learning

My oldest C is five. She knows her phonics very, very well. She knows the sounds of all letters inculding both the long and short sounds of vowels. She understands silent e. She understands blends. She knows which vowel is audible when she sees two together. She can't read. It isn't a huge thing to me except that I do remember feeling a bit stupid when I was young. The second issue is that early reading is exceedingly important to the in-laws. Try as I might I succumb to their kind of pressure. The reason C knows her phonics is due to the Leap Frog Phonics videos which my MIL insisted on. We've had them for a year. I have to admit they are very good. K knows most of her primary letter sounds now.

The upshot of this is that while my MIL was here we got some 'whole language' reading videos. I sat down on Tuesday and watched them with the girls wondering if something would click for C. It didn't until I held up a book that used the word baby on the cover and stopped the video at the word baby (which she was already beginning to recognize) and pointed to the word on the book and asked her what it was. I saw something dawn on her face.

I find it amazing that all the reading I've done with her over the past five years, the fact that she loves to write words and notes if we spell things out for her, and her strong 'factual' knowledge of phonics hasn't gotten her to this point and yet in some way, it didn't entirely surprise me.

So, yesterday, I did some research on whole language and found a bit that intrigued me. It said that children who were global learners had a hard time learning to read with phonics and often succeeded with whole language. There was a teeny definition of 'global learners' that intrigued me. It sounded like C.

Hubby and I have already decided that C thinks like my Dad and I. We wondered how we would help teachers understand her. Suddenly, I realized I found the key. It was ironic because I had tried to research learning styles and had not come across global learning - and now suddenly, I found it.

And, while I am relieved to know that I can help Charis through this. I am also relieved to understand why learning worked the way it did for me. I must confess that over the years, my Father and I have talked about it and my Dad is very much more global than I am. I am a bit more flexible and having been gifted with his mother's memory and therefore was able to do okay with the factual stuff even though (as I have often told my husband) the factual details don't often matter to me.

So at the chance that some of you might fit into the fifteen percent of the population who thinks in this way (and find this a novel piece of news and not old hat) - here are some excerpts I've clipped from here and there that particularly resonate with my father and I and made my analytical sequential husband laugh in recognition.

Global learners tend to learn in large jumps, absorbing material almost randomly without seeing connections, and then suddenly "getting it."
Global learners may be able to solve complex problems quickly or put things together in novel ways once they have grasped the big picture, but they may have difficulty explaining how they did it.
Global learners may miss a few trees, but they know a good forest when they see one! They organize by clustering information into wholes with broad, sweeping strokes. Global learners focus on the larger ideas leaving the details to others. To many, global thinkers can appear disorganized because of their disregard for and/or impatience with minutiae and their willingness to jump between ideas in random ways. Global learners tend to bend rules—including schedules and deadlines—to fit what they see as a greater purpose. Such spontaneity can lead to creativity—or chaos.

Global learners tend to learn in large jumps, absorbing material almost randomly without seeing connections, and then suddenly "getting it."

Global learners may be able to solve complex problems quickly or put things together in novel ways once they have grasped the big picture, but they may have difficulty explaining how they did it.