E-Course - Part 5
Psychology of Teaching

Anyone with teaching experience will tell you a simple fact: you can have the most whiz-bang teaching method available; you have the greatest teaching method ever created in the history of time; but if you get the psychology of teaching wrong, lessons will still be a disaster.

So what do we at the Fitzroy Learning Centre mean by psychology? We mean the interaction of parent/teacher with child. If the dynamics are wrong, great results will be hard to come by.

This part is only a drop in the ocean of teacher/students relations and a lot more can obviously be said; but what I have tried to do is distil what we consider to be the principal points to consider when teaching small children to read and write.

Making Learning Fun

Let’s be honest: small children generally don’t have a great attention span. All the more so when we’re talking about cooping them up in a classroom or living room and forcing them to sit still!

So if you want to hold your child's attention long enough to teach some phonics, you need, above all else, to make learning fun. If it is, he will want to learn. If not, he will be climbing under the table or snapping pencils.

Parents the Performers

Of course, there are a lot of ways to be entertaining, so the advice to keep things fun – as important as it is – isn’t necessarily the most practical thing you could hear. Without going into all of the thousand and one different strategies you could think of, however, I will give one piece of general advice: no matter what else you do, at least look as though you enjoy teaching your child to read

The reason for this is that children take their cue from you, their teacher. If you look bored and talk in a monotone then they will naturally presume that learning English is pretty dull caper and not worth paying much attention to. If you look excited and alive as if you are loving it, however, then they will naturally presume the opposite and want to join in the fun.

So when it is time to give your child a phonics lesson, put on your performance clothes and show some enthusiasm for what you are doing. Your child will soon want more lessons!

Variety

If looking like you enjoy yourself is still not concrete enough, then you might at least consider ensuring that your lessons are filled with variety. Variety is a parent’s (teacher’s) trump card. It lifts children out of the mire of inattention and brings their focus back to where they are – your phonics lesson!

In general, there is nothing worse parents (or teachers!) of small children can do than harp on about the same thing for too long. Even if the topic being discussed is on the whole entertaining, children will still drift off unless you can introduce new elements into your lesson.

Think of it like eating chocolate. No matter how good it is, you can only eat so much. Before long it becomes too rich, too sweet. Even if you’re still hungry you'll need something else to eat.

The same goes for the attention span of small children. Keep them doing the same thing for too long and they will start gazing off at the fly on the ceiling and sucking their thumb; add variety and they’ll be yours for a while longer yet.

So make sure you’re always inventive. Play games, invent activities – and whatever you do, don’t get stuck doing the same thing for too long.

The Success Experience

If you want to keep your child's morale and enthusiasm up on the journey to reading and writing mastery, then make sure he has regular success experiences.

If something appears too difficult, if he is constantly failing in his attempts to understand something, then he will soon become dispirited and resist the learning process. Either out of psychological self-defense or genuine frustration, he will be inclined to give up rather than press on – even if he is repeatedly told how continuing his lessons will, ultimately, be worthwhile.

As a result, you need to make sure that all lessons are designed so that there will be regular opportunities for success. Children need to feel that every time they learn to read and write English they are making progress. They need the feeling that they are doing well – succeeding in their learning task.

Phonics and Success

Fortunately, the phonics approach is the ideal teaching method for creating success experiences. Children can effortlessly master the letters of the alphabet one by one (twenty-six success experiences in itself) and - at least where good courses are concerned - put their newfound knowledge into practice immediately.

All you need is a course that gets children using the letters they have learnt right away, rather than one that teaches all the different letters (or worse, digraphs!) before any actual reading starts.

To create continuous success experiences you will also want a course that develops in a systematic, step-by-step manner. Wherever this happens, children always feel on top of what they are learning because it is never too difficult. If the course isn’t systematic, however, the reverse is often true: children become uneasy because sudden jumps in reading expectations cause them to stumble. This, naturally, saps them of confidence.

So long as children feel that they are progressing smoothly through their reading course, a neat circle of success is created: they enjoy what they are doing because they are good at it, and they then do well at it because they enjoy it. In other words, one success experience quickly leads to another.

Positive Reinforcement

Positive environments breed positive results. When children feel good about themselves they relax and become more receptive. When they feel successful they are motivated to greater success.

Nothing dampens a child’s enthusiasm more, however, than a parent who focuses on what they are doing wrong. When this occurs, a child immediately - and rightly - wishes to escape from this unpleasant experience. He resents the lesson and, as a result, will generally close himself up to what the parent is trying to tell him.

You must therefore avoid negativity at all costs. Negativity, even when apparently deserved, simply causes stress and learning difficulties.

As a result, all good phonics courses only promote positive reinforcement: Praise your child every time she shows progress or understanding; gently correct her when she is in error. Do not emphasize the fact that she has done something wrong. Simply point out the correction and move on - exuding confidence that she will soon understand the point being made, that she is intelligent, that you – her parent – have complete faith in her.

Positive reinforcement always outperforms negativity.

Reading – A Love for Life

Parents - who wish to be good teachers - must always be concerned with more than just short term gains. They must do more than focus solely on teaching reading and writing.

Indeed, wise parents will not only always encourage children to continue reading and writing beyond their primary and secondary school years, but even beyond university. In fact, they will do all within their power to foster a love of reading and writing that stays with their child for life. Only then can they claim to have been totally successful in their role as educator.

It is for this reason that getting the psychology of a lesson right is absolutely crucial. Early impression can last a long time. Think back over your life and you will probably find that a careless comment has put you off an activity you once enjoyed. Continue searching and you will almost certainly remember an early negative experience that has put you off an activity for life. Conversely, think how often the things you loved doing as a child continue to play an important part in your adult life - even if they were lost and buried for many years.

Radical as it might therefore sound, parents could actually fail to teach literacy but ultimately succeed in a broader sense if their child is inspired with a love of reading and writing. In the end, this love of language almost always ensures that in later years the child does become literate, even if it requires much hard work on his behalf.

So even if you want your little Johnny to read better than all our neighbour's children - and right now! - always look to the bigger picture. Weigh your words, plan your lessons - and always do everything possible to ensure that he will walk away from reading lessons with fond memories. In that way you will be doing everything you can to inspire him with a lifelong love of reading and writing.

Conclusion

The psychology of teaching should never be underestimated. You don’t need to have read every manual on the topic (probably wouldn’t help much anyway!); but you should always do all within your power to make learning a positive experience for your child. You want him to enjoy learning to read and write; you want him to feel good about his reading and writing ability. If you succeed in this then he will almost certainly continue reading – and thus educating himselves – for the rest of his life.

Summary:

• Make learning fun.
• Look like you enjoy reading. Children take their cue from parents.
• Make sure lessons aren’t monotonous. Give them variety.
• Create success experiences for your child.
• Focus on positive reinforcement.
• Remember that a love of reading should last a lifetime.

Teaching Materials

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Fitzroy Phonics Australia

Fitzroy Range

• Alphabet Book
• Alphabetics game
• Answer Books
• Audio CDs
• Fitzroy Files
• Fitzroy Sounds
• Phonics Readers
• Phonics Software
• Teacher's Guide
• Word Families
• Word Skills

‘Your readers have been an enormous help in my Resource Teaching.’
E.M., Principal, St. Bede’s, Australia.