ATTENTIONAL HYPERSPACE & ATTENTIONAL GRATIFICATION
ATTENTIONAL HYPERSPACE & ATTENTIONAL GRATIFICATION
“Attentional hyperspace” is a term I use to describe a place to which Joshua would catapult at any given moment as the result of certain triggering events. Reading a particularly difficult word would do this. He would get frustrated and suddenly he would launch to a faraway place. I could see it in his eyes. He could not refocus and continue. And there was no way to get him back any time soon.
Rather than overwhelming him and stopping his ability to focus I wanted to draw him into a place where his attention would be focused. I felt that I could do this by doing the exact opposite of what caused him to be catapulted into ”Attentional Hyperspace”. It would bring him to “Attentional Hyperfocus,” like a magnet draws steel. The place would be an oasis, where he could rest and refuel, where, instead of frustration, he felt gratification.. This place would be called “Attentional Gratification.”. On a page full of confusing and difficult words, Joshua could rest on just one word or one letter that he could say automatically without thinking, like a reflex action. Attentional gratification would be like going on a mini vacation
Attentional gratification can be achieved in two main ways. By recognizing letters and by words.
For the letters we could draw from our list of one-way letters. But not all one way letters are created equal. Ceratinly s is the prototypic one-way letter. It could only be said one way, but on a page full of difficult words it would not really serve as a respite for the weary reader who is having difficulty. The letter ight on the other hand is terrific for this. Ight is confusing to most any reader because it is not pronounced the way it is written but if you just learn ight as a letter then think how many difficult words suddenly become easy. fight, sight, light, might night, bright, slight, flight and on and on. Every single time you get to the ight on a page our reader will heave a sigh of relief. This would be an oais of attentional gratification. It is a place that used to be difficult but now is very easy. It is a place that used to launch them into attentional hyperspace, but no any more, now it brings the reader in instead of launches him out.
So when learning a letter like ight while it may take a very long time it does not matter. So what if it takes two weeks to learn it. Just think of how many times during the course of a lifetime knowing that one letter will pay dividends.
Certain words were the main culprits in hurling Joshua into “Attentional Hyperspace.” I found these words by looking at children's books and finding a word which appeared many times and which I knew had given him problems in the past. The words had to be common and not amenable to sounding out with our strategies. I would then teach him the word before we read the book. It was the crudest form of rote memory. They were not to be understood, just memorized, even if it took a week. I decided to call them “week words.”
Choosing the first “Week Words” was simple. I picked up a few of Joshua's books and a page of a newspaper and scanned them into my word processor. I clicked a few buttons and I had the most common and difficult words on the page. In order to be truly scientific I would have had to include a much larger sample of course but this was good enough for us. The first “Week Word” was easy to choose. It was “said.” Joshua had lots of trouble with this word but to this day Joshua knows the word “said” better than any other word. After just five words Joshua's reading dramatically improved. These are the five.
you
said
some
would
they
I used all of the tricks I had learned so far to enable Joshua to learn it. I created study cards, and charts etc. Here are some representative examples.
SaidSAIDsaidSAID
sadsidsaidsiadsaad
SADsaidSIDSAID
SDISSADSAIDsaid
saidsaidSAIDsidsad
dasidaddsaidsads
dasaidasdidadasaid
sssaaasaidiiisssaaa
saidsaidsaidsaidsaidsaidsaidsaid
saidsaidsaidsaidsaid
I said.
You said
He said
we said.
who said what was said
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