This address is
about my experience in working with children on the rehabilitation their speech
and dealing with their language difficulties through haiku.
I am a teacher in
school for children that have speech and language problems. They come from
regular schools and stay in ours until their language problems are solved after
complex rehabilitation (through a special method invented and developed by Petar
Guberina). After spending some time in our school, most of them go back to their
regular schools. They still need the help of a speech pathologist and are
treated individually twice a week. In this way, they are continuously in the
process of rehabilitation. Some children with speech and language disorders
finish their education in our own primary school, and are integrated after that
in regular grammar schools. The curriculum in our school is the same as in
regular public schools, but adjusted to children’s’ abilities, and to a rhythm
that is appropriate to a group of children with similar problems. The classes
typically contain 7-10 children so that the teacher/speech pathologist can pay
attention to each one individually. Their problems are:
-
dyslexia – problems in
reading and spelling (a problem in the phonological coding of the written
language),
-
slow reading or writing speed,
-
poor reading comprehension,
-
letter
and number reversals,
-
reduced speech, word-finding difficulties,
language expression problems,
-
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD
syndrome)—
-
in general, language weakness.
If these problems are not recognized
in time—by the first or second grade—and treated properly, they lead to other
learning problems and difficulties in communication. These children are not
mentally handicapped; IQ scores in non-verbal tests are in the normal range,
sometimes very high!
Two years ago, two girls from the elementary school at the SUVAG Polyclinic won first prizes for their haiku. This happened again this
year in March at the 8th Festival of Children’s Haiku Poetry 2005 in
Zagreb. Their specific language difficulties obviously and in no way interfered with
their ability to write haiku that were evaluated by the judges (Devide, McMaster
and Ziljak) as very good ones and worthy of winning first place.
Children are introduced to haiku in the 5th grade
(aged10) in the subject “Croatian language and literature”. Even at first sight,
the short haiku form is attractive to them. They are able to read and understand
this poetic form without problems. For their homework, they then try to write
haiku of their own. In our school, this leads to the creation of several
interesting observations in verses; I wholeheartedly supported and encouraged
their efforts to express themselves poetically.
It has been noticed that in
children with language difficulties, the short and simple haiku form of
expression is very close to their own language expression, which is sometimes
terser in everyday communication, but, when oriented to a particular
motif/motivation, can have the effect of
a poetic image. During 3 school years, our children created numerous haiku
inspired by the seasons of the year, certain changes and phenomena in nature,
and by some specific situations in life which stimulated them to express their
observations and emotions. At the “literary group”, we read haiku poems and talk
about the sensations that arise. Mrs. Visnja McMaster introduced us to “haiku
cards,” which are excellent didactic material and a good way to introduce
children to an understanding of poetry, in general. Encouraging children to
imagine the “poets’ words” (images) by the senses of hearing, smell, taste,
touch and even movement in space produces a polysensory experience of the
“poetic image”. In this way, the children “easily live in the poem” and have the
poetic experience.
This way of “living in the poem” is very close to them; they
are young and still live a great part in the world of the imagination. It is the
first big step on the way to showing children how poetry is close to them, and
how easily they can become direct participants in a poem. They like this method
of “getting into the poem” very much, and enjoy talking about experiences they have
had. Usually, these children don’t talk very much because of expressive language
problems, but want to speak about haiku experience, because they are quite
certain about what they have felt. Some of the children with language
difficulties have problems in understanding longer sentences (especially, longer
sentences with abstract nouns, prepositions and adverbs which modify the meaning
of the words). In the very beginning of rehabilitation, it is very important to
take care of the length and syntactic complexity in communication. That is
why the short, simple haiku form is an ideal form for these children to express
themselves; they memorize it easily and can use simple grammatical structures
(subject, verb, object) as a pattern to express themselves in everyday
communication. A haiku is a very good ground on which the language structure
can be built gradually.
This school year, we began to write haiku
motivated by the
drawings of the “art group”, of children that are hearing-impaired (in one
department of our school there are classes for such a population of children,
who learn to speak oral language, without gestures). These haiku inspired by
drawings are excellent and are a new experience for us; at the same time
children look at the same drawing and create different observations, through
different perceptions and sensations.
Reading and writing haiku has become an integral part of the
process in which effective attention is paid to insufficiently developed
language expression in this group of children. However, this does not involve bald
and monotonous special-purposes language material, but evokes creativity that
confirms the children’s own abilities, which is a crucial prerequisite. At the
same time, the children develop their attitudes towards the environment and
their awareness of the world and the phenomena of life and its manifestations. Hence it seems incontrovertible that writing haikus is
one of the most creative ways of helping children with language difficulties to
find their own means of expression.
NEXT: READ THE
CASE STUDY PRESENTATIONS
SEE THE
HAIGA GALLERY FROM THE PRIMARY SCHOOL IN POLICLINIC SUVAG
HAIKU POETRY AS ONE OF THE MODES OF SPEECH AND LANGUAGE
REHABILITATION IN A POPULATION OF CHILDREN WITH SPECIFIC LANGUAGE
DIFFICULTIES