Natural Learning
Focus: Literacy Development
By Philip Builder

The Model Immersion Demonstration Expectation Responsibility Approximation Employment Feedback Conclusion References

Learning to walk and talk is natural for humans.  Under normal circumstances everyone succeeds.  But this doesn't happen in a vacuum.  Parents have proved themselves to be excellent teachers over thousands of years.  By examining how our children learn language and living skills we find out about the most natural ways to learn and teach.  When we apply these to learning Literacy it really makes sense, and it really works!

Brian Cambourne (1984,87) has developed a model of Natural Learning based on how children acquire speech.   Because it is based on observing what children do as they learn to talk, adults are able to relate it to their recent parenting experience and then use that information to examine how their children are learning to read and write now.  Teachers who use this model are able to cater more effectively for the full range of children's needs because their classrooms encourage every child to participate and learn in the most holistic ways.  Children in these classrooms become independent learners who are motivated to seek out and embrace new learning without fear.   This has always been one of the most difficult things for teachers to manage in the past because children themselves arrive every day with fears about learning, and being part of a group magnifies those fears.  Teaching children that there are no penalties for trying, that they will be successful, is so easy to understand with Cambourne's Natural Learning model.

As adults we think we remember how we learned or were taught at school and we often try to teach our own children in the same way.  The problem with this is that our school experiences are at least twenty years old when our kids start school, and the world has changed.  Read on to explore how learning really works under natural conditions and how you can apply this understanding to all of your young children.

The Model

Brian Cambourne (1988) shows us that learning to talk is an ideal model for looking at natural learning.  This model works for talking and also for learning to read, write, spell, ride a bike, play golf, or any other human endeavour.  He names seven basic conditions for learning to talk:

Each of these conditions represents a set of interrelated elements which must be present for natural and efficient learning.  By examining the quality of these in the life experiences of the child it becomes possible to plan ways to improve learning.  For the following explanations and examples I have expanded Cambourne's conditions from learning to speak to learning to read and write.

1  Immersion

Babies learning to talk are immersed in a language-rich environment at home where speech is used continually to communicate in meaningful ways.  That is, children learn to speak by being exposed to the language of the home and joining in with daily interactions.  What they hear is not limited or modified in any way (except for baby-talk) and they are exposed to the complexities of whole chunks of language in situations that they know and understand.   From this they take what they need and begin to build up a speaking vocabulary.  By the time most children begin school their speech is well developed.

Literacy follows the same rules.  Children who are immersed in literacy at home are usually ready to proceed with learning to read and write by the time they start school.  Immersion means that there will be lots of books in the home, and both parents will be seen to spend time reading.  They will read appropriate books to their children from a young age and interact with them in games and activities which promote literacy skills.  These include counting, singing the alphabet, and learning stories, rhymes, riddles, and songs.  Drawing and writing will be a part of everyday life, with both parents demonstrating how it is done, actively encouraging their children to participate by providing plenty of materials such as paper, pencils, paints, and crayons; and providing  opportunities to use them. 

Unfortunately there are always a few children who start school with little or no exposure to literacy, which means that they will have poorly developed understandings about print language  or how print works.  For a further explanation of this see Marie Clay's "Concepts About Print", Clay, 1985, 1991.  Clay has taught us that these children may not be aware of such things as where to begin reading, the direction of print flow, what a word is, matching print and voice, book language (such as letter, word, first, last, start, end), story patterns, etc.  These children don't show much progress during their first year of school, and when compared with their peers they often appear to have learning problems.  The temptation is to believe that there is something wrong with them and that the present methods aren't working.  But these children can recover quite quickly if they are involved in a quality learning program such as the 'Reading Recovery Program' (Clay, 1985), and if they are then immersed for several more years in ongoing literacy activities.  It is essential for parents of these children to be familiar with the learning program, and immerse their children in language and print at home.

2  Demonstration

Children in language rich environments receive demonstrations of language in functional ways. This means that children see language used by their parents and siblings as well as the actions that go with it, and the results.  A simple example could be, "John, would you pass the sugar please?".  Children learn about language by seeing the whole process; by being a part of it, by being there and seeing and hearing the question and the response; the naming of the person to whom the request is made, the social convention of using "please", the passing of the sugar, the responding '"Thank you," and so on. 

The lesson for us as teachers and parents is that we need to give our children genuine demonstrations of the whole process.  Children need to see their parents and teachers demonstrating reading and writing every day.  At home children can watch and join in with writing shopping lists, letters, notes, and cards; and parents should demonstrate by reading to their children, with pointing, showing what they are looking at, and reading together as regular everyday things to do.  

While it is important to give these demonstrations, think about how we show ourselves off as perfect readers and writers much of the time, and what effect this has on our children's expectations of themselves?  Just as we don't talk in perfectly correct sentences all the time, we also mustn't give the impression that reading and writing is easy, or that we can do it without making mistakes.  In fact it helps young learners enormously to see that when we read we have problems to solve, we leave out words, change them around, put in new words, and correct ourselves when we can't disguise the fact that we have made a mistake.  When writing let them see that it takes some effort to compose a sentence, that spelling requires a few tries sometimes, and cross outs and rewriting are a usual feature of any lengthy works.  Most importantly, during or after your demonstration try to get the child involved as a participant.  Engage them in the task so that they see themselves as readers and writers just like you. 

As a teacher I found that the most powerful thing that I could do with a new class to get them really reading and writing without any limiting fears was to demonstrate that good fast reading involved some error and self correction, real first-time writing was often quite messy, and spelling sometimes required me to have several tries at a word before I was satisfied with it.  Once students realised that they could read and write normally in our class, without the expectation of perfection first time every time, then they all became involved as readers and writers and the climate for accelerated learning became very healthy.

3  Expectation

While we expect our children to learn to speak we don't anticipate problems, get anxious about it, or rush out and seek specialist help at the first signs of an unexpected glitch in our children's grammar.   We know that they will master learning to speak properly eventually.  We expect it, we know it, and because of this we guarantee that it will happen.

Parents see learning to talk as a natural phenomenon and tolerate wide differences in development between children because there are no obvious 'ages' or 'stages' to measure the child against as there are with reading.  But parents and (some) teachers quickly  demonstrate their anxieties when children don't begin to read on time, or progress as fast as another child.  In fact, many children's literacy learning experiences are shaped by adults who are almost paranoid about them failing!  Children can sense this, and the resultant anxiety actually hinders the strategies they would normally use to read properly.  This then can become a self-fulfilling prophecy which is hard to break.

Just as we did with learning to talk, we must expect that our children will learn normally.  The first step is to establish what children can do right now.  Put your energies into observing, watching, and recording how your children read and write.  This is what they can do right now in reading and writing, and this is how they are doing it!  Of those things they are already doing what could they do better?  Select one small thing that they nearly know and show them how to do it better!  Every child can learn on this basis.  Expect that there will be a next step in their learning.  Expect that there will be progress from where they are at now.  Above all, have faith in their natural abilities and expect that they will eventually read and write normally.

In other words, don't set unrealistic expectations for your children based on what you think others are doing because the chances are that they won't be able to meet those expectations.  This will put pressure on them to perform and cause them anxiety and loss of confidence.  I have seen many children who have lost confidence in their ability to learn because everyone who is important in their lives is demonstrating to them that they are not meeting their expectations.  If the child translates this to mean that they are dumb, slow, inadequate, helpless, hopeless, etc, their continued failure is guaranteed. 

What we must do is to value children as learners, believing and expecting that progress will be made.  This will develop their self-confidence by accepting them at their present stage of development and reassuring them that what they are doing now is totally acceptable.  This means accepting and rewarding their attempts and approximations, even though we know some of them to be 'wrong', so that they remain involved in the process of reading or writing.  Using the analogy of learning to speak once more.....parents don't expect their toddlers to speak perfectly, and even reward them for their imperfect attempts, which has the effect of keeping the child involved in the process of trying to speak. This is the key: keeping the child involved in the process of learning so that independent future learning can occur.

It is vital that both teachers and parents know and understand that children develop at different rates.  Thus the art of good teaching is to value the progress of each individual from one stage to the next so that children are not directly comparing their progress with others; so that they continue to learn in a natural way, experimenting and approximating and remaining involved; continuously developing and refining their skills.  If we expect that children will learn, if we believe that they want to learn, then they have every chance to succeed.

4  Responsibility

Children are in control of what they learn about language. They decide what to learn, and when.  Because of this, most children reach roughly the same level of language development by about five or six years of age even though they progress through different stages at different times.

But what happens with literacy?  Many children learn to read early (before school).  They live in homes where they are immersed in literacy.  Literacy is demonstrated and engagement is encouraged.  They are able to learn through experimentation and approximation, are given feedback about their progress, and retain responsibility for their own learning with little or no direct teaching.  They are self motivated and independent learners who basically teach themselves.  

However, I see many children who are not at all responsible for their own reading.   I am constantly reminded of this when I ask a child to read and find the child looking at me to help out with an unknown word.  I usually ask them why they are looking at me instead of the book!  When I try to get them to solve their own problems I often find that they can't.  Someone has been solving their reading problems for them!  Someone has taken away a little bit of responsibility which should have been left with the child!  The adults who do this think that they are helping but in reality they are blocking the child's development.

When researching parent-child interactions I used to video children (with learning difficulties) reading to their parents.  Afterwards the parent and I would discuss what was happening as we reviewed the tape.  It was interesting to discover that almost without exception, the parent would hold the book, the parent would point out where to look, point to each word, point out mistakes, tell the child how to work out the word, where to resume reading, and so on.  The child did not make one decision during the whole process, except to perhaps begin crying to end the session.   Our starting point was to work out how to get the child to accept responsibility for his/her own reading, and this was often a very difficult and lengthy process for both parents and children, but a necessary one.  Once this was sorted out, progress quickly followed.

5  Approximation

Approximation towards the adult level of speech is continuously refined by the learner.  Parents expect and accept children's attempts and approximations.  Indeed, they reward their children for them.  For instance, when a child says, "Narna!" a parent might typically say, "Would you like a banana?" and give the child a piece of banana.  The child is rewarded for their attempt. There is no thought of "Narna" being wrong or unacceptable!  Parents act as if they understand that toddlers will learn naturally if encouraged to continue to approximate and experiment with such words.  There are many such examples of understanding and tolerance happening daily in every family.

However, many children experience a dramatic change in these rules once school begins.  Where attempts and approximations were acceptable before school (for speaking, eating, dressing, drawing, counting, singing, riding, tying, catching, etc.), reading, writing and spelling suddenly produce 'errors'.  The notion of being wrong and making mistakes is magnified.   Most children can handle this if it is managed sensitively within a climate of acceptance for approximations and experimentations.  But in some situations adults are not so understanding, and some children are less tolerant of being wrong.  The unfortunate result of this can be a change in the child's learning style where they begin to avoid being in these learning' situations, avoiding the task itself (reading, writing, or maths for example), and adopting behaviours which distract everyone away from the learning task.

In the classroom children sometimes think their own efforts are inadequate.  Sometimes an expectation of perfection is induced by an adult, but just as often children themselves misinterpret what they see happening around them and presume that everyone else is perfect, and that they are the only ones who have to approximate and experiment.  Often it is the brighter, more socially aware children who compare their performance with their peers and judge themselves harshly.  When the comparison turns out unfavourably a more cautious approach (with less approximation and experimenting) is adopted, with attention focussed more and more on correctness and neatness and less on the process of learning and understanding. They learn how to play safe, being  physically present and apparently busy producing 'work', yet not really engaging in the processes which produce real learning. In the most extreme cases they opt out of reading and writing tasks altogether, eliminating the risks by not getting involved.

With beginning reading we must tolerate a great deal of experimentation and approximation as the child struggles with matching voice and print, and tries to maintain meaning.  Even later, as the reader becomes more proficient, close approximations such as 'a' for 'the', 'house' for 'home', or 'pony' for 'horse' maintain meaning and should be accepted by adults, rather than be classed as errors and corrected - if the child is to be kept involved in the reading process.  This is the dilemma for some people because it doesn't appear to be a responsible course of action to allow miscues to go unnoticed or uncorrected!  Correcting every minor change only confirms to the child his/her inadequacies.  For a developing reader it is a totally negative and de-powering experience which results in loss of confidence and a change of approach in order to try to maintain the level of accuracy which is being emphasised.  Instead of taking risks with experimenting and approximating and solving problems independently, the reader is forced into a narrow, print-focussed approach which is much more physically and intellectually demanding.  At its worst this causes the meaning to be lost, even more mistakes are made, and a sense of failure becomes inevitable.

Similarly, early invented spellings are a sign that the child is involved in, and developing naturally as a writer, and must be encouraged.  The effect of over-correction without acknowledging the value of the attempts is to draw attention to the errors and emphasise the value of exactness, thus setting up a belief in the child that he must be right first time.  In extreme situations young writers are then forced to choose between writing only words that they know already (or copying them from somewhere), or finding an excuse not to write at all.  Many children opt for the latter and become reluctant writers.  

6  Employment (use)

Children learn to speak by using their language skills continuously.  For literacy it is no different.  Children must use their reading and writing skills in order to further develop their reading and writing (and spelling, handwriting, and grammar).  The message for teachers and parents is that good teaching demands that children are are engaged in real, whole learning tasks with hands-on experience as readers, writers, and problem solvers.  Skills still need to be taught, but at the right time - when the need arises.

Young children really need to spend time reading a favourite familiar book so that they can explore the visual aspects (pictures, illustrations, print layout), and try out the storyline; they need time to try to read and solve their problems utilising the approximation and experimenting techniques of matching word and voice, skimming and searching for key words or concepts, reading past problems, guessing and substituting words, and re-reading to establish meaning. They also need to spent time engaged with writing.  They learn to write through writing, but they need time and opportunity to write daily in an atmosphere of trust; they need to write for a purpose, for real audiences, and to make decisions about what happens to their finished writing products; and they need to enjoy the rewards that come from writing such as presenting to an audience and receiving their feedback.

I am always concerned to see children who are not engaged in learning.  Some are like that on the first day at school and never change.  Others are motivated at first, but lose enthusiasm for learning due to their experiences.  The tragedy is that it is rarely a learning disability or difficulty that initiates the inability to learn.  For instance a child with a slight delay in beginning to read could easily catch up if he/she read as much as the better readers in the class.  However, what often happens is that the child with a reading delay has the compounding problem of low skills, low motivation and low self esteem.  Compare two children of the same age in the amount of reading actually done during a week, and the quality of that experience in the hypothetical situation below:

I have painted an extreme situation here, but it is one which is played out daily in many classrooms despite the efforts of teachers to monitor the situation.  The amount of practice actually done guarantees that the gap between these two students can only widen.  Yet it is not only a comparison of time engaged in the reading process, it is also the quality of that process that is worrying here.  The child who concentrates and 'loses' him/herself in a book is practising and building skills and solving problems independently, building a stamina for literacy which flows across all subjects. It is a tragedy to see children who have the ability to learn opting out of reading by avoiding it.  In fact even where teachers and parents are aware of the problems their habits become so ingrained that it is difficult to improve the situation unless there is a focus on improving the attitude of the student.   This can be done by:

• close individual attention to the needs of the student

• teaching strategies to become a successful reader and writer

• proving that to all his/her audiences

• involving the student in meaningful, whole language experiences which demand the use of reading and writing, and

• involving parents in the process

Children with learning difficulties invariably report that they have spent most of their time focussing on skills - and they hate reading and feel guilty because they're not good at it, and their teachers (and parents) report that they have difficulty 'transferring' their knowledge and skills to the real task, they forget easily, lose concentration, and are unmotivated.  However, these afflictions disappear with the successful employment of meaningful literacy experiences.  These children can become involved once more, and develop into independent learners if they are allowed to use a natural learning approach with whole language projects.

7  Feedback

Feedback is the message, or information received by the learner from an audience, in this case in response to attempts to speak.  It is usually positive, non threatening, and focussed on meaning.  An example could work like this: the child attempts a word 'dink' and points to the cup.   The adult response is to register that the child wants a drink and to rephrase the request for the child:
      "Would you like a drink? 
       Say, 'drink please Mummy?'"       

The feedback for the child is to get the reward of the drink and the attention of the parent, as well as the word used in the context of a sentence.  It is important to recognize that the child is rewarded for the attempt or the approximation and is therefore encouraged to continue to experiment and attempt to use the language, gradually refining it towards adult speech. In this way adults respond to the meaning, not to the imperfection in pronunciation of the word `dink'. This feedback leaves the child very satisfied and ready to attempt more new things.

What happens with reading and writing?  Are natural attempts or approximations tolerated in the same way?   A pre-school child who attempts to write and draw will be praised for their efforts, and their work placed on display in a prominent position for everyone to see.  But once they start school is the feedback the same, or does it change?  When the child uses invented spelling in writing or makes mistakes when reading what type of feedback do they get? 

When we respond to children's reading errors, and inform them that their attempts are wrong and unacceptable, it forces them to adopt new strategies to avoid similar feedback in the future.  How tragic if our feedback changes their natural instincts and strategies and forces them to read more slowly, to examine the print more carefully, read word by word, stop using language cues (syntax or semantic cues), stop solving problems themselves, and try to decode as the prime problem solving strategy!  I am not exaggerating when I say that I have seen hundreds of children (with 'reading problems') who fit this description.  Fortunately they are easily turned around, and revert to using more efficient strategies once given permission to do so, and once their parents discover how to give them the type of feedback to keep their learning going.

It is the same for writing.  Feedback which focuses on errors influence children to revert to copying, using easier or known words only, or writing dull, safe sentences, and eventually writing less.  Quality feedback for writing is so easy because it simply focuses on the message.  Respond to the message the child has written, not to the scratches on the page!

Some children seem more sensitive to feedback than others.  Those who are naturally confident don't seem to be so affected by poor feedback, while others become most upset by it.  The difference between children who are vulnerable and those who are not can be described by examining their 'learning style', which includes attributes of personality such as self confidence, independence, and anxiety.  Click here to see more on Learning style.

Conclusion

When working across metropolitan schools I have been amazed to discover vast differences in children's attitudes to literacy from one school to another.  It was interesting that in a school with the most reluctant readers and writers the teachers explained that the parents' expectations were very high in this district so they had to be hard on the students and set their expectations high to match.   They translated this to mean many lessons teaching and testing skills, punishing errors, and rewarding accuracy and good presentation of work.  They prided themselves in their 'high' standards and blamed their students for their poor attitudes (and their poor behaviour too).  The children spent most of their time in spelling drills, grammar lessons, doing 'comprehension' exercises, and very little time reading and writing for real purposes.

Contrast this to a nearby school where the children loved reading and writing and the learning climate was very relaxed and open.  These teachers valued children's efforts and encouraged them to 'have a go' at all times.  The children wrote copiously, experimenting with different types of writing, using invented spellings and approximations for words which they couldn't yet spell.  They read their writing to each other and edited their work when it was going to be published.  The classrooms and the library were filled with books that children had written and they loved to go there at lunch times to read each others' works.  Behaviour was never a problem. 

The difference between these two schools was that the first group of teachers focused on their teaching and were mesmerised by their own 'high' expectations, while the other group focused on the quality of children's learning.  The first group thought that they had high standards, blamed their students, and fought the parents.  The latter group understood how to modify their teaching to encourage natural learning, established a culture where every child learned to their potential, and worked in partnership with their parents who valued and supported their efforts.

REFERENCES

Brown, H, and Cambourne, B, Read and Retell, Methuen,  North Ryde, 1987.

Cambourne, B, `Language Learning and Literacy', in Butler, A, and Turbill, J,
                  Towards a Reading-Writing Classroom, PETA, Rozelle, 1984.

Cambourne, Brian, The Whole Story, Natural Learning and the Acquisition of Literacy
                  in the Classroom, Ashton Scholastic, 1988, Auckland

Clay, M.M., The Early Detection of Reading Difficulties: A Diagnostic Survey
                with Recovery Procedures, Heineman, 1985, (3rd Edition), Auckland.

Clay, Marie. M., Becoming Literate, the Construction of Inner Control, Heinemann,
                 1991, Auckland