First I want to start by saying watching the video of Robin at 50 years old learn to read was one of the most moving and influential videos I have ever seen. It made me so emotionally to see how the strategies we use to teach our students today can even be used to teach ANYONE at any age! It is so rewarding as a teacher to see changes in people such as I just saw in this video.
Robin began learning to read by using spelling tiles and chunking words endings together and putting them with different letters at the beginning of the words to make all new words such as (p)ick, (st)ick, (t)ick. I also noticed him seeing large words such as "congratulations" and automatically seeing the word "rat" and then pronouncing "congrat" and then he automatically knew that it said congratulations without sounding out any other part of the word. This proves that readers do not read letter by letter! I enjoyed watching him write to read as well. He was writing and reading what he had wrote. He often reread several times without giving up or without the teacher helping him out. he was able to figure out the simple sentences on his own by rereading. Robin was able to use context and picture also to help him read as he did in the newspaper articles, comic book, etc. He saw the beginnings of words and knew what it must say by using the context clues to help him. Robin's passion and dedication for learning to read was so touching to me, and I would like to share this video with my teachers at work.
I thought this movie was also so emotional! It made me more determined to make sure that my 7 and 8 years olds pick up and book and learn to read NOW rather than later on in life!
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