Long--How to TEACH---Low Performer's Manual by Zig Engelmann

[Guest guest]

***crosspost***

Some very cogent insights and information on how to teach a difficult/low

performing learner by Zig Engelmann, one of the authors of the Direct

Instruction curriculum materials and " How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100

Easy Lessons " .

He is one of the kings of how to effectively instruct ANYONE.

I hope that you find it as useful as I do,

Regina Frey

PS---please respect Zig's note on copyright. He has been working on behalf of

all learners, esp. the most challenged ones, longer than some of us have been

alive., and I would like to be sure that he is attributed for making this

publicly available.

" Prologue to

Low Performers' Manual (copyright, Zig Engelmann)

Note: I had promised to get the Low Performers' Manual on the website before

the end of summer. I didn't get it done on time. The reason was that some of

the parts were out of place in the only copies we had. So Jerry Silbert and I

spent a lot of time trying to put the manual in what seems to be an acceptable

order. I think we succeeded.

Framing the Low Performers' Manual

Over the years, a lot of people have asked me, " What do you do if you have

learners that are too low in language for Language 1 (Language for Learning)?

Is there anything out there? "

The answer is bittersweet. Yes, there are tight, specific and effective

procedures for teaching very low performers. We wrote up those procedures back

in the 1970s and called the work the Low Performers' Manual. However, the

chances of someone being able to execute the techniques without training is

slim. Even if you're a pretty good teacher, you'll probably need a lot of

demonstrations and a lot of practice before you can run the routines

effectively. Exquisite timing is essential. So are precise, effective

corrections. And possibly the biggest ingredient is responding appropriately to

the responses the learner makes. This game is not like following a script and

providing corrections when the learners produce a wrong answer or have a weak

response to a task that has one correct response. The game is to understand

your options for reaching a goal and be prepared to respond to whatever the

learner does—either with respect to behavior or to the correctness of the

answer.

You have to make up the example sets, following very tight specifications of

how to do it, and you have to be able to bring the learner to mastery on

everything you present.

The reason the Low Performers' Manual has never been published is that it has

never been submitted for publication. The commercial programs we develop will

work for the ordinary teacher who receives appropriate training. These programs

are not only for the elite teacher. Low Performers' Manual is not like

commercial programs because the directions for teaching the material can't be

packaged the way they can for a program like Language for Learning.

The overriding rule about low performers is that the lower the performance of

the learner, the more you have to know about the subtle details of teaching.

The very low performer will do lots of things that are basically " unexpected "

by most teachers. You have to know how to respond to all of the behaviors,

bring the learner back to the task, and teach the learner to mastery.

That does not mean aimless repetition of items or rituals in which you don't

really expect the learner to learn. Nor does it mean assembling lists of items

from IEPs and spending the school year trying to teach them. The learner will

learn if the teacher teaches well. But you have to know how to diagnose an

incoming learner, not with tests that document what you would observe in a few

moments, but with tasks that reveal not only what the learner doesn't know but

what kind of behavioral games the learner plays. What's his best trick to

control people who work with him? How much is that trick going to interfere

with teaching him? How strong is that trick and how much work can you

anticipate will be needed before the learner lets go of it? Answer these

questions and you'll know how you'll start working on the learner's behavior.

In the same way, the diagnosis of knowledge is relatively quick and simple.

But the most important rule, and possibly the most difficult one to teach

teachers, is that you have to start as close as possible to where the learner

performs, and you have to teach mastery. You can't achieve mastery if you

introduce tasks that are far beyond the learner's ability.

The worst teaching I have ever seen is with low performing children. I've seen

teachers prompt the answers by moving their lips or by always saying the

answers with the learners. And many teachers have a strong tendency to see what

they want to see. In the process, they become completely fooled.

Example: Strategies of some echolalic learners

In this case the learner doesn't understand yes-no but the teacher doesn't

know it. The teacher presents yes-no questions all the time, and the learner

answers them all the time not by repeating everything the teacher just said,

only the last part. The teacher does not identify this strategy and thinks the

learner is answering her questions.

" Would you like a chocolate cookie? "

" Chocolate cookie. "

" Of course. Here you are. "

Even if the teacher says something that contains a relative pronoun, the

teacher thinks that the learner is simply a little mixed up when he responds.

" Would you like to sit on my lap? "

" On my lap. "

" No, honey. I'm too big to sit on your lap. You come here and sit on my

lap. "

Another example:

" Would you like to walk with me? "

" Walk with me. "

" Yes, we'll walk together, won't we? "

I've seen aides who can get learners to respond to their routines when they

are in the cubby hole of the classroom. Take the learner and aide anywhere

else, and the learner doesn't respond to the same routine. Nor does the learner

respond to anyone else who tries to work with him in the cubby hole. Why?

Because the instruction was faulty. Just as you can expect high performers to

generalize what they learn to different people and different settings, you can

expect low performers to not respond to other people or other settings unless

the instruction is designed to anticipate this problem and obviate it by having

different people run routines as soon as the aide establishes them and to

regularly run these routines in different places (lunchroom, etc.).

Another area that generates incredibly inappropriate programs is speech. For

example the learner produces no identifiable words. However, the learner

produces many verbalizations that begin with m and f, " Mumufufee fumumafufoo. "

You're a behaviorist, so you believe that you'll start with words that begin

with m and f and shape the learner's repertoire by reinforcing closer

" approximations " of saying the words. You assume that the learner is trying to

communicate by naming things. So if the object is mustard and the child said

something that begins with " mu " , you would reinforce the child. If the object

is fence, and the child said something that begins with " fee " , you would

reinforce the child. If the child later said " feemu " , you could reinforce the

learner more lavishly because this response is a closer approximation of fence.

You work with the learner possibly 400 trials. The child produces more

reinforceable responses because the rate at which the child says utterances

that begin with m and f has increased greatly; however, the reliability has not

improved at all. If you present a flag and tell the child the name, the child

does not tend to produce a higher percentage of responses that begin with f.

The child just produces more verbalizations of the random variety. In other

words, You have now reinforced the learner to say the same verbalizations he

always did, except at a higher rate.

To teach this child anything about language or speech, you have to begin with

a sound that is not part of his superstitious rituals—any sound. If you present

a ball and teach any kind of stable response that does not have an m sound or

an f sound such as " ubu " , you've got something on which you can build. But

without a differential response that would not be produced in any situation,

you've got nothing.... "

(cont.)

http://www.zigsite.com/LowPerfomersPro.htm

" The Low Performer's Manual " ---note on copyright from Zig Engelmann- " -I hold

the copyright. Feel free to download and use. If you have a special use, or

want to publish it, check it out with me " .

http://www.zigsite.com/PDFs/LowPerfManual.pdf