Follow
up activities to reinforce learning and memory
1. The learner has
to practice, i.e, use, the new spelling of the word, otherwise memory
will fade in time. "If you don't use it, you lose it." Make
sure you practice over the next two weeks.
2. Do not deliberately
use the old way spelling ever again, and do not compare the old and new
ways ever again. The only exception to this rule is explained in activity
No. 3 below.
3. The old way is
never completely lost, but the brain will automatically select the new
way on 80% of occasions, or higher. If the new way is practiced enough,
this figure can be as high as 100% after only one Old Way New Way® correction
session.
4. On those odd occasions
when the old way does resurface, the learner will recognise it on 90%
of occasions, without needing someone else to point it out. This automatic
self detection of errors is due to the improved self awareness.
5. Every time an old
way does come up, the learner must apply Steps 19, 20 and 21 of the Old
Way New Way learning method. That is, the learner say to him- or herself
"That's my old way"; then write out the new way and say aloud
"This is my new way"; and then describe aloud the difference
between the old and new ways. Do this three-step correction each time
an old way resurfaces.
6. Two weeks after
the Old Way New Way® learning session, if the old way is still coming up,
the entire learning session may need to be repeated. A major cause of
recovery of the old way is failure to practice the new way sufficiently.
Troubleshooting
1. The Old Way New
Way learning method is a low-stress, low-demand learning method. It is
very user friendly. The learning environment should be accepting, non-critical,
and recognition should be given for effort.
2. Do not try to cover
up any part of the form as it is being completed. Let the person see all
parts of it at all times. This is not a test.
3. If the learner
writes the old way when you asked for the new way, do not be alarmed.
Simply say "That's a nice old way, now write the new way for me,
here." Similarly, if the person produces the new way when you asked
for the old way, say "That's a nice new way, now do the old way for
me, here."
4. If the learner
produces a new spelling error while writing the sentences (Step 22), do
not be alarmed and do not draw attention to it. Make a mental note to
add the new error(s) to the list of words to be corrected in a subsequent
session. Do not overload the learner by pointing out all the errors you
see. Only deal with one word at a time.
5. If the learner
produces a different old way when asked to write his or her old way, simply
say "That's an interesting way of writing the word, now write your
original old way, here." If necessary, point to the original old
way and let him or her copy it. Make a mental note to deal with this additional
misspelling in a subsequent correction session. It is not unusual to find
that learners have more than one habitual way of misspelling a particular
word.
6. If the misspelling
of a word is particularly complicated, or a misspelling consists of multiple
errors, it may be useful to do a few more more than the normal six discriminations
(a discrimination is a comparison of the old and the new ways, followed
by a description of the differences, e.g., Steps 19, 20, 21 makes up one
discrimination). Similarly, when you get to the practice of the new way
in sentences, you may need to do a few more than the normal six sentences.
Explanation
of the steps in the learning method
1. Old Way New Way®
is best used for the correction of habitual spelling errors that resist
correction by other, more conventional, means. It is not all that useful
for learning completely new words because with new words there are no
learned errors or pre-existing misconceptions that have first to be unlearned.
New words are best learned using an improved version of Look-Say-Cover-Write-Check.
You know if you have a learned, habitual spelling error when you see the
same word misspelled, in the same way, two or three times. For example,
if you often misspell "receive" as "recieve", then
this is your learned, habitual, error. Most poor spellers have many such
learned errors, and they resist correction by conventional teaching and
learning methods. Old Way New Way® is very effective at eliminating learned
errors in spelling, and in other areas of learning like misconceptions
and skilled performance errors.
2. Basically, learned
errors are hard to eradicate, like all bad habits, because the brain protects
all prior konowledge, even incorrect knowledge and skills, and generates
an interference that disables new learning. For a full explanation of
learned spelling errors, how they develop, how prevalent they are, and
why they resist correction by conventional spelling methods, go to the
www.spellingzone.com home page.
3. Make sure you have
this example form alongside you as a guide when you try your first Old
Way New Way spelling correction session. The wording used in this form
has been developed and refined to its absolute minimum over years of expert
use. For example, there are subtle variations between the words used in
Steps 10 and 13, 11 and 14, and 12 and 15. The change from "telling"
the person the difference, to "asking them to tell you the difference"
is especially critical at Step 15. Each word of each step is therefore
a key element in the entire process. Please do not change, delete, or
add words or steps, until you become more familiar with the process and
understand it fully.
4. Although parts
of the Old Way New Way® process may appear to be repetitive and nothing
more than rote learning, this is far from the truth. Old Way New Way® is
much more than just another "drill and skill" method. As explained
in the underpinning learning theory, the learner is quickly engaged in
a rapid and powerful process of progressive discrimination learning. It
is progressive because at each successive comparison of the old and the
new, the brain learns a bit more about the essential differences between
the two spellings, until complete understanding is reached.
5. "Why do I
have to do six comparisons/discriminations?" Six comparisons of the
old and the new have been found to be necessary for optimal learning.
You may do more, but never less. The systematic practice of differences
is a key element in Old Way New Way® learning that is absent in all other
known learning methods. Discrimination learning is the easiest kind of
learning because anyone can tell the difference between two spellings
of a word. That makes the whole process low in mental demand and low stress,
and hence very user friendly.
6. "But I/they
have so many errors! Won't it take forever to deal with them all, if I
only deal with one at a time?" Conventional spelling correction methods
can take up to 2,000 repetitions of the "right" spelling, before
the old wrong way is overcome and replaced with the new, correct, spelling.
That's many hours, weeks, months of practice. Old Way New Way® corrects
one error at a time but does so very quickly, and you don't have to keep
correcting it again and again because the error stays fixed. Although
it may seem more work and slower, it's actually much faster because a
single session is so effective.
7. Research with Old
Way New Way shows that people who learn this way develop understanding
as well as skill in spelling. This development of understanding is assisted
when the rules and conventions that underpin English spelling are also
learned. However, these rules are best taught/learned not during an Old
Way New Way correction session, but afterwards as a supplementary lesson.
This will avoid possible confusion and overloading of the learner during
the actual correction session. Copyright Personal
Best Academy 2005
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