[NIFL-LD:3907] Re: foreign lang.

From: Michelle Shuttlesworth (mshuttlesworth@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Feb 27 2002 - 14:21:51 EST


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From: Michelle Shuttlesworth <mshuttlesworth@yahoo.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-LD:3907] Re: foreign lang.
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> Second question ¯
> 
> A teacher came to me to ask for ideas and suggestions for
> a student she has who is struggling; she suspects this
> student, a recent immigrant from a country in Africa, has
> learning disabilities.  She often mispronounces words in
> English, moving consonants around and confusing vowels
> when either reading or speaking. Teacher suspects same
> thing happens in native language but, of course, wouldn't
> know. At any rate, this is making learning to write (and
> spell) tough on the lady ¯ ideas? suggestions?

Just a thought, but it may not be so much that she had this
problem in her native language as that the letters sound
different or some of the sounds in english are not used in
her native language.  Right now I am working with a man who
has lots of pronunciation problems (as well as spelling
problems) that mostly seem to stem from his very thick
accent.  Could it be the accent is getting in the way?  I'm
not so sure that I would jump at the label of learning
disability for her though.  How good is her basic speaking
vocabulary?

As for a suggestion, I've noticed with my student that
various discrimination techniques seem to help him.  Things
like which word ends with a 'd':'slip' or 'slid'.  Your
friend could also try working on words that only have the
vowel changed outside of a text situation.  If she saw the
words by themselves like 'had' and 'hid' she would be
forced to notice the differences between them.  With a
number of those types of exercises, it should build her
recognition of what vowel makes which sound.  Just a
thought.

Michelle

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