“You can literally change their future, and it’s a most amazing experience to have.” TESSA WHITEMAN, REMEDIAL TEACHER
children begin to develop chronological awareness, then begin to unlock the meaning of sounds and symbols. “You can literally change their future, and it’s a most amazing experience to have.”
Unlocking the key to literacy
Noel McArthur is a former Marlborough teacher and principal who is passionate about teaching people to read, and not afraid to challenge a system he says is letting them down. Through Anyone Can Read, he tutors people in the Youth Justice and Corrections system and, while it can be demanding, he relishes seeing the transformation they make. Like Olivia, many students showed improvement after just a few hours, which Noel attributes to simply removing the burden of being told they couldn’t do it. “People will read this and say, ‘You can’t teach a kid to read in four hours’, and they’re right, but it’s about removing the blockages to the reading process. It changes the way they see themselves and their ability to learn.” He likens teaching a child to read to a toddler learning to talk. “You didn’t make them sound it out. You let them start badly and get better. This is the correct way to learn.” Noel questions why literacy is, in his experience, an issue now more than ever. Modern school curriculums and learning differences are “simply a mismatch of teaching and learning styles,” he says, adding that 30 years ago New Zealand topped English-speaking countries for literacy. Now it’s at the bottom. “Is it that there are more identified issues now, or did we just not label the kids 30 years ago?” Noel says he does an ‘intervention’. “It’s diagnostic and it’s the mechanics of the process that get you into the heart of what’s actually happening. I’m not concerned about their label – a kid is a kid. The question is, how much baggage do they bring with them? Every time they’ve been through a programme and failed, that leaves a scar.
Above: Clockwise - Margarette Sellers and daughter Olivia; Noel McArthur tutoring Olivia
“It changes the way they see themselves and their ability to learn.” N O E L M C A RT H U R
“The first job at school is to teach them to read. That’s the number one issue confronting education and the biggest blockage to kids’ futures.” Frustrated learners may show self-destructive, aggressive or violent behaviour as a result. “It’s bad for society and bad for the kid.”
Hiding the problem
People with learning difficulties can be so good at smoothing it over that they go unnoticed. Nelson’s Sarah Varey knows that all too well. She tutors youngsters with learning difficulties, is married to an undiagnosed dyslexic – a surgeon – and has a dyslexic daughter, a fourth-year university fine arts student. Her daughter was in Year 7 when she alerted her parents to her problem. “She had a common profile of a dyslexic girl – quiet, well-behaved, hard-working and doing everything she could to ‘fly under the radar’.” Sarah says many people with learning difficulties grow up “not really fitting in, because they know they’re clever but they’re the bottom in reading or maths. They have this distance between how they see themselves and how others see them, and there’s a lot of shame and anxiety.” And yet, dyslexic people can be very successful, she adds. “They are often entrepreneurs because they are able to use their strengths to their advantage.” Tessa has known of employers who search for dyslexic people because they are good at working with their hands, and great at problem-solving – perfect for trades like boatbuilding.
Help at hand
A wide range of help is available, from children’s programmes to adult learning support, to assistance with drivers’ licence applications and literacy programmes at tertiary providers. SPELD NZ, which has been around since the 1970s, has helped 71 families in the Nelson/Marlborough area over the past year and, according to Ministry of Education figures, deals with 10 percent of all NZ students. SPELD also trains educators and employs assessors to support schools and families. 43