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.
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