Online Literacy Interventions and Combatting Fear of Failure
A comment, regarding a student, has been going around in my head this week:
“I can understand the desire to not set her up to fail”
Let me explain the context, before you shout, “Dur, well, obviously…”
A while ago I spoke to a mom who home-schools her daughter. The daughter has dyslexia and severe difficulty with decoding. Her reading is far behind her age group, as is her spelling. Yet, she is a bright girl with lots of talent, particularly for dancing. She has very bad associations with learning, having been made to feel like she was stupid from a young age because of her difficulties with literacy. Consequently, she has avoided reading and writing for a long time and is now, at the age of 13, performing five years behind her age group.
Her mom has been keen to get her using an online literacy intervention program, so that she can work independently and boost her confidence in her reading and writing. The daughter now has access to an intervention program that she can use at home and will start soon, but it has taken quite some time to get her to the point where she is ready to give it a go.
Hence came the comment from a mutual friend: “I can understand the desire to not set her up to fail”.
I realise why it’s been going around in my head - it’s what we know already, but it’s easy to forget: the essence of this type of procrastination, from both the student and the tutor who knows that student, can be down to various factors, but it can also be stemming from the worry, or fear, of being set up to fail.
We know that failure can potentially cause feelings of anger, frustration, sadness, confusion, disappointment…the list goes on. For some, this can lead to the determination to get it right, so they try again. However, for others, if failure is repetitive and becomes the norm, and is accompanied by negative comments from people around them, it could lead to fear of failure. Failure, psychologists say, can trigger deep shame, and shame eats away at our ego, our self-esteem and sense of well-being. The outcome? Some individuals will avoid, at all costs, situations where they might be ‘set up to fail’.
This made me even more aware, than I am already, of how crucial it is for a literacy intervention program to set the student up to succeed – because the bottom line is that students like this will not want to continue with intervention if they start to feel even the slightest hint of failure.
So, what should a good online literacy intervention program do to set the student up for success?
There are lots of contributing factors that help ensure the student has a positive and successful learning experience. A good tool will be using a multi-sensory methodology, tapping in to all the senses so that the student is seeing, hearing, saying, checking. They will be revisiting words and sounds again and again in different ways and the activities will be designed to make sure the student is doing maximum self-checking, making the learning more effective.
However, there are some key factors within the design of a good intervention program that really help make success certain:
Step by step and at the right level…
Firstly, the student will be starting at the level that is exactly right for them. Activities will build up gradually, starting off with lots of support. The exercises will reinforce what’s been covered as well as introduce something new. So, at each step, the student is going to experience ‘passing’. In other words, they are going to be getting most of the work correct, and if they get something wrong, it isn’t really going to matter.
Supportive frame around the activities…
An intervention program should support the students as they work through activities. The support will be substantial at the start and withdraw as they get more familiar with what they are doing. Examples of this: syllables can be broken down first for reading exercises; the student, initially, gets to see words first before spelling them; there is more than one chance to get an answer right before it’s marked; for dictated sentence writing there may be some hints on the number of words and support with punctuation, as well as the chance to listen as many times as necessary. The student does not want to feel that the program is trying to ‘catch them out’, so this support is vital for a positive learning environment.
Positive marking…
Positive marking on a basic level means no crosses. An alternative to crosses is simply showing the correct answer for comparison. The student can then notice any errors and it’s likely they will get it right when it comes up again. Positive feedback comments, symbols, (such as gold stars) and level completion certificates can go a long way in making the student feel good.
Working independently online gives a sense of control and success…
With independent work can come a more relaxed learning experience. Students often enjoy the feeling of working to their own tailored program, not having someone watching over them. For the child who finds reading and spelling difficult, but who loves computers, a ‘cloud’ can be a comforting environment to work on literacy in private, in their own time, with gentle guidance from the tutor. The more relaxed and in control a student feels, the more likely he is to get things right.
Positive progress reporting…
An online literacy program needs to have a way of monitoring and reporting that summarises everything the student has covered and can do well. So, for those students who are far behind their age level, those who can only work very slowly and those who have lost a lot of confidence through bad experiences, there is a sense of progress and success right from the very first session.
There are many factors that contribute to a ‘set up to succeed’ experience - these are just some. They all contribute in improving the student’s results, boosting confidence and self-esteem and, ultimately, helping these students develop a more positive association with learning.
Hannah MacLellan worked as a Dyslexia & Literacy Specialist at Dyslexia Action for many years and now works with the Units of Sound development team. She has considerable experience working with and providing advice, training and support to schools, colleges, community centers and parents. Units of Sound has a home version, Literacy that fits, which is designed to get parents/guardians supporting their child at home without all the training that is involved with most intervention tools used in schools.
A comment, regarding a student, has been going around in my head this week:
“I can understand the desire to not set her up to fail”
Let me explain the context, before you shout, “Dur, well, obviously…”
A while ago I spoke to a mom who home-schools her daughter. The daughter has dyslexia and severe difficulty with decoding. Her reading is far behind her age group, as is her spelling. Yet, she is a bright girl with lots of talent, particularly for dancing. She has very bad associations with learning, having been made to feel like she was stupid from a young age because of her difficulties with literacy. Consequently, she has avoided reading and writing for a long time and is now, at the age of 13, performing five years behind her age group.
Her mom has been keen to get her using an online literacy intervention program, so that she can work independently and boost her confidence in her reading and writing. The daughter now has access to an intervention program that she can use at home and will start soon, but it has taken quite some time to get her to the point where she is ready to give it a go.
Hence came the comment from a mutual friend: “I can understand the desire to not set her up to fail”.
I realise why it’s been going around in my head - it’s what we know already, but it’s easy to forget: the essence of this type of procrastination, from both the student and the tutor who knows that student, can be down to various factors, but it can also be stemming from the worry, or fear, of being set up to fail.
We know that failure can potentially cause feelings of anger, frustration, sadness, confusion, disappointment…the list goes on. For some, this can lead to the determination to get it right, so they try again. However, for others, if failure is repetitive and becomes the norm, and is accompanied by negative comments from people around them, it could lead to fear of failure. Failure, psychologists say, can trigger deep shame, and shame eats away at our ego, our self-esteem and sense of well-being. The outcome? Some individuals will avoid, at all costs, situations where they might be ‘set up to fail’.
This made me even more aware, than I am already, of how crucial it is for a literacy intervention program to set the student up to succeed – because the bottom line is that students like this will not want to continue with intervention if they start to feel even the slightest hint of failure.
So, what should a good online literacy intervention program do to set the student up for success?
There are lots of contributing factors that help ensure the student has a positive and successful learning experience. A good tool will be using a multi-sensory methodology, tapping in to all the senses so that the student is seeing, hearing, saying, checking. They will be revisiting words and sounds again and again in different ways and the activities will be designed to make sure the student is doing maximum self-checking, making the learning more effective.
However, there are some key factors within the design of a good intervention program that really help make success certain:
Step by step and at the right level…
Firstly, the student will be starting at the level that is exactly right for them. Activities will build up gradually, starting off with lots of support. The exercises will reinforce what’s been covered as well as introduce something new. So, at each step, the student is going to experience ‘passing’. In other words, they are going to be getting most of the work correct, and if they get something wrong, it isn’t really going to matter.
Supportive frame around the activities…
An intervention program should support the students as they work through activities. The support will be substantial at the start and withdraw as they get more familiar with what they are doing. Examples of this: syllables can be broken down first for reading exercises; the student, initially, gets to see words first before spelling them; there is more than one chance to get an answer right before it’s marked; for dictated sentence writing there may be some hints on the number of words and support with punctuation, as well as the chance to listen as many times as necessary. The student does not want to feel that the program is trying to ‘catch them out’, so this support is vital for a positive learning environment.
Positive marking…
Positive marking on a basic level means no crosses. An alternative to crosses is simply showing the correct answer for comparison. The student can then notice any errors and it’s likely they will get it right when it comes up again. Positive feedback comments, symbols, (such as gold stars) and level completion certificates can go a long way in making the student feel good.
Working independently online gives a sense of control and success…
With independent work can come a more relaxed learning experience. Students often enjoy the feeling of working to their own tailored program, not having someone watching over them. For the child who finds reading and spelling difficult, but who loves computers, a ‘cloud’ can be a comforting environment to work on literacy in private, in their own time, with gentle guidance from the tutor. The more relaxed and in control a student feels, the more likely he is to get things right.
Positive progress reporting…
An online literacy program needs to have a way of monitoring and reporting that summarises everything the student has covered and can do well. So, for those students who are far behind their age level, those who can only work very slowly and those who have lost a lot of confidence through bad experiences, there is a sense of progress and success right from the very first session.
There are many factors that contribute to a ‘set up to succeed’ experience - these are just some. They all contribute in improving the student’s results, boosting confidence and self-esteem and, ultimately, helping these students develop a more positive association with learning.
Hannah MacLellan worked as a Dyslexia & Literacy Specialist at Dyslexia Action for many years and now works with the Units of Sound development team. She has considerable experience working with and providing advice, training and support to schools, colleges, community centers and parents. Units of Sound has a home version, Literacy that fits, which is designed to get parents/guardians supporting their child at home without all the training that is involved with most intervention tools used in schools.
