CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS
7. Tutor reads along the spellings with the tutee
國
立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Table 4 Assistance---From Implicit to Explicit Assistance offered from implicit to explicit level
0. Tutor asks the tutee to finish the spelling tasks independently.
1. Tutor’ affirmation on the tutee’s performance (e.g., “Yes, go ahead”).
2. Tutor indicates the spelling error/breakdown and asks the tutee to correct it (e.g., “No, try it again.”).
3. Tutor provides clues to help the tutee elicit correct spellings (e.g., “What’s the sound of the letter?”).
4. Tutor provides spelling rules.
5. Tutor identifies difficult letter(s) and provides sounds of them in order to help elicit the correct spellings.
6. Tutor provides the spelling answers.
7. Tutor reads along the spellings with the tutee.
8. Tutor provides some explanation for the use of the correct spelling.
The smaller the number was, the less assistance Mary required/ Kate offered.
The categorized levels were not rigidly determined in advance of the study. The range and the level of help were found and determined in the interaction between Kate and Mary as Aljaafreh and Lantolf did in their research (1994). The spelling tasks
throughout the tutoring session were done according to the general principle of effective help. The idea, categorized levels of help, could help the researcher observe how Kate offer just enough help to encourage and guide Mary to participate in the tasks at a higher level and to assume more responsibility in the process of arriving at the appropriate output. Kate needed only to be sensitive to Mary’s competence and in Wertsch’s (1985) terminology, to “lure” her to function at an appropriate level without making the task frustrating for her.
How Mary bid for help when accomplishing the basic spelling tasks and the synthetic spelling tasks were analyzed according to the levels of help which indicated when and how Kate offered developmentally appropriate assistance.
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CVC---short vowel “a” spelling list
“ad” set
1 K: Ok. Let’s start the first round spelling “ad”. OK. You look at the vowel. ((Point to “a”)) say /ae/.
2 M: /ae/.
3 K: Then the consonant? ((Point to “d”)) Put the consonant and the vowel together. And they will make a sound. letter b and the letter r. You just read out loud their individual sound and that’s their sound.
8 M: br br br-ad brad: (( Mary needed more cues on blending words.
However, Mary could be able to read from the second words.)) 9 K: Yes. flag(.) ((When encountering blend words, the tutee could be able to read from the second word of a set independently with the tutor’s help only at the first word.))
“am” set
16 M: am am d-am dam b-am bam j-am jam p-am pam, 17 r-am ram S-am Sam t-am tam y-am yam cl cl cl-am
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20 M: ((The tutee completed the “an” set independently.))From line 1 to 4, Kate guided Mary to read the sound “ad” and then finger pointed each CVC word for Mary to spell out the list of words. This was how in the beginning Kate directly provided explanations for the tutee to do correct spellings.
Before session 1 began, Mary has gone over 26 basic letters and sounds
correspondence review session; therefore, in the beginning of the session, Mary basically went smoothly over the basic CVC spelling by Kate’s finger pointing at each word. Kate’s fingerpointing helped Mary focus on each spelling they were working on.
In line 6 Mary encountered a complex spelling—consonant blend “br”. Mary bade for help by elongating “tad” preceding the “br” word and Kate stepped in to help provide
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occurred in line 8,9,10, 13,14, 17,18 as well and Kate offered direct, explicit help when Mary elongated at the words which preceded difficult words she was not able to read. Kate watched closely if help was needed when Mary had difficulties in spelling every word. As to the consonant blend-initial word spellings, from line 19 in the “am”
set, Mary started to be able to complete the spelling task with Kate’s help only at the first consonant blend-initial word (e.g. “cr”) and then she generalized the rule to the rest of other spellings (e.g. “gr”). This is evident in next few lines of spelling. In line 30, in “at” set, though Mary slowed down a little bit at spelling “ch” sound, and Kate, instead of directly offering help as in the beginning, withdrew her help a bit and waited Mary to see if she recalled the “ch” sound and carry out the spelling on her own. As Mary showed independence in reading the word set, the level of Kate’s help started to decrease.
Excerpt of session 2
CVC---short vowel “e” spelling list
“ed” set
CVC---short vowel “i” spelling list
“id＂ set
1 K: It’s good that you are getting able to read words by yourself.
2 K: Now we are going to read “i” list.
3 M: i i /aid/ /aid/: umm?
4 K: No.
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CVC---short vowel “o＂ spelling list
“ox” set
1 M: ox ox b-ox box f-ox fox l-ox lox p-ox pox(.) ……((The reading was fluent.))
Excerpt of session 5
CVC---short vowel “u” spelling list
“un, um” set
1 M: un un b-un bun f-un fun g-un gun p-un pun r-un run s-un sun, ……ch-um chum, pl-um plum(.) …… ((The reading was fluent.))
Mary went smoothly over CVC short vowel spellings along with practicing some consonant blend-initial word spelling with the assistance of Kate in previous short vowel “a” spelling list, she began to be able to solve other word spelling tasks in next short vowel “e”, “i”, “o”, “u” lists which were evidenced in session 2,3,4,5. In those spelling tasks, Mary not only acquired more basic CVC short vowel spelling abilities but also was getting familiar with a bit difficult consonant blend/diagraph-initial word spellings. In session 2, line 5, Kate provided Level 8 help, i.e., provided explanation at Mary’s pause, and then Mary learned it very fast and continued the spellings. Right in the next session 3, Mary was told that she didn’t make the “id” sound correct by
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
intervention, Mary perceived the mistake and corrected it immediately. Then in line 8 in the same session Mary paused at the sound “tw”, Kate offered direct answer “tw”
sound which was Level 6 help. So far Mary was able to understand Kate’s help which triggered her responsive actions in solving her spelling difficulties. Apart from Mary’s some discontinuing that brought about help from Kate, in next consecutive, Mary started to do the spelling tasks sessions independently without Kate’s direct
intervention. In session 5, Mary could read the blend-initial words by herself without Kate's assistance.
The levels of Kate’s help were not rigidly followed as the spelling tasks went on.
This meant that Kate was paying attention and sensitive to Mary based on Mary’s learning progress: what level of help was to be invoked and if one or more levels were to be overlooked, where to stop and allow the tutee to take over, and when to retrieve help. In times of decreasing help, Besides the oral spelling clues offered, Kate would appropriately offer praise by gesturing signs of thumb-up, saying “good job” or showing smiles when Mary spelled words correct or made a breakthrough at difficult-to-her words (i.e. consonant blend-initial word) in these sessions.
Generally speaking, Mary has gained the basic CVC short vowel spelling ability through lists of spelling tasks and Kate paid attention to what was easy or difficult to Mary in order to offer appropriate help timely by different levels during the
interaction. Next, long vowels spelling tasks was the next challenge for Mary to overcome.
Excerpt of session 7
long vowel “a space e” spelling “__ade” set
T: Today we are going to start from Page 10
1 K: Let’s start from the long vowel spelling. Remember how to read this
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According to Kate’s experience gained in CVC short vowel spelling process in knowing Mary’s learning progress and improvement when assisting Mary, Kate noticed that Mary was gradually able to spell independently which made her change the previous ways of providing help (offer spelling sound directly to the tutee) in the long vowels spelling tasks. In session 7 of long vowel “ade” set, line 1, Kate, instead of providing spelling sound first, told Mary to find the spelling rule in words. Mary answered Kate immediately in line 2. Then Kate demonstrated spelling of the first word in the first “ade” list “fade”. The hint was categorized as Level 3 help and the demonstration was categorized as Level 5 help. With Kate’s demonstration, Mary started to do the spelling for the first list, though slowly but with no difficulties. In line 5, Mary had difficulty in spelling “shade” (diagraph-initial word), Kate repeated Mary’s utterance and do the “sha” sound (Level 3 help) in order to let Mary continue to pronounce the whole word which could be seen in line 7. Kate’s reading along and repetition of Mary’s utterance helped Mary not to rely too much on Kate’s providing direct answer but leave some time for Mary to recall the spelling sound and finish the task on her own. Kate withdrew much more direct help according to Mary’s learning progress.
Excerpt of session 9
long vowel “i space e” spelling
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sh-ine shine(.)…… ((Very fluent))Excerpt of session 10
long vowel “o space e” spelling “__oke” set
1 M: I can read others myself. o space e /o/ /o/ /o/ oke oke, c-oke coke, [><] j-oke joke p-oke poke [><] w-oke woke y-oke yoke ch-oke choke br-oke broke(.)……
((The tutee’s reading speed was getting faster.)) Excerpt of session 11
long vowel “u space e” spelling 1 K: How about u space e? beginning, so she read “cube” as “cub”.
7 M: Um, um. ((Nod.))
The spelling process went smoothly in other “a space e” word spelling sets and in “i space e” word spelling sets with Kate’s assistance in sounding out only the very first word of each set which indicated that Mary began to assume more learning autonomy. Excerpt 7 and 8 clearly showed that Mary wanted to try independently to process spelling rules to complete the tasks as she kept saying “I know. Let me try it.
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Ok, I got it.”, not allowing the tutor to intervene. Mary’s comments about her
interaction with Kate signified her greater self-control and gradual learning autonomy.
In “o space e” and “u space e” tasks, Mary showed independence in doing the spelling and Kate gradually withdrew assistance in the two tasks. Kate was quite sensitive to offering or withholding assistance in the long vowel spelling interaction which little by little resulted in Mary’s learning independence and growing ability of long vowel spelling. Thus, Mary has not only gained basic spelling ability, familiarity with difficult spellings (consonant blends/diagraphs) but also built up self-independence in solving problems. After being reinforced with the basic CVC short/long vowel
spellings, Mary faced the next challenge--- Synthetic Spelling.
Section II—Synthetic Spelling Excerpt of session 17-1
A--
1 K: Now we are going to
2 read these words. Mary, you are able to do the previous basic readings well. Now you can use the same spelling rules as in the previous task to read these words .
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
In the previous 4.2.1 task, Kate always used her index finger to point to words for Mary to spell. In the beginning of the task, Kate asked Mary to finger point spelling words for herself and start the spelling. Mary followed each word that she pointed and managed to spell out loud every new word. Most of the words in this excerpt were basic CVC spelling which Mary did well except a few sound-varied words (e.g. angel /dg/). From the excerpt, Mary slowed down her spelling speed due to the fact that a few words were spelling-varied, two-syllabic and she wanted to be careful at dealing them. In line 4 to 7, Mary encountered irregular spelling words, bidding for help and Kate directly offered the correct answer. Kate considered that irregular spelling was a new task for Mary and it was better to provide assistance directly in order not to frustrate Mary. Though Kate directly provided the answers, it was clearly seen that in some varied words Mary tried to read the best she could even though she could only make the first syllable correct before bidding help from the tutor. In line 9, Mary tried to read “a_e” word which had been reinforced in session 7, but failed and elongated the word “pas”. Kate offered help indirectly by clueing her the spelling rules: “What rules do you find in this word? We practiced it last week.
Think about it.” Mary responded quickly in line 10 when she was reminded by the tutor’s clueing. Later on, interestingly, when Mary paused at the word “ar” in the same line and tried to read out loud its correct sound but elongated the sound, Kate offered help only by reminding Mary of a new word been taught in class: “We learned this word in lesson 3 last month. Remember the second vocabulary? How do you say mei lao in English? ” Mary uttered “art” very quickly without a second thought in the next line (because the tutee bore the word in mind very well ) and then she picked up the “ar” sound right on the spot. In line 15, Mary commented on the sound /ar/ by saying “I got it. I got it.” to prove that she learned the sound from the word. Kate was
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
sensitive and flexible to provide direct (Level 6 help) or indirect (Level 3, 4 help) help according to Mary’s current learning development when Mary signalized that she failed to work on some varied words. This indicated that if the spelling rule concept was low in Mary’s ZPD, Kate would provide as much direct help as possible to assist Mary to read; if the spelling rule concept was high in the ZPD, Mary was familiar with the spelling and Kate only provided indirect help in order to have Mary read words on her own. And Kate judged the condition according to her interactions with Mary, how far Mary could go on her own or how many spelling rules Mary has gradually acquired without much help or has not acquired yet. Kate wouldn’t
arbitrarily intervene Mary’s spelling process when she was sure that Mary could finish the spelling independently.
Excerpt of session 17-2 B—
1 M: b b /b/ /b/ b-ee:
2 K: Two “e”s. We pronounce /i/.
3 M: b-ee bee(.)
4 M: b b /b/ /b/ bean(.)
5 K: Where did you see this word before?
6 M: Um……?
7 K: We learned bean in the word “soy bean milk” in Lesson one.
8 M: Oh yes yes yes. I got it. soy bean milk soy bean milk 9 K: So here “ea” you pronounce as
10 M: long / i /
……
19 M: o o /o/ /o/ bl-o blo block bl bl bl-e bl-en blend.
20 K: block is Ji-mu, right? We learned it in teacher Anna’s class.
21 M: Oh, yes, yes.
Some spelling words with consonant blends and vowel diagraphs started to show
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diagraphs learning by using the learned lesson to reinforce Mary’s recognition of word sounds in this session. For example, Kate would repeat sound of vowel diagraph
“ee” after Mary had read it in line 2. In line 4, when Mary spelt the word “bean”, Kate immediately asked “Where did you see this word before?” She managed to remind Mary that the word was from lesson 1 vocabulary and Mary recalled the word and responded right after Kate’s question in line 8. Thus, in line 9, Kate required Mary to infer the sound “ea” and Mary made it correct. In line 19 and 20, Kate translated the word “block” into Chinese to reinforce Mary’s recognition after Mary uttered the spelling. On the basis of Mary’s having acquiring basic spelling ability which made her do well in last session, Kate only offered clues (Level 2-3 help) to help Mary read words with consonant blends and vowel diagraphs correct. And Kate’s indirect help reached intersubjectivity with Mary so that Mary could be able to understand what and how Kate guided her so that she was able to comprehend the instructions and respond correctly.
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In this session, Mary did well in the word reading and Kate offered direct help only in subtle problems such as distinguishing the different shapes of letters or clueing blend sounds as in the last session where Mary elongated. In line 5, Mary paused at the word “man” (because Mary was confused by the next word for she couldn’t be sure whether the next word should be pronounced “bat” or “dat”), Kate, according to her pre-experiences of teaching Mary about distinguishing letter shapes in previous sessions, reminded Mary of the different shapes of “b” and “d” so that Mary made them right in line 6. In line 11, at Mary’s elongation, Kate reminded her of the blending sound “ck” in line 12 in order to help Mary read out the word “check”.
Mary was able to independently read CVC-pattern words and started to show capability of reading words with blends or diagraphs though with Kate’s assistance aside. The role of Kate was active but indirect as seen in this session. Mary could comprehend the direct or indirect help Kate provided therefore she was able to respond to Mary’s assistance to elicit the correct reading.
Excerpt of session 19-1
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Kate was active in this excerpt as well in providing indirect, interesting clues to help Mary memorize words. Kate’s frequently employing learned lessons or daily experiences to reinforce Mary’s recognition of word sounds assisted Mary in recalling or learning words. Mary went well with the help offered by Kate in this excerpt.
Pausing in line 5, Mary was provided with the beginning “ear” sound in line 6 so that she proceeded the reading well in line 7. After Mary finished the “ear” set of words reading, Kate asked Mary to infer the “ea” sound and Mary made it right and was able to apply the sound to other words reading in line 9. Having Mary to backward infer the sound “ea” has been done in session 17 and in this session, Mary was asked to infer it again and furthermore she was able to apply the sound to other words reading.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
In next few lines in the same session, Mary went smoothly with the reading and didn’t elongate at any words. During the next few lines in which Mary did the reading without any problems, Kate, instead of keeping silent, chimed in with learned lessons or daily experiences to assist the tutee in recalling or memorizing words. For example, in line 15, Kate used fairy tale “the Princess and the Frog” to reinforce Mary with the word “frog”. In line 17, again in order to elicit the word “flag” from Mary, Kate used Chinese to clue about what has been learned in class. In line 25, Kate provided daily experience to help Mary meaningfully learn the word “gate”. In line 32, when it came to distinguishing plural nouns, Kate imitated the teacher’s teaching tone by asking Mary “why not an ‘s’ to the end of the word ‘grape’? ” In line 40-42, Kate sang a kid song to help Mary elicit the word “lemon”. Assistance above was implicit help which Kate used as clues to guide Mary and she was able to respond to them in such relaxed tutoring atmosphere. In this excerpt, unlike previous sessions in which Kate
sometimes offered linguistic clues to help elicit answers from Mary, she changed her previous ways of giving direct linguistic answer into totally indirect word clues offering including asking, reminding, chatting, requiring and Mary was able to
sometimes offered linguistic clues to help elicit answers from Mary, she changed her previous ways of giving direct linguistic answer into totally indirect word clues offering including asking, reminding, chatting, requiring and Mary was able to