Guy has been recognising whole words and attempting to read since he was three. When he arrived at school he could read new Maisy Mouse books with hardly any help at all.

Like any fluent adult reader, if he doesn’t recognise a word, he reads ahead and works out the word from the context of the paragraph or page or the story as a whole. If he still doesn’t recognise the word he either makes a reasonable guess or he simply leaves the word out and carries on. This has never inhibited his enjoyment at reading.

He reads his story books while walking home from school. He has always finished his reading books before he plays. He reads stories to his little brother and this Christmas, with a full stocking waiting, as soon as he got his new Captain Underpants book he ran off to enjoy it to the full, leaving his other presents unopened.

When you watch Guy read he scans down the page, sorting for meaning, laughing out loud at the jokes and eagerly turning pages to see how the story unfolds.

We taught him visual spelling at 5 years – that is to make a whole word picture of the word he was learning and then to access that word from his visual lexicon when he wanted to write it down. It was obvious when he has the word correctly stored as when asked to spell it, his eyes would move up and to the left and he would fluently read out the letter names. If asked to; he could spell fluently backwards as well as forwards demonstrating that this was a visual rather than an auditory strategy. (It’s almost impossible to spell backwards using sound)

He usually got 10 out of 10 for his spellings, often without doing any practise but just because he reads so much as has stored many words naturally.

What has changed?

Since Christmas we have noticed a steady change in Guy’s reading habits. Initially it started when we noticed he’d got 9 out of 10 followed by 8 out of 10 for his spelling. I suggested we go through his spelling book as maybe these were harder words now and we needed to deliberately take time to store them.

During the practise session I noticed that instead of using the letter names as I had taught him he was now attempting to spell out the words by the way they sound. This meant that with the word Boxer – he was saying

Bhu o ks uh

When asked to write it he was unable to tell if it were bokser, boxa, boksa or boxer – I also noticed that he was using letter sounds rather than letter names and when I asked him to switch he emphasised that his teachers said he had to do it like this.

I wanted to show him that it was easier to do it as a picture as there were at least four options if you do it by phonics he said he knew but this was the way his teacher wanted him to do it and he had to do it her way.

I asked him to learn ‘tonight’ visually and he insisted on spelling it using a mnemonic with a word for each single letter “to – naughty, inky ghosts hate toast” I was horrified that such as simple process such as seeing the word, making an internal picture

He refused to learn the spellings visually and instead wanted to read them and then repeatedly sound them out to himself trying to learn them in his short term auditory memory.

The next week, when I asked him if he’d read his book yet he said he didn’t want to. The first time ever since he’s been at school. When I asked why he said it was boring. I said he needed to do his homework and he could do his while I did mine. As I sat at the table with him I realised that I could hear him reading. The first time ever. When I looked up his lips were moving and he was slowly working his way down the page. Half way dow the page I asked him what the story was about. He shrugged and said he didn’t know. The first time ever. This would match my experience of working in reading recovery with dyslexic readers and slow adult readers. When they sound out each word they can’t build up a general sense of the story and are unable to move from words to meaning fast enough to make stories interesting or memorable.

I stopped him reading and tried to bring it to his attention that he had changed his style of reading and he used to do it quickly through pictures and he said he had to sound the words out because his teachers had told him to. He had been getting into trouble during his practise reading sessions because he was reading too fast and sometimes couldn’t sound out each word. The helpers were asking him to slow down and sound out each word correctly before they let him move on. We’ve worked hard to get Guy to respect his teachers and want to do well for them and subsequently he was doing everything he could to comply.

He was so upset at me saying that he needed to stop doing what his teachers were asking him to do that I stopped and said he could do what they said for a couple of weeks and if his spelling improved and/or he did his reading every evening then I would let him do what his teachers wanted.

His spelling went from 7/10 to 6/10 he had to be made to read every night, he has stopped reading in bed at night. Over 6 weeks a child with a positive fluent reading strategy is now engaging in reading and spelling as though he is a poor learner.

I understand that Guy’s teachers love teaching and want the children to love reading and to do well. I understand that the teachers are following the leadership of their head. I understand that the head is following the leadership of the educational policy makers. I understand that some children, particularly those who struggle to match whole words to sounds may well benefit from phonics as a remedial activity. I understand that some, very few, children may enjoy phonics as an entry to reading. I do not understand, however, how a school can advocate the teaching of a remedial strategy to a child who already has the more successful fluent strategy in place.

For this reason I do not want Guy to partake in any more phonics lessons. I do not want him to be required to read out loud each week as a way of assessing his reading. I do not want him to be taught to spell words using cognitively heavy strategies such as mnemonics.

During all phonic lessons, I would like Guy to be invited to read a book, perhaps some poetry or some factual books or a more advanced reading series such as the Narnia series. I do not want him to be asked to write when others are reading – I think this smacks of being given lines – I want him to regain his love of reading and his visual reading strategy which his teachers, his head and the educational policy makers are unintentionally, yet systematically disrupting.

Let me take you on a personal journey to explore the possibilities for clean questions and metaphor models and a process that I am coming to think may be a universal language of inquiry – thank you to TEDxmerseyside for giving me the opportunity to share these ideas.

 

Our clever, bright and very lovely colleagues across in the Netherlands are running an introductory Clean Training – excellent for anyone who wants to take their interest in the subject to a deeper level. Suitable for leaders in business and community development as well as for coaches.

You can click on this link if you’re free on March 19 & 20th 201

Training info is at:

http://www.gewoonaandeslag.nl/trainingen/modules-zuiver-communiceren/module-1

Or their newsletter can be found here

ILM certificate qualification.
This is a comprehensive training course with extensive in-the-moment feedback, peer coaching and work-based practice. It is for you if you are an independent coach; work as a coach in an organisation; want to become a coach.

This course will give you the knowledge and skills you need to act as an effective coach and mentor. We teach coaching tools based on the Clean Question of David Grove and other leading-edge methodologies.
You will gain the motivation and support you need to achieve a nationally recognised ILM Level 3 or 5 certificate in Coaching and Mentoring.
You will also receive coaching for your own personal and professional development.

Course duration: 6 days over 4 months
Course dates: April 18, May 2, May 16, Jun 13, Jun 27, Jul 11
Costs: £895+vat – Level 3. £1005+vat – Level 5.

geniuswithin.co.uk
Our sister company Genius Within Ltd is live, launched and available for anyone who wants to discover their dyslexic genius within.
Building on the clean questions modelling technology developed by the clean language practise group – Genius Within takes these tools and uses them to help dyslexic adults uncover the advantages of their neuro-diversity. You develop models for your areas of weakness AND your areas of strengths and then cross-reference to allow one to enhance the other. I’ve personally benefited hugely from these processes and can’t recommend them highly enough.

I’m struggling with what’s the least people need to know about for the concept to make sense for the TEDx talk

http://www.trainingattention.co.uk/case-studies/business-case-studies/corporate-metaphor

We came along last week and were not very sure of what to expect. The big challenge was to inject new life and inspiration into a team that had been through many ups and downs together. The team were tired after a very busy Christmas period and also feeling dejected after losing the shop. There had also been a great deal of uncertainty in the business for a while.

I needed something to make the team think differently and try and make them look forward instead of looking at all the events that had taken place in the past couple of years.

I have noted some of the individual comments below, including my own. From my perspective, it is just so obvious that the team now have a much better understanding of each other.
We are all taking into consideration our own styles and those of each other and not trying to apologise for being different. It feels as if we now have a clear communication channel and can allow each other our idiosyncrasies in our working methods. It also feels as if we are moving forward with a clear steer instead of going round in circles.

Personally:

I feel that I can delegate tasks to the team with confidence. This confidence comes from understanding the individuals’ way of working. I feel assured that I have the right team with me and that we are all working together towards a common goal. The group is balanced in terms of creative and organisational skills. This has caused problems in the past where the two have been at loggerheads with each other. It now seems that the creative and organisational sides are enhancing each other. I feel calmer and focused as a result. I feel all of this comes from the time spent with the team in the session we had with you.

Rest of the team:

I found Caitlin’s session very interesting. It was really useful to be shown that we don’t all experience things in the same way – I think this will be helpful in gaining a better understanding of how we all work. I was very impressed with how Caitlin was quickly able to identify traits in us, without knowing us, just by how we described things and our hand gestures and body language.

I found the speech you gave really useful, it helped me think about my role in the business and how others think as well. I now feel I understand my colleagues a little better.
I came away feeling more optimistic than i was beforehand and think it was presented really well. You made it feel easy to share with you. It has helped me focus on the future instead of the past.
Sorry if it’s not more constructive but i can’t think of anything that could have been done better.

I really enjoyed working with Caitlin. She helped me think about my role in a different and much clearer way, and created an open and comfortable space for everyone. I think everyone benefited from what she had to say, and perhaps more importantly how she said it.

Bala Croman
www.thechocolatecellar.co.uk
0151 200 2202

If you have been wanting to find out more about Clean Coaching, now is your chance as we have some content-rich, no obligation taster classes taking place at the end of January and the beginning of February. Each class is provides one and a half hour of content rich, relevant material facilitated by Clean expert Angela Dunbar, who explains key concepts, answers your personal questions and demonstrates a live coaching session using Clean techniques.

Conducted using internet-friendly video-conferencing facilities, you can easily engage with this learning from anywhere in the world and enjoy visual as well as audio information. Connecting to the class is straightforward, with or without previous webinar experience and full guidance is provided. Plus, for those that prefer you can join the same class through an ordinary telephone landline, if you prefer.

Clean Language and the Power of Metaphor (Scroll down for alternative dates for Clean Coaching – Getting from A to B with EK)

· Tues 24th Jan, 7.00pm to 8.20pm UK time (19:00 GMT)

or

· Weds 1st Feb, 11.00am to 12.20pm UK time (11:00 GMT)

The class will cover:

How patterns of thinking shape our language
What is a metaphor and how to spot one
Key principles of a Clean approach to Coaching
Examples of Clean Language questions
A demonstration of Clean Language
Question and answer session

In this class you will learn how Clean Language can be used by coaches to enable clients to gain new perspectives and discover creative insights.

Developed by NZ Psychologist David Grove whilst working with victims of trauma, Clean Language provides a safe route into a client’s own internal wisdom contained within their non-conscious mind.

This is achieved through the exploration of the client’s own (often unconscious) use of metaphors to express their situation, self and goal.

Places are limited, please register now by completing by emailing angeladunbar@cleancoaching.com with your preferred date. Or for more information go to http://www.cleancoaching.com/#/free-teleseminars/4534172732

Clean Coaching – Getting from A to B with EK

Weds 25th Jan, 11.00am to 12.20pm UK time (11:00 GMT)

or

Thurs 2nd Feb, 7.00pm to 8.20pm UK time (19:00 GMT)

The class will cover:

What is EK (Emergent Knowledge) and where did it come from?
How networks work and how neurons ‘think’
The coachee’s mental picture as a ‘small world’
How the tangible space around a coachee provides access to different ways of thinking.
A demonstration of Clean coaching with EK

In this session, Angela will briefly cover some of the theory on this technique explaining how it evolved from David Grove’s work in Clean Language and subsequently Space. We’ll look at how networks work in nature and consider our minds as a network. Then we’ll look at how the process of Emergent Knowledge and the principles of repeating certain questions in a certain fashion enable a new network to form, allowing a higher level thinking pattern to emerge.

Then, you will have the opportunity to listen to a live demonstration of one EK technique. You’ll be able to hear for yourself the key stages that a client is likely to move through before reaching a point of transformation, when the old way of thinking no longer applies.

You can ask questions along the way and get a real sense of how and why this technique works in an almost magical way, and witness the benefits it can bring to a client. And for you as a coach a simple, but amazingly effective, technique for helping a client shift perspective.

Places are limited, please register now by completing by emailing angeladunbar@cleancoaching.com with your preferred date. Or for more information go to http://www.cleancoaching.com/#/free-teleseminars/4534172732

The way that clean questions and systemic modelling create such transformation in groups can seem to be like magic. Like magic there are strict rules to the rituals that allow that magic to emerge. There is the spontaneous and the well-thought out. If you falter at one step then the whole network can drop and you need to start again.

As I’ve started writing the Inspiring Capability book which explains the reasons behind the rituals, I’ve come to see all kinds of other disciplines that follow similar principles and strive for similar results such as Agile, Collective Trust and Social Capital.

What is lovely about Systemic Modelling is that it has emerged from a modelling perspective rather than from a theoretical perspective. By taking a naive stance with my work and using nothing but clean questions and NLP modelling to build the main body of the work, I feel I’m better able to serve real groups of people right across our society.

The clean conference 2012 should be a fantastic event. Last year I particularly enjoyed the cognitive linguist perspectives on clean questions and metaphors for time.

I look forward to finding out what other people in our community are up to.