Multisensory Structured Language Education

Excerpted from Chapter 2 of Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills, Second Edition, edited by Judith R. Birsh, Ed.D.

Copyright © 2005 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Multisensory structured language education (MSLE) is commonly endorsed and practiced by teachers of students with a wide range of learning difficulties. Although clinicians and teachers have embraced multisensory teaching techniques since the earliest teaching guides were written (e.g., Fernald, 1943; Gillingham & Stillman, 1960; Montessori, 1912; Strauss & Lehtinen, 1947), these techniques have seldom been well defined and clinical wisdom has been waiting for scientific research validation and explanation. With current consensus findings regarding the nature of reading development, the efficacy of certain reading instruction practices, and the relationship between brain function and learning, we are closer to understanding why expert teachers have, for generations, been committed to structured language approaches.

This chapter defines what MSLE is, discusses how it has been implemented in the past, identifies the instructional practices that are consistently supported by research, discusses the role of the multisensory component in effective instruction of language skills, reviews some recent findings from neuroscientific studies, and describes what additional research might be needed to validate the beliefs and practices of experienced clinicians who subscribe to these approaches.

DEFINITION AND HISTORY

Since the mid-1990s, a number of prominent instructional programs have become organized under the description multisensory structural language education (MSLE) (see Appendix B). These approaches are dedicated to the structured, systematic, direct teaching of the organization of language. They also share a belief in the importance of multisensory strategies, which include techniques for linking eye, ear, voice, and hand in symbolic learning. Although devoted practitioners emphasize the significance of the multisensory component as pivotal for student success, it is perhaps this component that is least understood, so it is here that we should begin with both a description of multisensory strategies and a rationale for why they are used in the teaching approaches described in this book.

The term multisensory is used generically to refer to any learning activity that includes the use of two or more sensory modalities simultaneously to take in or express information. In this volume, the term does not mean multimedia as in playing videotapes or audiocassettes. The term multisensory in this volume pertains to techniques for novice or poor readers that involve visual, auditory, tactile-kinesthetic, and/or articulatory-motor components in the carefully sequenced teaching of language structure. For example, students learn alphabet letters by feeling, naming, and matching three-dimensional forms or tracing on rough surfaces; teachers and students model paragraph structure with graphic organizers; or students learn the identity of phonemes by feeling and seeing the position of the mouth, lips, and tongue (see Figure 2.1).

Farrell, Pickering, North, and Schavio (2004) investigated the use of multisensory strategies within MSLE programs. In the initial phase of the study, approximately 30 senior clinicians who were directors of MSLE teacher education programs were asked in a survey to specify multisensory strategies incorporated into each of the instructional objectives typical for MSLE lessons in their program (e.g., phonology, sound-symbol association, syllables, morphology, syntax, semantics). For each instructional objective, clinicians were asked to classify multisensory strategies into a description of the spe-cific involvement of each of the sensory systems. A survey item was written for each strategy identified by clinicians and items were organized and listed within instructional objectives. The table in the appendix to this chapter lists, by instructional objective, the multisensory strategies reported and incorporated in the survey.

A multisensory strategy, as mentioned previously, is one that combines the use of two or more senses simultaneously. Implicit in the table in the chapter appendix, for example, is the understanding that in a multisensory approach, a visual strategy is being used simultaneously with an auditory strategy and that for many learning tasks, kinesthetic and/or tactile strategies are also being used. For example, in working toward the sound–symbol objective (sound–symbol association), if the student’s visual reinforcement is looking at a letter, the auditory reinforcement is to listen to and hear the sound and identify it with its symbol. The kinesthetic reinforcement stems from the child’s feeling the articulatory muscle movement associated with saying the phonemes, as well as writing the letter on a roughened surface and feeling the associated sensations.

The directors, 19 of whom provided completed surveys, were asked to rate the frequency of use of each of the strategies represented in the survey items according to the following scale: 0 (never), 1 (occasionally), 2 (as needed for certain students), 3 (systematically used for certain students), 4 (systematically used for all students), and 5 (other). The table in the chapter appendix presents, for each survey item, the percentage of use of the strategies.

Multisensory instruction is one dimension of the practices and approaches useful with students who have problems with language learning, including reading and writing.

Although some traditional multisensory approaches (e.g., Fernald, 1943) have not emphasized the structure of spoken and written language, most programs that follow Orton-Gillingham principles for teaching language-related academic skills (see Clark & Uhry, 1995) have emphasized that the core content for instruction is the carefully sequenced teaching of the structure and use of sounds, syllables, words, sentences, and written discourse. Orton-based approaches, such as Alphabetic Phonics, Project Read, LANGUAGE!, the Sonday System, Wilson Language, Slingerland, and the Spalding Method (see the sections for Chapters 9 and 10 in Appendix B) emphasize the necessity for explicit language teaching to be systematic, cumulative, direct, and sequential. It is the combination of these principles, according to clinical consensus (see the training guidelines of the members of the Alliance for Accreditation and Certification of Structured Language Education, 2003) that will facilitate students’ ability to learn and recall information.

The idea that learning experienced through all senses is helpful in reinforcing memory has a very long history in pedagogy. Educational psychologists of the late 19th century promoted the theory that all senses, including the kinesthetic sense, are involved in learning. The second volume of James’s (1890) The Principles of Psychology discussed Binet’s theory that all perceptions, in particular those of sight and touch, involve movements of the eyes and limbs and that because such movement is essential in seeing an object, it must be equally essential in forming a visual image of the object. This theory was illustrated through descriptions of typical individuals who used tracing to bolster visual memory. Consistent with this theory were observations that the loss of acquired reading ability as a result of impaired visual memory in adults with brain injury could be bypassed through the use of a kinesthetic modality (tracing letters):

Individuals thus mutilated succeed in reading by an ingenious roundabout way which they often discover themselves: It is enough that they should trace the letters with their finger to understand their sense. . . . The motor image gives the key to the problem. If the patient can read, so to speak, with his fingers, it is because in tracing the letters he gives himself a certain number of muscular impressions which are those of writing. In one word, the patient reads by writing. (James, 1890, p. 62)

The late 19th-century medical literature also contained discussions about the use of “by-pass” strategies in individuals who had lost their ability to read because of cerebral dysfunction (Berlin, 1887; Dejerine, 1892; Morgan, 1896). Hinshelwood (1917) was the first physician to advocate a specific instructional approach for written language disorders in children identified as “word blind.” On the supposition that reading failure was due to underdevelopment or injury of the brain, he recommended instruction using an alphabetic method in a manner that would appeal to as many cerebral centers as possible.

S.T. Orton, a neurologist, was the first person to report in the American medical literature on word blindness (1925, 1928). He proposed that there was a physiological failure of the brain to develop a clearly dominant language hemisphere to subsume reading, writing, and spelling (1937). The lack of dominance, he hypothesized, led to an unusual persistence of symbolic reversals in dyslexic individuals. Like Hinshelwood (1917), he advocated the use of all sensory pathways to reinforce weak memory patterns. Orton (1928) called for education methods based on simultaneous association of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic fields, for example, by having a person sound the visually presented word and establish consistent directionality by following the letters with the fingers during sound synthesis of syllables and words. He stressed the unity of the language system and its sensorimotor connections and stated that listening, speaking, reading, and writing were interrelated functions of language that must be taught in tandem.

It is clear that the medical and psychological literature reviewed previously had a long-term impact on educational practice. Hunt (1964) reported that in the early 20th century, motor response was considered extremely important in learning. Fernald (1943) described how the kinesthetic aspect of multisensory learning, primarily used for reinforcing word recognition through writing, was incorporated into the approaches of many leading practitioners of the time, including Dearborn (1929); Gates (1927); Hegge, Sears, and Kirk (1932); and Monroe (1932). The methods that have come to be most strongly associated with multisensory instruction today, however, are those developed by educators such as Montessori (1912), Fernald and Keller (1921), and Strauss and Lehtinen (1947), who were challenged by children with dyslexia, learning disabilities, and attention disorders.

The methods for the teaching of reading developed by Montessori, Fernald and Keller, and Strauss and Lehtinen are summarized in Table 2.1. A review of their methods reveals the multisensory nature of their instruction and, in particular, the strong role that the tactile-kinesthetic component plays in the learning process. These practitioners’ rationales for tactile and kinesthetic teaching methods reflected their belief in the tenacity of muscle memory (Montessori, 1912) and the belief that children with nonspecific, developmental neurological impairments would profit from compensatory or bypass techniques used effectively with children with brain injury (Fernald, 1943; Strauss & Lehtinen, 1947). Fernald also asserted the need for tactile experience in word learning and reported the learning rate to be much more rapid when finger tracing was used than when a stylus or pencil was used. She quoted the work of Husband (1928) and Miles (1928) on maze learning to support her assertion.

The practitioners who are listed in Table 2.1 all reported very positive results in the educational growth of individual students and attributed their success to the use of kinesthetic methods. In each method, however, there was also an emphasis on language components and systematic, sequential, organized teaching. Fernald’s (1943) technique differed from the others in that whole words or whole syllables were taught, not individual phoneme–grapheme relationships (apparently she was unable to perform phoneme segmentation tasks herself). In contrast, Montessori (1912) and Strauss and Lehtinen (1947) did emphasize direct teaching of phonics.

Given the multiple factors that may have accounted for these practitioners’ successes
with individuals, including the intensity of their small-group and individual interventions, their case study reports and anecdotal claims cannot be taken as proof of the efficacy of multisensory instruction. Even Strauss and Lehtinen (1947) acknowledged that the effect attributed to multisensory teaching could be a primary consequence of augmented attention rather than of kinesthetic learning per se.

Bryant (1979) continued to explore these questions, providing a history of the use of multisensory instruction up to 1979, a summary of the research examining the theoretical assumptions underlying multisensory approaches, and a review of empirical studies on the use of multisensory instruction in reading with individuals with reading disabilities. She reported that until the 1970s, special education teachers had firmly believed in the value of kinesthetic reinforcement, and she cited a number of well-known names in the fields of reading and learning disabilities who stressed the importance of multisensory approaches (Ayres, 1972; Cruickshank, Betzen, Ratzeburg, & Tannhauser, 1961; Dearborn, 1940; Frostig, 1965; Gates, 1935; Hegge, Kirk, & Kirk, 1940; Johnson, 1966; Kephart, 1960; Money, 1966; Monroe, 1932; Strauss & Lehtinen, 1947; Wepman, 1964). Bryant also found that textbooks training teachers on the treatment of learning disabilities typically recommended the use of multisensory techniques in word recognition instruction and for other domains of symbolic and conceptual learning.

However, Bryant was unable to find any evidence to support the then-current theories (e.g., the theory of deficient cross-modal integration) for explaining why students with learning disabilities would need multisensory instruction to learn effectively.

In addition, Bryant noted that the popularity of both generic and reading-specific multisensory practices was attributable primarily to reports of success rather than to empirical evidence supporting either the theory or the practice of multisensory teaching. Bryant’s review as well as subsequent reviews of the research literature in learning disabilities (e.g., Lyon & Moats, 1988; Moats & Lyon, 1993; Torgesen, 1991) failed to muster evidence in support of any explanations of learning or reading disorders that would provide a rationale for the power of multisensory strategies. In addition, the existing studies of multisensory teaching methods were either conflicting or inconclusive. Bryant herself compared visual-auditory-kinesthetic word-study techniques with visual-auditory word-study techniques and reported that young readers responded equally well to both. She concluded that other principles of good instruction, including enhancing student attention, providing feedback and modeling, avoiding overloading the student, giving sufficient practice, and providing effective reinforcement, accounted for student success.

Almost a decade after Bryant’s (1979) review and intervention study, Clark (1988) also concluded that despite the widespread inclusion of multisensory techniques in remedial programs for students with dyslexia and the strong belief among practitioners using these techniques that they work, there was little empirical evidence to support the techniques’ theoretical premises. Although many of the programs incorporating these strategies have been effective according to clinical reports, the specific contribution of the multisensory component to the overall success of those programs has not yet been thoroughly documented or explained through rigorous manipulation of instructional conditions and subsequent measurement of outcomes. Current reading research, however, does offer strong support for the content and overall approach of MSLE programs because they address language processing skills necessary for both decoding and comprehension.

CURRENT RESEARCH CONSENSUS ON TEACHING READING

The Content of Instruction: Why We Teach Phonics

Traditionally, methods for teaching reading in an alphabetic language, beginning with the methods used by teachers in ancient Greece, have included direct teaching of the links between sounds and symbols (Matthews, 1966). Even before the work of the National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000), several comprehensive reviews (Adams, 1990; Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985; Chall, 1967, 1983), concluded that direct, systematic teaching of phonics for beginning and remedial readers, along with much practice in text reading and instruction in various comprehension skills, was a necessary component of effective instruction if all students were to be successful. The studies reviewed reflected a variety of research methodologies, including small, well-controlled laboratory experiments and large-scale, multiple-classroom research. None of the major, comprehensive evaluations of research in reading instructional methods ever concluded that phonics was unnecessary or unimportant in elementary instruction. It has always been the case that children who have received direct instruction in speech–print correspondences learn to read words, spell, and define vocabulary better than children who do not receive such instruction, especially if they are defined as at risk for failure, even though educators have eschewed those research findings with regularity (Moats, 2000; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).

Research has contributed an explanation of why phonics instruction is necessary and effective for children learning to read and spell an alphabetic orthography. Skilled reading requires accurate processing of the internal details of words — their phonological, morphological, and orthographic features (see Adams, Treiman, & Pressley, 1998; Rayner, Foorman, Perfetti, Pesetsky, & Seidenberg, 2001; Share & Stanovich, 1995; and Vellutino et al., 1996, for reviews). Beginning readers must be aware or must learn that words are made up of individual speech sounds (phonemes). They must be able to represent
in their minds the linguistic structure of words they are learning to read, primarily at the phoneme level (Ehri et al., 2001) but at other levels of language structure as well, especially morphology or the meaningful parts of words (Henry, 2003). Although it appears that good readers guess at words or that they read whole words as units, good readers in fact process virtually every letter of the words they read and are able, on demand, to translate print to speech rapidly and efficiently. It is the fluency of this translation process that permits a good reader to attend to the meaning of what is read. Therefore, it is logical that effective instruction with poor readers would seek to increase their awareness of phonemes and other linguistic units and that the speech-to-print translation process would become a focus of teaching until the children read fluently enough to focus on comprehension.

Indeed, a wide range of studies has shown that poor readers are marked by weaknesses
in phoneme awareness, slow and inefficient decoding skills, inaccurate spelling, and related language-processing difficulties. Poor readers’ problems are linguistic in nature and are related both to inaccurate and to inefficient linguistic coding at very basic levels of word and subword processes. When readers cannot decode print accurately, comprehension is impaired; too much mental energy is being used to recode the message, and too little is available for making meaning. Effective instruction addresses these issues as directly and systematically as possible (Blachman, Schatschneider, Fletcher, & Clonan, 2003; Lyon, Fletcher, & Barnes, 2003; Torgesen et al., 2001; Vellutino et al., 1996).

Theoretical Support for the Use of Multisensory Strategies

The efficacy of structured, systematic, explicit teaching of all language-based skills is no longer questioned by leading researchers (Lyon, Fletcher, Fuchs, & Chhabra, 2005), but evidence is still needed to explain the popularity of multisensory activities in language learning. Empirical support for the power of multisensory techniques remains illusive in recent studies of reading instruction. Nevertheless, theoretical support for the added benefit of multisensory techniques can be sought from the cognitive and neurological sciences. One logical explanation might be based on the design of memory itself.