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Clinton News-Record, 1979-12-13, Page 1114th Year —No, -5Q em Thursday, Decber 43,, (9.79 • Secondsection Tom Lyon, a teacher at Clinton Public School, accompanies the ukulele group with his bass at a recent professional development day for teachers. (School photo) Doris McKinley. . from Huron, Centennial Public School demonstrates ukulele methods at a workshop for teachers held at Clinton Public School on Wednesday evenings. (School photo) • by. Elaine Townshend "Do you know what these words are, Elaine? Is there any word that you recognize?" asked my tutor as she held up a poster and pointed at some black lines and circles. "No," was all I could answer. "These are words we use every day, and you don't recognize any of them? All right. 'Let me show you. What's this a picture of? "A bo " Y• "Right. That's a boy. And to say the word 'boy' what was the first letter you had to sound?" "b". "b".- That's right," • She pointed to a word beside the picture and explained. "The sound of the letter is •"b" and the word is boy. Can you say it again?" Boy. "Good! See the fat jowly cheeks of the boy in the picture?" she continued. "In writing, we use full circles, half circles and lines straight up and down. Here we have a straight line and the jowly cheeks of the boy help to make the letter "b." Just like you have a name, Elaine, this letter has the name "be." Can you say 'be'? " Be.'' "And what's the sound of the letter?" • „b "And what's this word. again?" kulele proves invaluable music teaching tool As a tool for music education in our schools, the ukulele is incomparable. More and more teachers all across Canada are swinging to this point of view, not least among them some 40 elementary teachers and rrausie:supervisors from Huron County schools here in Southwestern Ontario. They met on October 29, a Professional Activity Day, with J. Chalmers Doane, Supervisor of Music Education in the Halifax Public Schools, for an all -day workshop at the Huron Centennial School, Brucefield. A call had gone out to all interested teachers to sign up and get together on that day for some very high quality instruction from Mr. Doane and his assistant, Mrs. Jody Wood, who had stayed over from the Ontario Ukulele ° Workshop. in Toronto so they could be with them that Monday. The response was heartening. Four follow-up sessions were to come after the introductory workshop, where teachers could build on the skills learned from Mr. Doane. The day with Mr. Doane and Mrs. Wood was a great success, with lots of singing, strumming, picking, to say nothing of the fact that so many came away convinced now that the ukulele was a far more versatile instrument than ,most had heretofore believed it to be. Besides straight strumming and chord learning, the teachers were led into the possibilities presented by off -beat accents, pi ,king of scales, and melodies, singing with four-part harmony, (it makes you shiver) and the great sound of the soft pic as demonstrated by the ,'Ukuleles Unique of Huron Centennial School who performed under the direction of their teacher and conductor, Mrs. Doris McKinley. Mr. Doane and Jody gave several ukulele solos, executed with fascinating skill and the teachers heard about functional piano and functional -bass, and Mr.' Doane taught a demonstration lesson to a group of beginners, children from grade 6 in Huron Centennial School who are just ready to begin playing the ukulele. There was excitement in the air and eagerness to get on with the follow-up sessions the next week. The follow-up sessions were held in Clinton Public School on four Wednesday evenings, November 7, 14, 21 and the last one was slated for December 12th. In these, the two able instructors have been Doris McKinley and Joan Perrie, assisted by three others who had been to several ukulele workshops, provincial and national, and who were at present teaching ukulele in their own schools. .They are Mrs. Audrey Haberer, Chris Eagleson and Hugh Sinnamon. Instruction has been on twb levels, with the sessions starting at 1:15 sharp, going to about 8:45 and ending with a mass wrap-up session where we all play and • sing together. The advancement in learning to accent the strum, find the chords, and pick the melody has been gratifying. We have•even started to harmonize D scale. By 9:15 everyone is sung, picked and strummed out so we break up and go our separate ways home. All participants have left these evenings with new skills, ideas, material which they can use in their own programs, to say nothing of the, inspiration they have received and satisfaction they have derived from mastering the rudiments of in- strument playing. The instructors entertained the group on the 21st with their version of "Plaisir d'Amour", complete with cross -string pic and continuous tremolo, which was well-received. More solos and duets are said to be cooking. All in all, the workshops and follow-ups have given a great lift to ukulele playing in Huron County. We thank Mr. J. Coulter, Superintendent for the Huron County Board of Education whose' inspiration' it was to implement this program using those who had been away to Toronto and Halifax on workshops as resource people. Listen for the sound of the magic uke, for it is bound to be heard in- creasingly in the schools of the county. Dave Kemp from Huron Centennial Public School in Brucefield helps the senior students learn ukulele during special noon hour periods. Cindy Reimer is intent on learning the proper chords. (School photo) help illiterate adults in Huron to read "Boy." "Very good! You've never read before and now you've read the word "boy." Isn't that great?" The purpose of the exercise was not to teach me how to read Russian, which was the language used, but to give me insight into the experiences of the million Canadian,.adults who cannot read or write. My tutor was Mrs. Sheila Fink of Goderich, who for the past two years, has operated an Adult Basic Education program in her home with the help of four tutors. They now have five students, two from Goderich and three from other parts of Huron County. One in 13 Canadians are functionally illiterate, says Mrs. Fink. To be func tionally illiterate means they cannot read newspapers, recipes, shopping labels and notes sent home from school with their children. They cannot write cheques or fill out forms for job applications. Many people wonder how illiteracy can happen in Canada. The reasons are varied. Some children miss school because of illness or emotional upheavals in the home. Some families move from place to place, and each time the child enrolls in a new school, he or she falls .farther behind. Some students are not motivated, others have minor learning Shelia Fink t 'o o derlc `s hs one of e teeth in g n0 erttb rrossedto admit it.hdordsused to teach ilitteiato adults, how to road he r elp thorn to toad oln In r#s nQ l thele ar a 1arr a num er of adults In t �ru� i g , � � ,,.,. � who � . ,,.. � ., . byElaine owtishend) r fir. r nd and nee t r n county don t 1t o W n aisa4riitIes mat are . not recognized in time. The teaching method used by Sheila ,Fink and other tutors of Adult Basic Education is called the Laubach method. Dr. Laulaach, a missionary,. went to the Philippines in the 1930s to teach a par- ticular tribe how to read and write in their own . language - the Maranaw language. Dr. Laubach discovered adults learn best through association. Teaching an adult is almost a reversal of teaching a child, because an- adult has had ex- periences in life. He knows what a bird is; he may not know how to read or write the word, but he knows what it is. The Laubach method uses the phonics system and 'familiar words in the adult language, such as bird or cup. The method goes from the known to the unknown - the spoken word is the known; the written . word is the unknown. Dr. Laubach also found adult students could learn the whole alphabet in a few minutes. When .one student learned, Dr. Laubach sent him out to teach another; the Laubach premise is reach one, teach one. •He developed teams whose aim is "to enable adults to learn to read and write in the language which they speak, to do it quickly and enjoyably." During the past 40 years, the Laubach method has been processed in 313 languages representing 105 countries. • Sheila heard about Adult Basic Education and the Laubach teaching method in 1977 when Freida MacDonald, co-ordinator of London's A.B.E., and Terry Porter, assistant co-ordinator, talked on a local radio program. Freida MacDonald orginated Adult 'Basic Education in,;tondon 10 years ago. She began with one student; now she has 103 students and more than 80 tutors around the city. She also helped to organize centres in St. Thomas, Inger- soll, Woodstock and• Stratford. couraged to buy their own books, which Sheila contracted Freida and Terry in cost $2 a piece. Each Skill Book includes a 1977 and attended one of their workshops for tutors in London. Then she wrote to the social agencies in Goderich to let them k-ridw she was qualified to teach people who could not read or write but were not retarded., About a year later, Freida MacDonald, Terry Porter and a student and tutor Education are to give individual, in- struction from a prereading level oto a grade eight level to anyone who wishes to upgrade his or education but has no other avenue of learning. The program does not take school age children and cannot accommodate mentally handicapped people. Special programs are available to the mentally handicapped, and A.B.E. tutors are not qualified to give this special instruction Six Huron County students have at- tended A.B.E. classes in Goderich regularly in the last two years. One had to move but is continuing his studies in another centre. They could not read the newspaper article, but were made aware of what was available by family mem- bers and social agencies, such as Family and Children Services, Guidance Departments in High Schools and Literacy Canada. The next step was up to them, and it was a difficult one. Sheila explains, "It's a big step to come to me and say, 'I want to learn to read and write. Will you help me?" The students are -all working, but they know they are missing opportunities for promotions and more enjoyment in life. they can obtain upgrading and understanding. The relationship between the student and his or her tutor becomes close. "It's very exciting," points out Sheila, "to hear a 40 or 50 -year-old woman reading for the first time in her life!" Classes are held in Sheila's. home each Monday from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm between October and May. Each tutor and student has a room in which they can work privately, and each student progresses at his or her own speed. Sheila is already planning ahead for larger ac- commodations when the number of students and tutors increases: Huron , County Public Library has supplied teachers' manuals and other resource materials. Students are en - from r. ou Sh, . ellen a dp 'lite e le iGod It's out siril n� p • (photo prbg Thi London spoke to a ladies church V '. article and an rfr e was carred in tha ich newspaper. Since then, the rut r has e rdwn . bjectiv'es of Advil Basic reader, practices, and check ups. And when the student completes each book, he or she receives a diploma issued by Laubach Literacy International, Sheila has books from the grade one to grade five level. When the students complete grade five, they are reading fluently and are able to read newspapers and figure out recipes; many, will go no farther. Howr. ve if sortiet ... s udents want to continue, two. trained teachers have volunteered a tutors and will be able to teach the sieVen and eight. I eels of Math and English. No special training is needed to become a tutor. Besides the two former teachers, the Goderich tutors include a housewife, a retired librarian, and Sheila, who is a secretary - Flight Executive Director for Business Air Services at the Airport. The only requirements of a tutor are compassion, patience, sensitivity and a desire to help -people. The tutor must be able to give two hours once or twice a week; tutor and student can meet in the tutor's home, the student's home or the school, which at the present time is in the Fink home in Goderich. Huron County tutors are invited to attend workshops in London, which consist of two three-hour, • sessions. Anbne can teach the Laubach method. ° The key is a positive approach. A student usually reads a sentence within a few minutes, giving encouragement to both the student and the tutor: Sheila would like to hear from people in Clinton and other areas - people who want to learn to read and write as well as those who want to become tutors. She can take more students immediately, and always needs a bank of tutors from which to draw. She encourages interested persons to call her at 524-2934 'after 6 pm all • enquiries are confidential. She feels strongly that Adult Basic Education is needed throughout the County of Huron. If enough tutors express an interest in the next few months, she anticipates holding a spring workshop in Clinton, Seaforth or some other area outside of Goderich. Freida MacDonald and Terry Porter would assist at the workshop. Each tutor would then be qualified to teach students in his or her own community, and Sheila would be , available to help co-ordinate the new centres. Some of the students find it difficult to believe that Sheila and the other tutors receive no financial benefits. Sheila stresses she is not a trained teacher, social worker or psychologist; she is a lay person who wants to help people who can't read or write. She finds the work exciting and rewarding. Adult Basic Education helps people who want to learn to read and write but have no other avenue of learning open to them. Many students are self-conscious when they begin, but Sheila points out this is a new experience for her as well. She is learning something all ' the thine, and student'and tutor Ohare In the exeiterheht of learnin ,