In many countries bilingualism is a steadily growing phenomenon that shapes and affects the learning process of children at homes and schools. The most popular 2nd languages in countries, such as, Egypt are English, French, and German. Many parents prefer their children to be schooled in a foreign language rather than their native mother tongue. Being fully bilingual is an important target in such environments because it is considered of value academically. Although becoming bilingual seems easy, living in a multilingual home or environment, however, it very much affects the learning process, may result in insufficient language skills, and can hinder the academic achievement. Landon suggested that bilingualism should be accommodated and recognized by the school in relation to culture and language to ensure literacy development in both languages if they were to apply inclusion of bilingual learners.
The early identification of reading difficulties that appears amongst bilingual and monolingual children makes it easier for facilitating the developmental process of reading skills acquisition and ensures the effectiveness of intervention. Later identification of reading difficulties in children may result in academic delays that influence the social and emotional status of children. Diagnosing a monolingual child with dyslexia is rather a complex matter, which in terms increases in bilingual children.
Predicting a learning difficulty and diagnosing it as dyslexia can be inconsistent if the school or the learning environment are not fit to accommodate bilingual learners and cannot meet assessment requirements. Administering assessment on a bilingual learner might be insufficient to detect signs of dyslexia because matters of language and culture need to be taken into consideration.
Collecting, gathering, and analyzing a bilingual learner’s background information are vital procedures that have to be done before administering any testing battery. This will help with the selection process of the assessment tools required for identifying a specific learning difficulty that a learner might be facing. The assessor should be familiar with both languages of the bilingual learner to obtain easy communication and to be able to translate parts of the assessment whenever the learner seems to be struggling due to language barrier.
To sum up, being able to detect and diagnose a learning difficulty in a bilingual learner’s second language can be a challenging procedure. Two common errors must be avoided: The first is to misdiagnose a certain learning difficulty that can be the outcome of a changing environment, or social and emotional status, such as, dyslexia which is called the false positive labeling. The second, is missing the manifestations of developmental dyslexia when present resulting in the failure of suggesting the proper intervention needed, which is called the false negative labeling.
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‘And so we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening to words, but in virtue of experiences in which the child acts on his environment. (Montessori and Chattin-Mcnicholas, p.8, the absorbent mind) |
Maria Montessori (1870-1952), was Italy’s first woman physician. In 1907, she opened the first Montessori school that served the poor and mentally challenged children. She developed an innovative methodology for teaching and enhanced it with sensory educational materials that she had created herself to ensure a self-learning environment for children. She believed that all children in spite of their race, color, religion, disability or social status should have the right to education.
Montessori is a progressive educational approach that relies on the child’s innate power to learn through cultural and environmental exposure. Dr Montessori believed that educational reform should be built to embrace the different needs and characteristics of all children. Ainscow had a similar view regarding the implementation of inclusive education. He called for radical changes and the restructuring of schools (which is referred to in the Montessori approach as the prepared environment) to better meet the different educational needs of all children.
The Montessori approach focuses on individualized tasks and activities to help children realize their full potential considering their different educational needs. In the Montessori approach, children are viewed as active learners in control of their own development and influenced by their dynamic self-righting nature.The Montessori curriculum works on the child’s motor and emotional development through developing his/her basic capabilities, and avoids comments that might embarrass or humiliates the child. In a Montessori classroom, children are grouped into multi-age classrooms spanning three years in order to encourage peer tutoring, social interaction and responsibility. Montessori claimed that children learn best from their peers. Peer tutoring promotes inclusion, help raise self-esteem, and improve academic achievement amongst children, especially those with social, emotional, behavioral, cognition, and learning needs. Montessori stated that the child seeks exploration and freedom of choice in an educational setting in order to develop and grow. The freedom to choose activities and explore them without interruption is one of the main characteristics of a Montessori classroom.
To sum up, Montessori is an educational approach that reflects the way children think, understand, and develop. It is a unique comprehensive system that showed significant success for many years when applied effectively on normal, gifted, mentally challenged and physically handicapped children around the world. Rewards and punishments are not frequently used in the Montessori program; it aims at helping children to learn through practicing tasks instead of sitting and listening to the teacher. It encourages freedom of choice; each child can choose what kind of activities he/she wants to engage in, which allows children to enjoy and discover more. The Montessori classroom is organized in an attractive manner, which provides an easy access of learning experiences to children.
The Montessori education has been proven that it widely benefits children. It provides a cheerful and enjoyable environment that allows children to explore and better develop. Montessori educated children are perceived as happy, disciplined, competent, friendly, and cooperative. Their parents are happy with their developmental growth, and frequently comments on how much they love school.
Parents and teachers sometimes label children “lazy” because they get the impression that children don’t listen, don’t concentrate, and don’t care intentionally. You’ll often hear them say “He has the ability, if he just tried harder, he could do it. He chooses not to do the work. If she would just pay attention, she would get it. After I give the instructions, he sits and stares at his paper. He is not motivated.” Children are often not aware that those things happen or have no idea why and how they happen, or what they can do about it.
Most of these symptoms can be caused by the emotional states in which children go through like pain, fatigue, being hungry, and by all kinds of things happening in the environment. Telling the child he needs to concentrate is no help because he can’t help it and will bring only more confusion and frustration and make children start to doubt themselves. Moreover, those symptoms can also be caused if the child is suffering from a learning disability which the teacher nor the parents nor the child himself is aware of.
A child with a learning disability cannot try harder, pay closer attention, or get motivated on his own. He needs help to learn how to do those things. A learning disability is not a problem with intelligence; often the child’s IQ falls within the normal range. The source of difficulty is in the brain. Children with a learning disability have trouble processing information which interferes in their daily activities at school. They see, hear, and understand things differently.
There are different types of learning disabilities that affect writing, reading, arithmetic, spelling, language….etc. So basically all of the educational skills that children normally possess are affected when a child suffers from a certain type of a learning disability.
Learning disabilities are categorized into different types according to which learning skills they affect the most. For instance, children with Dysgraphia typically labor at written work much longer than their classmates, only to produce large, uneven writing that would be appropriate for a much younger child. Children with Dyslexia have trouble understanding written words. Children with Dyscalculia have difficulties in solving arithmetic problems and grasping math concepts. There are many other different types of learning disabilities that affect children’s learning abilities and motor skills.
Learning disabilities cannot be cured they can only be remediated, therefore, it is very important to detect them as soon as possible and not to confuse them with other emotional states of the child so he can start benefiting from his learning
To sum up, it is very important for teachers and parents to realize that there’s more behind the word lazy and that they shouldn’t falsely label children just because they are inexperienced and not aware of many learning disabilities or emotional states that children may suffer from. Teachers’ roles are not only to explain what’s written in textbooks and assign work during class and after, but also to monitor each and every child within their classroom population very carefully, try to work hard to help each child to reach his/her maximum learning ability, and try different learning styles that appeal the most to each child individually. Parents should not doubt their kids’ abilities and believe that their kids are not smart or lazy. If they notice that their kids have learning problems, they should consult a specialist about their kids’ situation as soon as possible. If children are left untreated, the frustration and difficulties caused by the learning problems, both at home and in school, creates stress thus making children hate learning because of the mental effort they exert and still everyone around them are calling them “lazy.”
aminaelshishiny 