been taught previously. The presentation would be as follows: tamiok ta - mi - ok ta As an extension, there is synthesis, building back to the meaningful word. ta ta - mi - ok tamiok Conversely, if the syllable ok is to be taught, ta and mi would have been taught previously and the pattern would be as follows: