STUDIES IN DIAGNOSTIC TEACHING I. ALBERT By Edward Watson Clinic Teacher,
and
Arthur
Phillips, University of Pennsylvania
If yon were to talk to Albert for a short time and hear him tell of his toys or his games with his friends, or of his trip to Cuba you would probably say, '' Here is a superior child or at least a boy who is better than average." Or if you were to judge him by his appearance and
general manner you would probably say that he was of ten with a pleasing personality and winning ways. Hence it is not at all strange that the principal of Albert's school, when he saw the boy in a B division class, a class for slow moving and retarded children, wondered why he was there, and sent him
a
normal
to the
boy
Psychological
children. Albert was
eight
was
Clinic to
see
first examined
if he could be
placed
with average
July 20, 1928. At that time he old, but was at the median for height.
on
years and eleven months
ten year old
boys in weight and history showed that he entered school at the age of six and never repeated a grade but had been placed in the slow moving division. At the present time he is completing the fourth grade. His conduct in school is fair, outside of the fact that he talks a good deal and often refuses to work. The medical history shows that he had measles, mumps, chicken pox, bronchitis, influenza, congested kidneys and one accident causing a concussion of the brain. None of these diseases, however, affected him permanently. He walked at eighteen months, talked His school
at three years and is still enuretic.
psychological examination showed him to be inferior in all performance tests and in memory span. His audito-vocal
His the
memory span
was
five forward and four reverse, and his visual span
Intelligence Quotient was 93. Albert's results in the psychological tests and his I.Q. nevertheless point to normal mentality. The case became complex only when an attempt was made to determine the boy's school proficiency. At the time of the examination he had successfully completed three years of school work; yet when he was given a reading test, it was found that he could not read a single word. When he tried to read he read backwards or started from the second syllable of six.
His
ALBERT
53
the word. Although he could not read at all he could spell most of the words in the first reader. He could recognize the letters, he knew the spelling of the words, yet because of his complete lack of any idea of phonetics, he could not read the simplest words. His He could do only problems requiring not competency. One wonders how a boy with such poor school proficiency could ever have completed three years of school
arithmetic
was
also poor.
more than 2B
work. The examiner, on finding these results, recommended that Albert be taught at the clinic in order to determine the cause of his failure to learn to read. Although the teaching of Albert proved a difficult task it was much simpler than was expected. He learned rapidly and by the end of the first five months of teaching he had read seventy-four Pages in a primer. This is the usual amount of work covered in grammar school during the first year. His teacher used the phonetic method and built up new words in families. Not only did she teach the boy the elements of reading but also succeeded in improving his attention and creating within him an interest in read-
ing.
At this point I took up the teaching duties. At this time, also, school teacher requested that the boy be taught arithmetic along with reading. I spent three hours a week with Albert and divided the time equally between the two subjects. In the beginning I continued the methods of Albert's first teacher. He grasped the new words quickly and recognized them when he came
Albert's
across them in the text. Several difficulties, however, soon presented themselves. Although Albert quickly learned new words he could rarely ever put together a new word which he encountered while reading. Often when he did try to read a new word, he started from the end and tried to read it in reversed order. During this time I had been building up new words by the family method using word cards or writing lists of words on the board. After a short I noticed that although Albert
when they
were
taught
to
him,
time, however, words correctly,
he was actually reading He found that the last syllables of all of the words were the same and all he had to do was to read the first syllable. Accordingly he said the last syllable first to himself, then tried to tack on to it the first syllable and when the whole word was finished he would say it aloud. Sometimes, however, he would
Was
reading
these
them backwards.
new
54
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC
himself and say the last syllable first. For example, suppose '' taking the ake'' family. I would write on the board the syllable "ake" then prefix to it "c" forming "cake" or "r" forming "rake" or "sn" forming "snake" and so on. Albert would
forget
we were
soon discover that in all these words the "ake" was the same. When I asked him to read one of the words, he would say to himself "ake," "sn," "sn," then aloud "snake." Sometimes, however, he said to himself "ake," "er," "er," then aloud "aker"
It was easy to observe these processes within Albert because he always moves his lips and talks to himself when he tries to form a new word. Thinking that this mental process contributed largely to Albert's reversed reading, I discontinued the use of the word cards and the family method. Instead I used the method of forming lists instead of "rake."
of words whose beginnings were the same. I also made a list each day of the new words in Albert's lesson. After the lesson was over I would have him reread these words then take them home and study their pronunciation and spelling. In this way Albert learned from ten to twenty new words a day. "Whenever he came across a new word in the book I put my finger over the last syllables and had him read the word syllable by syllable in the proper order. The results of this method were most gratifying. After a short time Albert acquired the habit of reading from the left side of word to the right. He soon forgot the family method and when
a
he encountered a new word he looked first at the first figured out the word in its proper order.
syllable
and
From this point on, his reading ability developed most rapidly. At the beginning of the term he read at a rate of five to six pages per hour in a primer. At the end of three months he was able to read twenty-two pages per hour in a second reader. Only one obstacle yet remains in Albert's reading ability and that is his attention. When there is a picture on the page he will not read until he has examined the
picture and explained it. Once he continues to turn the pages and look this, in the book. If he is permitted to do this, he at all the pictures the book is finished and then puts it away without turns pages until going back to the reading. If, while reading, something in the room he is allowed to do
and examines the object. Often for no apparent reason at all he gets up and runs around the room or plays with marbles which he always carries with him. Even when he is reading he moves all around and kicks his feet
attracts his
attention,
he stops
reading
55
ALBERT
under the chair and plays with his tie or does anything rather than sit still. So distractable was he that it became necessary for me to hold him in his seat. I always put two chairs next to each other and sat at Albert's side. When he started swinging his feet, I put one of across his knees and made motion of his legs immy
legs
possible. When he started playing with his tie or with any object within reach, I removed his hands from the object and put them down on the desk. Whenever he stopped reading for any other reason than to
figure
out
new
a
word,
I
immediately
called his
attention to it and made him go back to his work. These measures, however, only served to keep the boy still in the classroom. I do not believe that his attention improved at all. Often he sat still and read for as much as thirty minutes. This, however, was not because his attention had improved, but because he could
not have moved
even if he had tried.
In most cases when Albert came to a new word he first guessed I never told him he was wrong but instead asked him to read ^ a second time. He would then look at the word more carefully and attempt to figure it out. If I found he could not do so alone, I assisted him by covering part of the word and asking him to read ^ syllable syllable. Sometimes, however, when I asked him to at it.
by
word he would continue to guess and insist that he was right. At such times, I would write the word syllable by syllable 0n the blackboard and show him where he was wrong. Sometimes he would look at a word and say an entirely different word which reread
a
meant the
same
thing.
goblin. When he it
came
For
"goblin." This, however,
did
he was told that a troll was a the word "troll" in the book, he read only occurred with a few words and
example,
across
serious defect in his reading. distractabilit.y becomes much more serious outside of the classroom. I do not believe that he could read three or four Pages by himself without someone watching him. He would probably skip the hard words and soon find something else outside of the not form
a
Albert's
interest him. Toward the end of the term I made an Albert told me that his father to improve this defect. often read to him the comics in the Evening Bulletin. Accordingly I brought with me, each day, a copy of that paper and had Albert read the comics himself. I hoped that as soon as he learned the
book to attempt
vocabulary he would read them himself at home. to make reading more interesting to him. As far went it seemed successful.
This would
serve
the experiment in three of the interested Albert became as
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC
56
These he read without any urging and in them made an However there was not enough attempt time for him to acquire a sufficiently large comic vocabulary for me comics.
to read the hard words.
to
expect him
to be able to read them without assistance and the
is unknown. finished reading Barnes' Primer (about Albert During the term twenty pages), read completely Elson Reader, Book One (160 pages), part of Elson Reader, Book Two (64 pages), part of outcome of the
experiment
Bolenius Third Reader (25 pages) and two pages of Spaiding and Bryce Fourth Reader. He had no difficulty at all with the Elson Readers. I had him read completely Book One only to stimulate an interest in reading. Book Two was also easy for him and he read it at about the same speed with which he read the easier book. The third reader was more difficult but he read it at sufficient speed to enjoy the stories told in it. This, however, was not the case with the fourth reader. Here Albert had to stop too often and after he read two pages he could not tell the story. therefore, is about 3A.
His
reading proficiency,
The arithmetic lessons presented only one problem?attention. Only once during the past school year has Albert received a passing grade in arithmetic. The reason is simple. Albert does not have
ability to stick to a problem until it is finished. In the beginning of the term, I had great difficulty in making him do any kind of a problem at all. He would go to the board and look at the problem and then draw pictures or make lines in any direction. When I called his attention to the problem he would start to guess and always guessed wrong. Nevertheless, no teaching was necessary in the arithmetic lessons. Albert knew the methods of doing any problem requiring fourth grade proficiency. All that was necessary the
keep him at his work. Albert did not know the multiplication tables very well. However he knew how to get any desired multiplication by adding or subtracting from one he did know. Hence he was constantly doing little problems on the side of the board. In order to correct this, I spent an entire month on short multiplications. Each day I gave
was
to
him
a
self.
began
number of such problems until he was perfectly sure of himThis made the long problems seem shorter to him and he to take more interest in them. During the rest of the term
I drilled him on fourth grade problems. I found it necessary to use the same methods of his arithmetic as I had used in the reading lessons.
keeping him at Here, however,
ALBERT the method
was
much
Albert's attention,
as
more
far
as
57
successful and I can definitely say that arithmetic is concerned, has noticeably
improved. Before the end of the term I could give him a problem long division, walk out of the room and feel reasonably sure that
in
he would do the problem without an error. Not only was this so at the clinic, but at school where there was no one to hold him down, and on his May report he passed arithmetic for the first time this year.
passed since Albert came to the clinic. During problem was overcome but a greater problem was is no longer a case of orthogenic teaching Albert to brought light. ?f reading for he is now at a point where the usual methods of teaching may be applied to him. He, however, presents a case of distractability of attention which may prove the greatest deterring factor of his life. The work of teaching Albert has merely been a search for methods of combating this defect and his teachers of the future will succeed only if they find such methods. One year has the year one great
and
Arthur
Phillips, University of Pennsylvania
If yon were to talk to Albert for a short time and hear him tell of his toys or his games with his friends, or of his trip to Cuba you would probably say, '' Here is a superior child or at least a boy who is better than average." Or if you were to judge him by his appearance and
general manner you would probably say that he was of ten with a pleasing personality and winning ways. Hence it is not at all strange that the principal of Albert's school, when he saw the boy in a B division class, a class for slow moving and retarded children, wondered why he was there, and sent him
a
normal
to the
boy
Psychological
children. Albert was
eight
was
Clinic to
see
first examined
if he could be
placed
with average
July 20, 1928. At that time he old, but was at the median for height.
on
years and eleven months
ten year old
boys in weight and history showed that he entered school at the age of six and never repeated a grade but had been placed in the slow moving division. At the present time he is completing the fourth grade. His conduct in school is fair, outside of the fact that he talks a good deal and often refuses to work. The medical history shows that he had measles, mumps, chicken pox, bronchitis, influenza, congested kidneys and one accident causing a concussion of the brain. None of these diseases, however, affected him permanently. He walked at eighteen months, talked His school
at three years and is still enuretic.
psychological examination showed him to be inferior in all performance tests and in memory span. His audito-vocal
His the
memory span
was
five forward and four reverse, and his visual span
Intelligence Quotient was 93. Albert's results in the psychological tests and his I.Q. nevertheless point to normal mentality. The case became complex only when an attempt was made to determine the boy's school proficiency. At the time of the examination he had successfully completed three years of school work; yet when he was given a reading test, it was found that he could not read a single word. When he tried to read he read backwards or started from the second syllable of six.
His
ALBERT
53
the word. Although he could not read at all he could spell most of the words in the first reader. He could recognize the letters, he knew the spelling of the words, yet because of his complete lack of any idea of phonetics, he could not read the simplest words. His He could do only problems requiring not competency. One wonders how a boy with such poor school proficiency could ever have completed three years of school
arithmetic
was
also poor.
more than 2B
work. The examiner, on finding these results, recommended that Albert be taught at the clinic in order to determine the cause of his failure to learn to read. Although the teaching of Albert proved a difficult task it was much simpler than was expected. He learned rapidly and by the end of the first five months of teaching he had read seventy-four Pages in a primer. This is the usual amount of work covered in grammar school during the first year. His teacher used the phonetic method and built up new words in families. Not only did she teach the boy the elements of reading but also succeeded in improving his attention and creating within him an interest in read-
ing.
At this point I took up the teaching duties. At this time, also, school teacher requested that the boy be taught arithmetic along with reading. I spent three hours a week with Albert and divided the time equally between the two subjects. In the beginning I continued the methods of Albert's first teacher. He grasped the new words quickly and recognized them when he came
Albert's
across them in the text. Several difficulties, however, soon presented themselves. Although Albert quickly learned new words he could rarely ever put together a new word which he encountered while reading. Often when he did try to read a new word, he started from the end and tried to read it in reversed order. During this time I had been building up new words by the family method using word cards or writing lists of words on the board. After a short I noticed that although Albert
when they
were
taught
to
him,
time, however, words correctly,
he was actually reading He found that the last syllables of all of the words were the same and all he had to do was to read the first syllable. Accordingly he said the last syllable first to himself, then tried to tack on to it the first syllable and when the whole word was finished he would say it aloud. Sometimes, however, he would
Was
reading
these
them backwards.
new
54
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC
himself and say the last syllable first. For example, suppose '' taking the ake'' family. I would write on the board the syllable "ake" then prefix to it "c" forming "cake" or "r" forming "rake" or "sn" forming "snake" and so on. Albert would
forget
we were
soon discover that in all these words the "ake" was the same. When I asked him to read one of the words, he would say to himself "ake," "sn," "sn," then aloud "snake." Sometimes, however, he said to himself "ake," "er," "er," then aloud "aker"
It was easy to observe these processes within Albert because he always moves his lips and talks to himself when he tries to form a new word. Thinking that this mental process contributed largely to Albert's reversed reading, I discontinued the use of the word cards and the family method. Instead I used the method of forming lists instead of "rake."
of words whose beginnings were the same. I also made a list each day of the new words in Albert's lesson. After the lesson was over I would have him reread these words then take them home and study their pronunciation and spelling. In this way Albert learned from ten to twenty new words a day. "Whenever he came across a new word in the book I put my finger over the last syllables and had him read the word syllable by syllable in the proper order. The results of this method were most gratifying. After a short time Albert acquired the habit of reading from the left side of word to the right. He soon forgot the family method and when
a
he encountered a new word he looked first at the first figured out the word in its proper order.
syllable
and
From this point on, his reading ability developed most rapidly. At the beginning of the term he read at a rate of five to six pages per hour in a primer. At the end of three months he was able to read twenty-two pages per hour in a second reader. Only one obstacle yet remains in Albert's reading ability and that is his attention. When there is a picture on the page he will not read until he has examined the
picture and explained it. Once he continues to turn the pages and look this, in the book. If he is permitted to do this, he at all the pictures the book is finished and then puts it away without turns pages until going back to the reading. If, while reading, something in the room he is allowed to do
and examines the object. Often for no apparent reason at all he gets up and runs around the room or plays with marbles which he always carries with him. Even when he is reading he moves all around and kicks his feet
attracts his
attention,
he stops
reading
55
ALBERT
under the chair and plays with his tie or does anything rather than sit still. So distractable was he that it became necessary for me to hold him in his seat. I always put two chairs next to each other and sat at Albert's side. When he started swinging his feet, I put one of across his knees and made motion of his legs immy
legs
possible. When he started playing with his tie or with any object within reach, I removed his hands from the object and put them down on the desk. Whenever he stopped reading for any other reason than to
figure
out
new
a
word,
I
immediately
called his
attention to it and made him go back to his work. These measures, however, only served to keep the boy still in the classroom. I do not believe that his attention improved at all. Often he sat still and read for as much as thirty minutes. This, however, was not because his attention had improved, but because he could
not have moved
even if he had tried.
In most cases when Albert came to a new word he first guessed I never told him he was wrong but instead asked him to read ^ a second time. He would then look at the word more carefully and attempt to figure it out. If I found he could not do so alone, I assisted him by covering part of the word and asking him to read ^ syllable syllable. Sometimes, however, when I asked him to at it.
by
word he would continue to guess and insist that he was right. At such times, I would write the word syllable by syllable 0n the blackboard and show him where he was wrong. Sometimes he would look at a word and say an entirely different word which reread
a
meant the
same
thing.
goblin. When he it
came
For
"goblin." This, however,
did
he was told that a troll was a the word "troll" in the book, he read only occurred with a few words and
example,
across
serious defect in his reading. distractabilit.y becomes much more serious outside of the classroom. I do not believe that he could read three or four Pages by himself without someone watching him. He would probably skip the hard words and soon find something else outside of the not form
a
Albert's
interest him. Toward the end of the term I made an Albert told me that his father to improve this defect. often read to him the comics in the Evening Bulletin. Accordingly I brought with me, each day, a copy of that paper and had Albert read the comics himself. I hoped that as soon as he learned the
book to attempt
vocabulary he would read them himself at home. to make reading more interesting to him. As far went it seemed successful.
This would
serve
the experiment in three of the interested Albert became as
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC
56
These he read without any urging and in them made an However there was not enough attempt time for him to acquire a sufficiently large comic vocabulary for me comics.
to read the hard words.
to
expect him
to be able to read them without assistance and the
is unknown. finished reading Barnes' Primer (about Albert During the term twenty pages), read completely Elson Reader, Book One (160 pages), part of Elson Reader, Book Two (64 pages), part of outcome of the
experiment
Bolenius Third Reader (25 pages) and two pages of Spaiding and Bryce Fourth Reader. He had no difficulty at all with the Elson Readers. I had him read completely Book One only to stimulate an interest in reading. Book Two was also easy for him and he read it at about the same speed with which he read the easier book. The third reader was more difficult but he read it at sufficient speed to enjoy the stories told in it. This, however, was not the case with the fourth reader. Here Albert had to stop too often and after he read two pages he could not tell the story. therefore, is about 3A.
His
reading proficiency,
The arithmetic lessons presented only one problem?attention. Only once during the past school year has Albert received a passing grade in arithmetic. The reason is simple. Albert does not have
ability to stick to a problem until it is finished. In the beginning of the term, I had great difficulty in making him do any kind of a problem at all. He would go to the board and look at the problem and then draw pictures or make lines in any direction. When I called his attention to the problem he would start to guess and always guessed wrong. Nevertheless, no teaching was necessary in the arithmetic lessons. Albert knew the methods of doing any problem requiring fourth grade proficiency. All that was necessary the
keep him at his work. Albert did not know the multiplication tables very well. However he knew how to get any desired multiplication by adding or subtracting from one he did know. Hence he was constantly doing little problems on the side of the board. In order to correct this, I spent an entire month on short multiplications. Each day I gave
was
to
him
a
self.
began
number of such problems until he was perfectly sure of himThis made the long problems seem shorter to him and he to take more interest in them. During the rest of the term
I drilled him on fourth grade problems. I found it necessary to use the same methods of his arithmetic as I had used in the reading lessons.
keeping him at Here, however,
ALBERT the method
was
much
Albert's attention,
as
more
far
as
57
successful and I can definitely say that arithmetic is concerned, has noticeably
improved. Before the end of the term I could give him a problem long division, walk out of the room and feel reasonably sure that
in
he would do the problem without an error. Not only was this so at the clinic, but at school where there was no one to hold him down, and on his May report he passed arithmetic for the first time this year.
passed since Albert came to the clinic. During problem was overcome but a greater problem was is no longer a case of orthogenic teaching Albert to brought light. ?f reading for he is now at a point where the usual methods of teaching may be applied to him. He, however, presents a case of distractability of attention which may prove the greatest deterring factor of his life. The work of teaching Albert has merely been a search for methods of combating this defect and his teachers of the future will succeed only if they find such methods. One year has the year one great
