DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 098 562 CS 201 380

AUTHOR Taylor, Karl K.TITLE PEECOG: A Progress Report and A Second Report.PUB DATE Mar 74NOTE 11p.; Paper presented at the Midwest Regional

Conference on English in the Two-Fear College (Omaha,Nebraska, Feb. 28-Mar. 2, 1970

JOURNAL CIT Community College Frontiers; v1 ill p5-10 Winter 1972;v2 n2 p8-12 Winter 1973

EDRS PRICE MF-S0.75 HC-$1.50 PLUS POSTAGEDESCRIPTORS *Community Colleges; *Composition (Literary);

Perception Tests; *Reading Tests; *RemedialInstruction; Remedial Reading; *Teaching Techniques;Visual Perception; Vocabulary

ABSTRACTThese two reports discuss remedial classes at the

community college level. The first describes a series of tests thathad been administered indicating the students had both perceptual andvisual problems which interfered with their learning: the PeabodyPicture Vocabulary Test, the Purdue Perceptual Motor Survey, and theFrostig Visual Perception Test. The second paper relates thesuccesses and problems of teaching composition to remedial studentsthrough the use of diagrams, advertisements, and cartoons. (HOD)

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PERCOG : A PrOgrille EWA

Earl K. Taylor

James M. Jones, eighteen years ofd and a recent highschool graduate, is enrolling this fall at a communitycollege somewhere In the state of Illinois. Because hetanked in the lowest quarter of his graduating class,because he scored IS or below in English on the AmericanCollege Tests, and because his high school grades werevery low, he is a prime candidate for remedial help inEnglish. He isn't a weak writer; he's a terrible writer. Hedoesn't know the difference between a comma and asemicolon, between a fragment and a complete thought,between a topic sentence eId supporting evidence. And hecan't spell. Although many average students have theseproblems in writing, Mr. Jones has more of them thanmost do, and his errors are more illiterate than illogical.Perhaps one of the most conspicuous signs of his inabilityis that almost incomprehensible second grader scrawl.Whit kind of remedial help will he receive? It will eitherbe grammatical, emotional, or practical.

For years English teachers have looked at suchstudents as Mr. Jones and suggested that he study:,;; Ammar, complete exercises in programmed texts, anduntil very recently, diagram some sentences. Theadvocates of this approach said, if the student can't write,we must "begin with the basics"; we must teach himabout grammar either In a conventional tracked system(no longer fashionable) or in a writing clinic set up to helpthe student on an individualized basis (currentlyfashionable). in other words, no matter what method wasused the classroom or individualized instruction this"getting back to the Wks" meant a heavy stress ongrammar.

The basic problem with this emphasis was that moststudies have shown no relationship between student's'<nowledge of grammar and his ability to write. OtherJ..irtcoinings included dullness (the students detest it),petitron (students have studied graninar every year in

Erliool), and a sense of overwhelming ignorance (most,e,.ts deal with every conceivable grammatical oriiechani, al problem). Perhaps the most significant..:dt.nc. that this approach didn't work was that too few..tutients actually improved; James Jones would probablywrite no better at the end of the course than he did at thebeginning. He was, according to some teachers, too.8norar.t or too poorly motivated.

"That's it," other advocates said. "We must forgetq.:tinef grid concentrate on motivating him." So some

!. twin .; began using "now" readers dwelling oncontroversial, contemporary problems. If they couldarouse Mr. Jones' interests in the real issues of the day likerace Jet Mons, abortion, and the like, these teachers feltthey would be able to remedy Mr. Jones' problems. Nomatte( h'w logical the approach may seem, for most

"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS COPY.FLIGHTED MATERtAL. HAS SEEN GRANTED BY

Karl K. TaylorTo ERIC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATINGUNDER AGREEMENTS WITH THE NATIONAL INST1TutE Of EDUCATION FURTHER REPROOUCTION OUTSIDE THE ERIC SYSTEM REQUIRES PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHTOwNEr

people the method was no more tucassful than the !listone. Students had fun. but in the au& they add* writeany better. Too often students were peoviadal and weresimply uninterested or uninfonsuod about the subject; theylacked sufficient background to discuss or write about theIssues; and teachers invariably asked the students to writeargumentative papers which were beyond their ability.Finally, this method was probably unsueoeseful beamsnothing was taught directly about writing; enthusiasmcould not be translated into correct prose.

While teachers were arguing about the. merits ofthese two approaches, still others were contending thatstudents needed more practical assignments. They neededto learn how to write business letters, to comp** meantand to fill out forms. If the student saw the practicality ofthe assignment, according to these advocates, Mr. Joneswould be properly motivated because the etawere not artifice!, irrelevant. Pot some students thisjob - related English training was probably quiteappropriate, but it assumed that the student was teeming!.that he would always be a mechanic or a toolpanddiemaker. That may or may not alwsys be the case. Theproblem with this approach was that it virtually ignoredthe serious grammatical and mechanical problems and thatit relegated the student to a txmhud education andoccupation.

Having used all these approaches with vyingdegrees of failure, I began seriously to evaluate (in the fallof 1971) how writing could or should be taught to thegenuinely weak writer. My immediate problem was totIotstsuine how I was going to deal with a class oftwenty-sewn students who scored in the lower 10 percenton the ACT composite, who easily ranked in the lowestquarter of their MO school graduating dames. and whoread anywhere from the fourth to the eight grade level. Iwanted to "get back to the basics." Drawing a horizontalline representing a continuum, I theorized that point Arepresented where we begin to leant how to write and thatpoint B represented where we know how to writs. Point Xwould indicate where grammar instruction usually fig in sstudent's language development.

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Instead of exploring the usual sources, I beganstudying some of the now learning theories, particularlythe work of Plage, the Swiss ; sychologlst, J. P. Guilford,author of The Nature of .I is Intelltence andStructure of Intellect, and N. C. Kephart, the author ofThe Slow Learner in The Classroom, And I began to Nedabout the work of Carl H. Mimeo, who contends that,unless a child first crawls before he milks, serious

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Source: Community College Frontiers, Vol. 1, No. 1, Winter 1972.

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academic peobkms will develop later. In other words, iflew reviewing a child's unellectual development throughI kind of audemic Mar view minor. At the same time, Id.scussed my theory with a number of authorities ontuning: psychologists, apecisl education ittiffliefOrs,nptometrists, and even icindeprten and primary teachers.t,' retracing the steps in intellectual development, Itheorized that my students had not learned many things*Nth took place between A and X oo the diagram,somewhere on ,%e perceptivecognith, steps inintellectual ilevelot..:4nt. (Hence, my title.) In short, Ibelieved that "going beck to the basics" to grammarwas not sufficient. For some we must go back further.

Unfortunately, coming to this conclusion was muchmore difficult than what I have probably made It seem. Infact, the conclusion came inductively after I had begunthat remedial class mentioned before. Let ma share thoseexperiences. On the first day, 1 brought twenty differentdesigns to class; these diagrams (see page 10) weregeometric and varied in difficulty from the simple to thecomplex. After 1 explained who I was and identified thecourse, I selected what seemed the simplest diagram andasked one student to go to the chalk board. I then showedthe diagram to the rest of the class and asked them todescribe, to the student at the board, how to draw thedesign. When it was completed, I repeated the processwith three or four more diagrams which became steadilymore difficult and which called for three or four differentstudents at the board. During the second step is thesequence, I used a *oiler procedure one diagram, onemeat et the board but this time only on person fromthe class was alionsid to help the student at the board.Again, I reputed this method, covering three a fourdiagrams and using three or four more different studentssr the board.

In short, during the first week of class, we discussedhe fust ten disarms, and then we begin to relate these

drawings to composition. Accordingly, the students' firstAssignment was to draw a diagram of their own and todescribe in words how that diagram was drawn. (Thedesign was submitted with the paper.) I carefullyexplain.: that their work would be evaluated for only onequality clarity. Nothing else would be marked;parnmar, mechanics, punctuation or spelling would beignored And everyosse completing the assignment wouldpass. If a paper were clear, the student would feu* anA, B, or a C; the highest ends would go to the studentdrawing the most difficult diagram and explaining it best.If a description worse unclear, the student waived an "OK

revise," not an "unietisfsctosy." The student continuedto miss until his wait was dear Waugh to dome an A,II, or C. With this first aselgiunent, not a sin* first draftwas considered dear, rare my fault titan theirs because Ihad not anticipated their problems and taught them ailthey needed to know. When the flat draft was revised,

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toughly one-third of the class received s passing mdeWhen the themes were revhed ff,c * third time, inozstudents were aMe tea write papers. RoniitgY Ztpercent of the cies) Lad to revise this first assignment a.many as the times ti' make it acceptable.

When this first paper was turned in, honnves, it wasnot simply masked and returned to the student. Durinbthe third and fourth dais periods, I took all the bed papersand had their authors read them to studeots who tried todrew the diagrams at the board. What was imper iallyenomreging about this approach was that students werekomadhaly able to see why their writingwas not dear. Ifthe student at the baud could not draw the design, thepaper woo obviously unclear. liras have mu had to tellstudent that something he has writtenincomprehensible, you can appreciate the situations.Students smiled, not frowned, when someone atiocautzthem how their writing was vague. They understood, andthat is an unusual seconsplishment in an Belli* dew.

After the &a paper was written, the students wereasked to draw a second diagram and to papa» anotherthat paper describing how to draw it. In class lime weworked wlit some of my more difficult designs to givethem still more practice, and we added two steps to theprocess. With the third step the situation or mow wasaltered slightly one diagram, one student in the clangiving directions but now the student drawing thedesign could ask no questions. To make our writingdearer, we arrived at these conclusions:

1. Each paper had to begin with a sentencewhich gas, the drswersome ides of whet thewhole diagram locked like. This is knows, ofcourse, as the thesis sentence, but the termwas never used in clue.

2. Since many students left out stops in theirdescription, we derided that It would be butif the student drew a series of incompletediagrams, leading to a complete ono. Thus, Wecould follow the procedure more easily andno steps were loft out. Soon thereafter, wedecided that each step should be contained ina single paragraph for deem writing. Theresult was an inductive approach so WadingParagraphing.

3. To make our descriptions clearer, we alsodecided that most of the sides, Vase,intersection points and the like shosdd benumbered or lettered. Moreover, Mumdescribing circular figures we comperedpositions on the circle to *on on a flock.(See diagram numb/rod I I). For instailat. it ismuch dam if the writer eat say dust thedrawer is to extend a line from the nine

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o'clock position to the center of the circle andfrom there to the five o'clock position.

4. We also discovered that, in the more difficultdiagrams, the reader often got lost in all thedetails. Accordingly, we decided that thewriter should draw the Incomplete dI*gramadjacent to the paragraph describing that stepand that the writer should summarize whatthe diagram looked like when each step wascomplete.

The result of using these four suggestions was thatmost students did not have to revise their papers morethan once; their writing was dearly showing improvement.Even though some students were required to revise theirpapers several times, they did not seem discouraged,apparently because they knew that they still had a chanceto improve.

At this point, roughly the fourth or fifth week, Ifelt we were ready to try the fourth step with thediagrams. Therefore, I selected what I thought were thefive most difficult dlrgrams, and again I chose one studentto go to the board to draw each design. Instead of usingjust one student to give directions, however, I asked theentire class to help, but now they turned their chairsaround so they faced the rear of the room and wereunable to see what the student at the board was drawing.Gradually I tightened the situation: the student at theboard couldn't ask any questions, and only one person inthe class could describe the diagram. At first the dad hadproblems as might be expected, but by the fifth diagram,which is really tough, they performed magnificently.While working on this fourth step, we found it extremelyhelpful if the person giving the directions drew thediagram himself at his desk and if he continuallysuimnarized what the diagram should look like after eachstep.

By this point (near the end of the fifth or sixthweek), everyone was tired of the diagrams, and I felt thatwe needed to use a different and slightly more difficultsubject for the papers. Therefore, in my next assignment Iasked the students to select a cartoon which appealed tothem and to describe it what was in the foreground,what was in the background, etc. After their papers weresubmitted, evaluated, and returned, they were asked t;revise their papers and to add more information to theirdescription. This material was to include the audience towhom the cartoon was directed family, working class,mate audience, female audience, and the like. They werealso asked to explain the subject matter or purposepolitical, social, economic, etc. as well as to evaluatewhat made the cartoon funny.

Generally speaking, I found the assignment was afailure for several 'mons. First, the jump from the

diagrams to the cartoons was much more difficult andcomplex than I had anticipated. For instance, I discoveredthat although students could describe the people,places, or thhigx in the cartoon they did not or couldnot generalize about them. They could not, for example,conclude that a cartoon containing a middle4sed coupleand a teenage boy might rammed a family. To thestudents, the figures were a man, woman, and *boy; theydid not or could not evaluate then any ftirther. Second, Idiscovered that they could not explain what made thecartoons funny. Although I realized that humor was quitesophisticated, I felt that they would choose cartoonswhich they could understand. Th4, apparently was nottrue. For instance, one girl dim a cartoon containing adog, his owner, and s stranger; the dog is standing NW thestranger, whoa hat is in the animal's mouth. The caption,the wards of the owner, read: "Apparendy, you [thestranger ] said waste d% that offended him." When thegirl tried to explain the humor, she replied with afour-word fragment: "Because of the dog." Obvioudy thegirl's problem was more than an ignorance of gronsnu; itwas directly related to her 'Wily to think. She was eitherunable to put her thoughts into words or unable to en theimplications of the figures in the custom liotwastr, nomaster what the precise problem was, starting withgrammar was too advanced foe this perticular studstet Asyou can see, we wood from pure dincriptioo toevaluation or analysis, more difficult didlls but necessary:Ones if the student is to mend in higher level Bashcourses. At least part of the student's lack of sued I wasthe result of my failure to teach hot how to evaluate,analyze, or interpret.

For the next assignment, which hs two differentforms took the remainder of the aemetter, I asked thestudents to select an advertisement and to evaluate it asthey had the cartoon. In this *hustled, however, they notonly described it in the first draft, but they also had toanalyze it, again making the anignmeat a bit moredifficult than the previous Co.. In aaalyzh theadvertisement, they Iwo to touch as them meets: towhom did the ad appeal, what were the **ventage* ofbuying the product, how was the appeal to buy mask,what happened to the purchaser when he bought theproduct (i.e. he achieved status "by moving up to anOldsmobile"), and what types of *ppml were wed. Forsonic unidentified reason, the students wrote better onthis assignment than they did when describing andevaluating the cartoon. Several psychologists havesuggested the reason was that the students were dmplymore familiar with advertisements than the cartoons.Moreover, the element of analyzing humor was notpresent in the advertisement. The last ssalotment was acontinuation of the previous one. )r ally, let's say thatthe student selected an Oldsmobile salwrthoment todescribe and evaluate. Then, in this last $11141=0111.asked him to describe *pother Oldsmobile ad, but it hadto be 20 years old or older. When ho was finished, I asked

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him to combine these two advertisement assignments andwrite a paper in which he compared and contrasted them.The result was another batch of papers in which thedescription was adequate but the analysis inadequate.

At the end of the semester, I began to evaluate mywork and made these observations about the diagrams.

I. Perhaps as many as 20% of my students wereunable to determine their left from their right.Although this finding is not unusual, thepercentage is larger than experts wouldexpect.

2. Many students, when they saw diagramnumber I, could we no pattern whatsoever.For instance, the brighter students saw twocapital E's hack to back or a capital "I" with ahorizontal tine in the middle. The weakerstudents could see nothing more than threelines, apparently devoid of any form orpattern. The same students had difficultyunderstanding the difference Ismer. a topicsentence and supporting evidence.

3. Obviously, some students needed help withgeometric vocabulary, like length, height,horizontal, width, vertical, triangle, rectangle,etc.

4. Circular shapes presented special problems forstudents who had to describe them.

S. Students needed help in learning how togeneralize about a diagram, how to expresswhat the diagram looked like.

6. Generally speaking, I would say that thediagrams were too difficult for one-third toanabolic( the class.

About the cartoons and advertisements, I made theseobservations:

1. The jump from the diagrams to the cartoonswas too great.

2. Discussing the humor in the cartoons was toodifficult.

3. Perhaps the students were being asked toperform too many tasks at one time.

4. The order of the assignments cartoonsfollowed by advertisements would have tobe npoossidered.

Despite all these observations and findings,concluded that there were many advantages to the

approach if some of the problems could be solved.

1. Perhaps the most significant advantage wasthat the students liked to write about anddiscuss the diagrams.

2. Although many textbooks proclaim that thy;'teach the student how to think, few if an-,

actually accomplish this aim in any direr(way. Working with these diagrams verbdefinitely required the students to think andto determine how to do so clearly.

3. Since students ;r:. fed what they were doing,I believe that f were has inhibitedthey normally ws 44 be with a conventio f.:approach. I had r spontaneous outburstsone student inter. .1ted another to give 14

better way of describing a diagram.

4. Using this approach, I accidentally discovereda way of teaching extensporaneous speech inan English classroom.

S. Students immediately saw whether they weresuccessfully or unsuccessfully communicatingto a reader or listener. A pew, rather than theteacher, because the evaluator; the pawn atthe board could or could not draw thediagram described to him.

6. Since the emphasis was on explaining thediagrams and not on grammar, the studentimmediately saw the point of the class. Whena colleague asked one of my weaker studentsabout the purpose of the course, the youngman responded, "We're really learning how tocommunicate better, orally and in writing."

7. Using the diagrams made the class much moreactive than most; students were at boarddrawing, constructing the diagram at theirdesks as they heard the instructions, or jivingdirections. The educational prows vile activesand practical, not passive and abstract. No onefell asleep.

8. TM students became much better planners;they were beginning to anticipate theproblems which confront their readers orlisteners. In short, they began to think, and tothink precisely. Again when a colleague askedthe students !0 evaluate the class, theycouldn't quite Ltlieve how tough it was tocommunicate accurately.

9. Not surprhingly, this approach had a greatdeal of appeal for the mechanically orientedmales, especially those going into

vocationaltechnical fields. These studentshave always been hard to reach because ourmaterials have not been interesting to them.The diaeresis made them aware of the valueof careful communication.

10. Finally, using my grading and revision policy,I was inductively leading students to theproblems of grammar. The inductive approachseemed much better because the studentswere not taught something until they neededto know it. Then they remembered it. For themost part, much education is presenteddeductively before a need-to-know iaestablished.

My list of problems with the approach isembarrassingly short. The shortness is embarrassingbecause it implies that I had fewer problems than Iactually did and because I know that many moreproblems exist which I have simply overlooked or failedto understand.

1. Experience shows me that the diagrams arenot in the proper sequence from thesimplest to the hardest. I must reining.them.

2. I need more and different kinds of diagramsmore circular forms, more figures, numbers,and letters hidden in them.

3. I need to be able to evaluate how difficult agiven task is for the students.

4. More work has to be done on bridging thehuge gap between the diagrams and thecartoons.

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If Mr. James M. Jones comes to Illinois CentralCollege this fall, he will not be pieced in the traditionalEnglish class which could be classified as grammatical,emitional, or practical. Instead, he will be takingPERCOG. In cooperation with the George A. Zan ZoneCenter, a mental health facility in Peoria, Illinois, Mr.Jones will rust undergo a series of screening tests todetermine if he suffers from any serious visual or *memproblems. (The student, however, will never be told thatthe personnel normally work at a mental health center.) Ifhe does have problems, therapy will be offered at thecenter or at the College. Yes, he will be writing aboutdiagrams, cartoons, and advertisements, but he will bebetter prepared to do so. As I presently visualize the clam,the diagrams will fall somewhere near the middle of thesemester. If the diagrams were too difficult for perhapsSO% of last year's class, we must do something Amplerfirst. What will we be doing? All my research indicatesthat we must deal with skills which youngsters learn fromkindergarten through fourth grade. These skills an theptemptual-cognitive ones, necessary for logical thought.Authorities have helped me theorize that thew studentshave learning disabilities very similar to those of childreneight or ten years younger. With more sophisticatedmaterials, we are going to observe and practice, forinstance, chronological order. As a prelude to written,formal instruction in organization, we will be classifyingobjects. To teach analysis, comparison, contrast, and thelike, we will be viewing slides and films to which studentswill be asked to respond orally. We will be trying toimprove visual and auditory memory by recalling lists ofwools or numbers. In short, although he is eighteen yewsold and a high school graduate, James M. Jones will bestudying reading readiness at Illinois Central College.

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percog :a second report

KARL K. TAYLOR, English Professor and Coordinator of Developmental Program, Illinois Central Colkgp

I was probably six or seven years oldwhen I first met a person who did not speakthe English language. It was years ago whenmy parents and I were vacationing in Canada;we had just stopped for gasoline in a smalltown several hundred miles from Montreal. Asthe attendant was filling the tank, I rolleddown the window and asked him the distanceto our destination. To my suprise I couldn'tunderstand his response, the broken Englishand French which the man was speaking.Patiently he tried to explain that he did notknow my language; I couldn't really grasp themeaning of a communication barrier because Iwas so young and because I had always beeninsulated from languages other than English. Ina moment of insigh? I leaped beyond thecomplexities of linguistics to arrive at arevolutionary method for overcoming thisbarrierby speaking very slowly andshouting. Needless to say, from that particularattendant, I never learned the distance toMontreal.

When faced with disadvantaged studentsor low-achievers, we educators have beenshouting, in a sense, for years. At least we havenot been listening. Because a student wasunable to perform the tasks we expected ofhim, because he was leaving (or disappearingfrom) our courses without apparentlyimproving on any of the skills we wereteaching, we were Inclined to place the blameor responsibility on the student. We assumedeither he had a poor attitude (for which wetook nu responsibility) or he was notIntellectually capable of handling the work, asituation over which we had no control.Although the community college was designedto assist these disadvantaged students, I doubtwhether a very large percentage of students has

been successful in college; many teachers stilllook upon failure as primarily the students'responsibility and we educators have tooseldom taken the time to exr aline ourmethods. We have failed or refused to considerour role in the student's failure. We have failedto consider whether our methods orapproaches are involved in or related to thestudents' failure. For instance, if a student hasgone through 12 years of instruction before hereaches us, how can we assume that repetitionof the same kind of instruction or the use ofthe same instructional techniques will be anymore successful now than they were before?

If the students' problem was a poorattitude toward school, perhaps an Improvedself-concept in college or simple maturationwill result in success for the students who haveonly known failure previously. However, themare other students who do not have poorattitudes and who do not succeed in college forother reaso-is. Do all these students fail becausethey don't have the ability (obviously some do)or because we have overlooked something;Could the problem be more complicated thanstudent attitude or ability; Could somethingelse be preventing these students from learningwhat others have mastered years before?

As I hear these "universal truths"(student ability and motivation) used with suchease, I'm haunted b., the voices on the BayerAspirin commercial: "The world is flat! Theworld is flat!.. If men were meant tc fly, theywould have wings. . ." With a puzzled mind, Ibegan to reconsider what sort of remedial workin English should be offered to the communitycollege, and I explained some of my work atIllinois Central College (a public communitycollege located in Peoria) in the winter, 1972,

Source: Community College Frontiers, Vol. 2, No. 2, Winter 1973.

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issue of Community College Frontiers. In thatarticle, I expressed my view that we educatorswere making too many assumptions aboutthese students, that with much of ourinstruction, we were treating symptoms ratherthan causes. To substantiate my theory, Imentioned that we were planning to administera battery of tests in the fall of 1972, and theresults, in some instances, have borne out whatI expected. Community college remedialtechnics may be as primitive and naive as thoseof the youngster trying to communicate withthe Canadian service station attendant.

During the fall of 1972, the collegesecured the services of two testing agencies anda coordinator for the project. The PeoriaCounty Health Department agreed toadminister vision and auditory tests, whileZeller Zone Centera state mental healthfacility in Peoria was responsible for severaldifferent types of tests. They were concernedwith speech articulation, with oral vocabulary(the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test), withperceptual motor problems (the PurduePerceptual Motor Survey), with dominance,and with visual perception (an altered versionof the Frostig Visual Perception Test). Tosupervise all the testing, the college hired aconsultant who had helped design a battery oftests for the local Head Start Program. Thepurpose of all these evaluative instruments wasto determine if this particular group ofdevelopmental or remedial students hadproblems which prevented them from learning,

determine if they had learning disabilitieswhich could not be overcome simply byincreased interest in educltion or an improvedattitude toward it. In short, we wanted to learnif these students had characteristics which setthem apart from their peers who were enrolledin college transfer courses; and if so, we wantedto learn what kind of instruction was necessityto meet the needs of these underachievers.

Vision tests

If you are like most instructors ofremedial courses, you have always assumedthat students could see by the time theyreached your class. This assumption isextremely questionable. Since testing thosestudents who wore glasses might be consideredunethical, our com...itart suggested that we testonly those who did not wear glasses. Because

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we had neither the time nor the facilities andbecause the consultant did not feel that manyof our students would have visual problems,the tests were short and not very thorough.Ou: purpose was to screen the students forgross problems and to direct them to wheremore complete examinations and care wereavailable. If a student failed an exam, he wasreferred to the school nurse who retested him.If he appeared to need visual care, he was laterreferred to local doctors; and if the studentcould not afford the examination or prescribedcare, local service organizations were contactedto help him.

Soon after the testing began, a pattern ofsimilar ailments began to appear. The mostcommon problem was binocular coordination,the failure to make both eyes functionsmoothly together. This particular condition ismore directly related to learning problems thanto sharpness of vision and was also noted bythe personnel from Zeller who found studentshaving trouble tracking. The students haddifficulty following an object moving from leftto right in front of their eyes and from adistance to within a few inches from their eyes,an obvious problem when students would becalled upon to read for any length of time or toread something from the chalkboard. Is it anywonder that they don't like to read. We evendiscovered a young man who was completelyblind in one eye, the result of an air gunaccident years ago, yet the student had nevergone to a doctor for an examination ortreatment. The results of the testing, then,were quite surprising because we had notanticipated such a large failure rate. Of the 52students in the experimental group who didnot wear glasses, 29 students or 55 perc_entfailed.

In the midst of our work, when wediscovered so many students were failing theexam, the consultant concluded that it wouldbe wise to test those students who wore glasses,assuming many of their corrective lenses wouldnot be current. Also, he felt that a controlgroup would give us some idea of how universalthe problem might be in a more "normal"population.

Those remedial students who wore glassespresented us with some unusual problems.Many of them were wearing lenses that hadbeen prescribed years before and that were no

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some who had not had their eyes examined forfour or five years. As a result, some studentswere wearing glasses which did not fit themproperly or which were no longer current. Inother cases, they no longer would wean theirglasses-even though they neededthem-because the frames did not fit. Anotherproblem with these students was that they didnot like to wear glasses because they felt theirlooks were affected. The teachers in ourprogram continually had to prod one youngman to wear his although his left eye wanderednoticeably, and he obviously could not seewell. So, even though we determined thatglasses were needed, many students werereluctant to visit a doctor or to wear the lenses.

Specifically, of the 29 students in theexperimental class who wore glasses, 11 (or 37percent) were encouraged to have their lenseschecked because they did not appear to becurrent. Such visual difficulties were cotcommon in the control group; no one failedthe exam, but the sample was too small (only10 student.) to draw a valid conclusion. Inshort, the vision tests indicated that almost 50percent of the Developmental students 00 outof 81) had some kind of vision problem.

After making these discoveries, we beganwondering how effective public healthdepartments are in detecting vision difficultieswhen the children are in elementary andsecondary schools. The stumbling block isstaffing. For the 35,000 children in the PeoriaCounty public schools, only one coordinatorand three examiners were available in the fallof 1972. The task is so huge that the publichealth department estimates that it is unable toexamine a student more than twice duringelementary or secondary school-sometimenear kindergarten and once around fifth grade.The department is unable to test manyjunior-high or high school students even thoughthe greatest natural changes in the eye takeplace during puberty.

Auditory testLig

Again, Peoria County Health Departmentwas responsible for the auditory testing, usingportable audiometers which are designed todetect gross problems. If a student failed thistest, he was retested by the school nurse. If hefailed a second time, he was referred to theHearing and Speech Unit at Zeller where he

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would undergo more thorough tests, andarrangements would be made for possible care.Initially, only four students out of 77 failedthe exam. Later, when the school nurseretested those who had failed originally, shefound no evidence of hearing loss; and no onefrom the control group failed the testing.

Speech Testing

Personnel from Zeller Zone Center wereresponsible for administering speechexaminations to ascertain whether or not anyof our students needed speec.. correction.Those with deficient speech were referred bythe school nurse to Zeller, where furthertesting was offered and arrangements weremade for therapy. Of the 77 students tested,three failed; but in the control group allpassed.

Peabody Picture Vocabulary

Zeller was responsible for giving thePeabody Picture Vocabulary Test which isdesigned to evaluate a student's auditory,rather than reading, vocabulary. Consisting of abooklet of pictures, four per page, the test issupposed to be without cultural bias andassumes a student may be able to use certainwords orally that he may not recognize inwritten form. Thus, the examiner pronounces aword itnd asks the student which picture bestrelates to the word. The student's Peabodyscore Is calculated in relation to hischronological age; therefore, if he is 17 yearsold, he is expected to have acquired aparticular vocabulary. To fail the examination,Zeller established that a student's score had tofall 18 months below his chronological age. Ofthe 79 students who were tested in theexperimental group, 41 failed. All members ofthe control group passed.

Purdue Perceptual Motor Survey

Although educated opinion (there is noavailable research) indicated that college-agestudents should have overcome or compensatedfor any perceptual motor prop fe:-. s, personnelfrom Zeller administered parts of the PurduePerceptual Motor Survey to our students. Theresults from our tests indicate just theopposite; however, we are uncertain about themeaning because these tests have never or

rarely been given to adults. Specifically. thetests included instruments which measuredgross motor movements, particularly bilateral,alternating, and integrative coordination. Forfine motor coordination, we tested ocularmotility, the ability to move one's eyessmoothly from left to right and in variousdirections, a vital reading skill.

In pPneral, the personnel from Zellermade the : observations about the students.First, they seemed to have great difficultytranslating oral instructions into the actionsbeing requested, or it took them an unusualamount of time to do so. For example, when astudent was asked to hop on his left foot once,on his right foot twice, and to continue thissequence for a short period of time, often theexaminer was required to demonstrate the taskso the student could understand what he wasto do. Such difficulty in understanding is morecommon to much younger students, and thisproblem has special meaning for instructors.For instance, following a lecture would bedifficult for these students, and multipleexamples and demonstrations would benecessary if they are to understand. Second, asmentioned, the students had significantproblems with ocular motility: they wereunable to move their eyes smoothly from leftto right and from far to near following anobject held by the examiner. Because thisproblem was so prevalent. we assumed that itwould appear in members of the control group,but it did not. Of the 76 in the experimentalgroup who took the perceptual motor test, 25or 33 percent of the students failed.

In addition to the ocular motility testing,we asked each student to reproduce two simplegeometric formsa diamond and a dividedrectangleas another measure of visualperception and fine motor coordination. Sincethis test is seldom if ever given to adults, theconsultant was uncertain about what shapes heshould ask the students to reproduce.Therefore, since he had used the diamond anddivided rectangle in testing elementas-y studentsand because there was research supportingthese forms, he decided to use them eventhough he felt they would probably be tooelementary.

As was common in much of the testingduring the semester, we discovered many moreproblems with visual perception than we hadanticipated using even these elementary forms. fl

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percogThe most serious case is illustrated by theaccompanying drawings. The student wasshown the diamond and divided rectangle andasked to reproduce them as he saw them. Afterhe had finished, the examiner asked if thereproductions were the same as the originals,and the student thought so. Of the 65 studentstested in the experimental group for visualperception problems, 22 or 33 percent failed.All members of the control group passed.

Dominance testing

Zeller was also responsible for tests ofdominance, a controversial area in educationalresearch. Dominance refers to the side of thebody which a person favors as he functions, andaccording to some authorities, dominance isestablished when a child crawls. If a person isright dominated, he is right-handed, right-eyed,and functions best with his right leg. The same istrue of people with left dominanceleft eye,!eft leg, and left hand. However, if a studenthas mixed dominance, he may be right-handed,left-eyed, and favor his left leg. Dominancerelates to laterality (being able to distinguishbetween left and right) or to directionality(one's place in space). If one has not overcomeor compensated for a dominance problem, hemay be confused internally, may havedifficulty giving or following directions, andmay have orientation problems in moving hiseyes smoothly from left to right, a readingskill.

The significance of mixed dominance for12 learning is unclear. Apparently, a large number

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of people have mixed dominance (includingsome of my colleagues) and are able tofunction academically without difficulty. Stillothers seem to be affected by dominanceproblems, and their academic work suffersbecause of them. Nevertheless, at this point allwe can say is that a number of Developmentalstudents had mixed dominance and none in thecontrol group had it. Of the 69 students tested,23 had mixed dominance. Of those 23students, seven dropped before we couldevaluate their work, 11 were considered veryweak students, and five were regarded as atleast average in ability. More than half of thosetested either did not know their right handfrom their left or they showe_d_great hesitancywhen asked to point them out. Obviously,more research must be done in this area beforeany valid conclusions can be drawn.

Summary

If only one comment can be made aboutall this testing, I believe we can say, withconviction, that the problems of theacademically disadvantaged are much morecomplicated and varied than most of us havepreviously believed. Obviously some studentsimprove when their attitude toward educationchanges and when they mature. But still othersneed more evaluation before we start teachingthem how to improve their math, English, orreading. Trying to teach them the basiclearning skills without previously testing themfor any physical problem may perhaps be liketreating a symptom rather than a cause.

In light of these results, we repeated thetest battery in the fall of 1973, to verifywhether or not our findings were unique to acertain group of students. Further, we sought astate grant, with the cooperation of ZellerZone Center, to duplicate our testing atMoraine Valley Community College ire PalosHills. (At this writing no action has been taken .

on the grant.) Our purpose is to determine ifI.C.C. students are :'nique, or if all the visiondifficulties also are common to disadvantagedstudents in the Chicago are?. Finally, thesetest findings have significantly altered thecontent of our Developmental coursesnolonger do we feed warmed-over transfermaterial to less than transfer students. And weare continually developing materials which willimprove the students' pre-reading andpre-writing skills. Air