Good evening ladies and gentlemen. In recent weeks I have
talked about Mastery Learning. It is not just a technique of teaching a child
to ride a bicycle. That is little more than a single step process in the
process of education.
Mastery Learning in education is a very large strategy to
teach students the total body of language, science, biology and mathematics. It
involves hundreds of skills that need to be identified and categorized by topic
and level of difficulty.
To give all students the opportunity to understand, difficult
learning areas have to be broken down into smaller parts.
Each is presented as a problem exercise for students to
solve. From earlier grades, the levels are not high. The students present the
answer in their own words. This is the key to their growing skill in writing.
Too often, the students do not solve problems but copy
summaries from the blackboard. There is no thinking and no writing in their own
words.
In science, the grade 4 students may think of the following:
1.
Why does a chicken fluff its feathers at night?
2.
Where do chickens sleep at
night?
3.
Why do birds put their heads
under their feathers?
4.
Why do snakes sleep in the morning sun?
5.
Do they sleep on rocks or logs?
6.
Why do we put stones in a mumu?
7.
Why are cooking spoons made of wood?
Students develop an extended sequence of knowledge, skills
and integrated theory. Solving of problems comes first. The theory comes later.
Above we learn about conductors and insulators involved in retaining warmth of
the body, heating on conductor stones rather than on insulating wood.
But we use the same strategy in promoting writing skills. But
this requires the students to be skilled in reading, writing, comprehension and
expressing ideas in own words.
Young students learn to put sentences together in connected
patterns in the same way that we teach biology. A grade 5-6 class may combine
the following mastery patterns with the initial help of the teacher.
In the last week, I
showed you a sequence of patterns but there was no time to explain that there
are basic rules in writing.
Words should not be
unnecessarily repeated. Baby talk consists of mindless repetition of words. I live in a village. It is a small village. It is a village
on the Sepik River. I have a brother. I have a sister. My brother and sister go
to school. I go to school. I am in grade 6.
Sentences are combined
with subject and verb removed from the subordinate sentences. Words “but”,
“and” and “with” are key connectors. It was a beautiful
day. The sun was shining. The birds were singing. This becomes “It was a
beautiful day with the sun shining and birds singing”. Was was removed as
in was shining as well as “the” as in the birds.
Participles “having”
“looking” “travelling” and hundreds more can connect parts of a sentence. A
change in a sentence may require small adjustments elsewhere in the sentence. “He looked out the
window. He saw a ship. It was on the horizon” becomes “Looking out the window,
he saw a ship on the horizon”.
Students start in grade 6 at the age of 12-14 years old.
Their capacity to think is starting to grow. They can think more and more in
the abstract. They can express reasoned argument.
The students start to look outside their village and examine
issues related to he nation and world. They learn about pollution, environment,
war, problems of national development
Now the complexity of their written English and reading has
to rise. Students will suffer if they have no access to newspapers and books in
the home. If students are to succeed at
higher grades, they need to increase their knowledge and explain complex ideas
in more complex words and sentences.
They need to have laid the foundation from elementary school
to grade 5. They should end that time with knowledge of hundreds of words. It
is the teachers’ job to assist students to compile spelling lists and practise
skill in words with spelling tests.
It is good to hear reports from people in the nation that the
Education system should go back to teaching spelling by phonics. I taught my
daughters to read at the age of 5 by putting spelling lists and silly sentences
on computer. That is how Dr Seuss taught a generation of children to read in
the 1960s and 1970s.
can, ran, fan, man, van, tan,
bad, mad, sad, had, lad
tar, bar, far, car,
sit, pit, fit, hit, lit,
fun, bun, run, sun, gun,
funny, bunny, sunny,
tall, ball, hall, wall, call, small
________________________
The fat man sat on the tall hat.
The man ran to the van with a can.
See the funny bunny hit the sad man
I sit on the tall wall with a small ball.
Students will be ready for higher writing and reading if they
are skilled in sounding words, decoding and using an extended vocabulary.
Spelling lists need to come back so that by the age of 15 years, students
should know the spelling and forms of 1500 words.
The key to mastery learning of writing and reading is the
capacity to write in own words. This will enable students to write essays for
the Grade 10 and 12 Written Expression exams. They will be ready to apply for
employment with a polished letter that indicates high level of skill. They are
then ready to write reports, letters and memos in their employment and essays
in higher studies.
The key to Mastery
Writing is the ability to write in own words NOT just copy from a book or from
the blackboard. At higher levels of learning, this becomes known as plagiarism.
Thank you ladies and gentlemen. Thank you Mr Sike.
(827 words)
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