Remedial and Support Teachers' Association
of Queensland

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Keith Jentz

Keith comes from the era when 12 months at teachers’ college was the starting point for teaching. At the same time he commenced his commenced evening studies at the University of Queensland which he continued for many years in the process completing two degrees. He started teaching in1960 at Bald Hills where he taught Years 3 and 6. After two years he and his new wife, Lainie, moved to Mt Pleasant State School where Keith ran a one teacher school for two years. Keith reflected, ‘As far as teaching was concerned it was probably the best preparation that one could have for the support teacher role. You had to learn the curriculum across the board. You had to come to terms with teaching kids at different levels. The role gave you an instant snapshot of the whole range of kids.’

Two years on, the decision was made to close the school and, as a result, Keith found himself back in a classroom at Nundah State School. From there he moved to Stafford Heights and then on to Windsor where he taught Year 7. It was here that he started to apply the knowledge that he was gathering from his studies through the Schonell Centre, drawing in particular on the assessment work of Sir Fred Schonell. This knowledge was in part the basis of remediation for a group of boys who were reading at a year 2 level. Keith commented, ‘The Schonell Centre was a great source of inspiration and knowledge. Fred Schonell was well ahead of his times.’

In 1974, the Department of Education provided the opportunity for teachers with at least five years teaching experience to become Resource or Remedial Teachers. Candidates were initially to complete six months of a Diploma of Special Education, return to schools with the promise of a follow-up six months to complete the diploma some years on. Keith joined the Resource course, but, as he pointed out, both groups basically were provided with the same training. His first appointment in his new role was at Cribb Island State School. He commented, ‘I believe a lot of the knowledge that we operated on in those days was accurate and valid. I used the model of the ITPA and used the idea of learning styles; whether a kid favoured the auditory or visual modality, for example.’

Is there any point in defining Learning Disabilities (LD)?
If we just throw every student into the same bucket, we’re assuming they all have normal learning processes, e.g., when you teach an LD student a word there is a good chance that you will not be successful. And if a student has a severe memory problem you can do everything including standing on your head and you may still not be successful.

And the other thing is that going with the term learning difficulties, an umbrella term means that often we do not have to search for methods that work with the hard core LD kids. There needs to be a determined effort to perceive the exact nature of a student’s problem. Going with the general term means there may be insufficient emphasis placed on the particular nature of a student’s problem.

What methods do you consider are effective in working with LD students?
When I first started as a remedial teacher, I was using as a framework the concept of learning styles. I was trying to figure out whether a child was a visual or auditory learner. I tried to find out if a child had an obvious visual or auditory problem. These days I focus less on modalities but still believe that we need to check, for example, if a student has a problem in auditory memory. The LAC (Lindamood Auditory Conceptualization Test) and the QUIL (Queensland University Inventory of Language) helps us to detect if a student has a fine grained problem with phonological awareness. We are now working with a group of students based on the Lindamood material to see which kids will benefit from this type of program.

LD students do not have intact learning systems. They will not learn in a casual, unfocussed, non-rigorous way. For these kids you need to replicate as well as you can the learning process, the learning ladder if you like. You need to do a task analysis of the steps for learning and break the step down into smaller steps. A lot of these kids need a tremendous amount of revision and lots of assistance in the application of the new learning. We need to use appropriate strategies to assist students to make generalizations.

Another method I use wherever I can is to tie together reading and writing. You may read the kids a story, summarize it, construct a framework cooperatively, and then do a guided writing with them. I help them to tie the writing to the oral language and reading experiences, and can do this because of the language structures that they have hopefully taken on board. Sometimes I use the computer to reduce the burden of getting the words on the page. If I’m working with a kid as an individual I’ll just tell a kid the correct spelling and help them to connect the word to a spelling pattern. I often use the neurological impress method (NIM) to help a kid memorize chunks of language. I try to involve students in their own learning, to self-regulate as they do a task.

How do you structure reading experiences?
I teach phonic patterns as a separate lesson. Then I apply their use in texts, not decodable texts because these tend to be somewhat boring. I’ve tried to use controlled vocabulary texts but these are few and far between these days but many students still need a basal reading series. I try to limit the load for students during reading lessons. I use many texts where the patterns of language are repeated and go frequently to sentence transformations and other activities working with text. As far as working with students, you need to start where they’re at and that of course requires adequate and careful diagnosis. Therefore your approach will vary according to a student’s level of attainment.

What do you think we have lost as Support Teachers Learning Difficulties that we need to retrieve?
I think we need a well-coordinated, network meeting with a full time Senior Support Teacher who has the time to develop contacts and relationships with other professionals including Guidance Officers. With school- based management, STLD and Guidance Officers are increasingly thrown back on to their own resources.

Another problem is that we no longer appear to have an effective training system. I think the system of training that we had was tremendous - 6 months study, followed by time out in the field, then a further six months study.

Professional loneliness inhibits the adequate functioning of Support Teachers. This prevailing feeling is partially related to the institution of self-managing schools which often have different priorities in their competition with other schools for customers even to the point of using support staff in team teaching situations to minimize the effects of large classes. Consequently, our prime function, which is to advocate and provide support for students with learning difficulties/ disabilities, is diminished because of the demands of a competitive system.