Dr. Susan Nolan Demonstrates Multisensory Instruction

>>INSTRUCTOR: Today I want to talk to you about what multi-sensory instruction is and what it is not. There are some misconceptions about multi-sensory. So, first of all, I think that incorporating the visual piece is kind of a no-brainer. You look at words and letters with your eyes, so you see. The auditory piece isn't really difficult either, because as you talk you are actually hearing the phoneme or the syllable or the morpheme, whatever it is, whatever level of language you're working with. But the part that I find that people really have the most difficulty with is that tactile and kinesthetic. So let's talk a little about kinesthetic. What does kinesthetic mean? [PAUSES] Movement. Exactly. Now would you concur that this is movement? [STOMPS] Does it have anything to do with phoneme? Does it have anything to do with syllable type? Or how about a morphological piece? No nothing okay. What does tactile mean? Touch; okay. [TOUCHES TABLE] I'm touching this table, does this have anything to do with phoneme? How about morpheme? How about syllable type? Okay so people have this idea, even educators have this idea that I'm doing multisensory instruction in my classroom because the children are getting up and moving around the room. [STOMPS] They are moving their muscles, but those muscle movements they are doing have nothing to do with the phoneme, syllable type, or morpheme. So when we talk about kinesthetic we want to be very specific to those linguistic units of speech in our language. So, for kinesthetic, if I go "pppff" what is the kinesthetic movement? My mouth. What is the tactile if I go "pppff"? Do my lips touch? Sure they do, that's the tactile we are looking for in kinesthetic and tactile instruction. So that tactile piece if I say "po" in the word "polite"-- is there a tactile movement in my mouth when I say "po"? Sure. If I'm looking at the unit of speech-- the stable syllable "shun"-- is there a kinesthetic movement of my mouth when I say "shun"? Is there a tactile feeling when I go "shun"? Yes, so that's what we want to capitalize on. It's that kinesthetic movement and that tactile movement of the mouth, of the articulators and then also as we engage the student as they write. Then we are engaging the motor movement of the hand for those linguistic units and also if we have them trace on the tabletop then we are engaging that tactile. When we talk about multiple sensory instruction we want all those multiple pathways engaged simultaneously at the same time. Not that we do a visual activity in the morning and we're going to do an auditory activity in the afternoon, and then we are going to do some kinesthetic thing. We want all of those pathways engaged simultaneously. So if the student is saying "pppff" they are engaging the mouth. We could have them tracing it on the table. Is that visual if we have them trace it? If we have them repeat the sound and go "pppff" are we engaging the kinesthetic movement of the mouth, and the hand? So we've got visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile all at the same time.