Charts past
I have a good visual memory, which has recently been triggered by looking over my colleague’s shoulder as he does computer geewhizzery using Gvim (‘an extended version of the Unix VI text editor with syntax highlighting’). It is the differently coloured text that swims against the black background that’s done it.
I learnt to read at primary school from wall charts that were just like this: black with lots of groupings of letters in a rainbow of colours. Tonight I asked my mother if she knew anything about them (she was herself a primary school teacher contemporaneous with my primary school education) but she knew nothing.
Googled ‘learning phonetics chart black color colour’ and brought up some US patent information – nothing that looked right. But mention of something called a Fidel wall chart looked promising. A Google image search reveals it to be the chart of my memory.
And a fascinating thing it is. Developed by Caleb Gattegno, the charts are part of the so called ‘Silent Way’ of education, silent ‘because the teacher remains mainly silent, to give students the space they need to learn to talk’ (so that’s where I get my ability to talk, talk, talk from). Gattegno also popularised Cuisenaire rods, which perhaps come more easily to mind for most people my age. I don’t recall being taught in the Silent Way (and we were being taught our mother tongue, not a foreign language, as it appears to have been designed for), I just remember the fabulous colours and the contrast. Perhaps that also explains my love of colour, in particular those of the French artists known as the fauves.
It’s no wonder I love words. I think I would like a set of these charts for Iris.
References:
The Silent Way, Wikipedia
Silent Way Charts
Image source: Silent Way Charts
wow, I have never seen these before. The Japanese one is just all squiggles to me.
Don’t they look marvellous Brian! I hadn’t seen them, but now I’d like a set of them for Iris’s bedroom walls too!
Thanks Helen.
I remember these charts from my early primary schooling in Hobart. I can recall the class being asked to recite the sounds, with the teacher up the front with a pointer. That was my year one class, 1971, under Sister Catherine. It was pretty effective and enjoyable, as I remember it. The colours were the key to the whole thing.
We also used Cuisenaire rods a lot. The classroom had a giant set – great for building miniture cities – as well as many of the small sets. Great fun to play with, and you learned so much at the same time. They were extremely well produced and nice to handle. Precision was all-important to matching them together. You can occasionally pick up a set second hand.
I’m glad to find someone else who knows about them Anne-Marie! Grade one would have been 1973 for me – perhaps that’s when I remember them from. If you follow through the “Silent Way Charts” link above, you get through to a website in the US where you can order the charts from, in English and in French. Oh, if only the Australian dollar hadn’t dived so!