Hockey sticks and baseball bats

Why are we handicapping our English learners?

I’ve been helping people of all ages reverse English literacy challenges for 25 years. Believe it or not, during this time I have confirmed that messy writing, poor spelling, slow reading, inconsistent focus and trouble expressing thoughts all share a significant root cause: an incomplete alphabet foundation.?

How does this happen? Outdated education methods that continue to this day.

As someone who has run pilot projects in public schools, I see how difficult and slow change can be. This is frustrating for those of us who are passionate about educational reform. It’s particularly upsetting for me when the transformations experienced by people I work with can occur in as little as 2 days.

It’s not that complicated when you provide the right tools.

How the alphabet is taught limits the English learning potential of millions of people worldwide every year. This applies to children learning their first alphabet and those learning English as a second or multiple language. They are not getting the tools they need.

We learn the alphabet best when we engage our hands, eyes, imagination and heart. Each element is required to activate high human-level learning. That’s how we were designed. That’s how we activate (or for children, keep) intuition, creativity, critical thinking, memory, connection and everything unique and valuable about being human.

What happens when we fail to follow this recipe? Look at the sad literacy and ADHD statistics in the USA and Canada, where huge sums of money result in limited improvements.

How we teach literacy that is missing the essential alphabet foundation is like sending a person up to the plate in a baseball game with a hockey stick instead of a bat. Some will have natural talent and become great hitters with a hockey stick; most will struggle and get by; others will fail miserably.?

Should we send those failing for remedial hitting lessons with their hockey stick? Help them feel good about their struggles? What about giving them a bat?

In baseball, everyone hits better with a bat, not a hockey stick.

The equivalent requirement for literacy tools is mastery of one’s own alphabet. Not someone else’s magnetic, sandpaper, fuzzy or other letters. Those tools never have and never will improve literacy skill levels. When each person connects their hands, eyes, and imagination and does the process within a supportive community, everything shifts.

I imagine a world where every person has the best tools for humans to learn literacy. They’ll feel smarter, closer and happier in the process.

And then we’ll have constant literacy home runs for everyone!