Overcoming Learning Disorders: Building
a “Pyramid of Repetition”

BY DR. JAN STRYDOM & SUSAN DU PLESSIS

The first learning principle in overcoming learning disorders is to understand that learning is a stratified process. The second learning principle of great importance is to understand that learning cannot occur without repetition. More specifically, a “pyramid of repetition” has to be constructed. If one systematically and regularly does repetition with a learner, it will gradually become possible for the learner to learn more and more with fewer and fewer repetitions.

As far as one can go back in history, repetition — also called rote learning or drilling — has been the backbone of successful teaching. But this is no longer the case:

One consequence of Dewey's influence was that repetition, rote learning and drilling became swear words in education. Today this form of learning is considered to be “out of style,”² “ghastly boring”³ and even “mindless.”⁴ “Having to spend long periods of time on repetitive tasks is a sign that learning is not taking place — that this is not a productive learning situation,” says LD expert Bartoli.⁵

We would like to ask the critics of repetition and drilling if they have a driver's license. If they have, we would like to know how they got it? Did they just jump in the car one day and off they went? No, the fact is that they repeated over and over — drilled and drilled and drilled — the same actions up to a point where they became automated. Only then were they able to drive a car successfully. Why then, do they expect from children to learn successfully without repetition and drilling? Repetition creates confidence and builds a basis, a kind of springboard for them to conquer higher cognitive skills. One has to build that first and then branch out into “creative” and “critical” thinking and other approaches. They need a base for the higher functions. Today, however, children are required to think “critically” (a sacred cow in education) while they haven't learned anything to think critically about. As Professor Roger Shattuck so rightly states, public schools in the United States — and elsewhere — have put the cart before the horse.⁶ Maybe what they really did was that they drowned the horse and burned the cart. In recent years, neuroscientists have discovered that repetition is important in the “wiring” of a person's brain, i.e. the forming of connections or synapses between the brain cells. Without these connections, the brain cells are as useless as batteries standing in a row next to a torch. Only when the batteries and torch are connected, can they make a shining light.

The thing that wires a child's brain, say neuroscientists — or rewires it after physical trauma — is “repeated experience.”⁷ Without such repeated experience, key synapses don't form. And if such connections, once formed, are used too seldom to be strengthened and reinforced, the brain, figuring they're dead weight, eventually “prunes” them away.⁸

But mere repetition is not the end of the story. There must be enough repetition for a beginner learner. A beginner learner must start by repeating a limited amount of material many times over and over. Gradually, less and less repetition will be necessary to master new skills and new knowledge. This principle is especially noticeable when teaching mentally handicapped children. Since 1993 we have been actively involved in research in this area. (Click here to download a video clip on this matter.)

When teaching the mentally handicapped we follow a very intensive program, with counting being one of the first things to teach them. Especially in the initial stages, a large part of the daily program is used for this activity. This activity is also a good example to illustrate the above-mentioned principle.

When Chrizan B., an 8-year-old who had an IQ of 65 at the onset of intervention, was taught to count, it took three full days to teach her to count from one to three and back. On the fourth day, “four” was added. Chrizan immediately became completely confused and could no longer count from one to three. It again took three full days to teach her to count from one to four and back. When “five” was added, the same thing happened. She became completely confused and could no longer count from one to four. Again it required three days to teach her to count from one to five and back. Gradually, however, less time was required to add new numbers and she no longer became confused when new numbers were added. From eleven onwards, it took two days to add a new number and from twenty onwards, more or less one day was needed for every new number. From thirty onwards it was possible to add more and more new numbers on a daily basis.

Below are Chrizan’s IQ scores when she started treatment and again 12 weeks later. In the left-hand column are the scores she obtained during the first assessment and in the right-hand column the scores of the reassessment:

The point is that much repetition was needed before Chrizan could count from one to three, one to four, and one to five. Gradually, however, it became easier and easier, until very little repetition was needed to add new numbers. No doubt it is the same with normal children, as the following story, taken from Nurtured by Love: A New Approach to Education by Suzuki illustrates:

This means that, if one systematically and regularly does repetition with a learner, it will gradually become possible for the learner to learn more and more with fewer and fewer repetitions. It is almost as if a “pyramid of repetition” has to be constructed first.

The importance of this “pyramid of repetition” is also seen in the learning of a first language. According to Dr. Beve Hornsby, it has been found that a child who is just beginning to talk must hear a word about 500 times before it will become part of his active vocabulary, i.e. before he will be able to say the word.¹⁰ Two years later, the same child will probably need only one to a few repetitions to learn to say a new word.

Without building this “pyramid of repetition” first, later learning will always be time consuming and prone to failure. Unfortunately educators have ignored this learning principle and have removed most of the repetitive work that used to form part of education for so long. With few exceptions, this change is seen as a step forward. Doreen Kronick, in her book New Approaches to Learning Disabilities, stated that we “overlooked what our common sense told us, which was that the poems that we had learned in school were useless for helping us to remember what we needed to buy at the supermarket.”¹¹

It seems that people, like Kronick, who regard this as a step forward, are wrong. Maclean et al., for example, found that knowledge of nursery rhymes among 3-year-olds was a significant predictor of later prereading skills even after the children's IQs and their mothers' educational levels were partialed out.¹² Even stronger evidence of Kronick's wrong assumption is the “explosion” of “learning disabilities” all over the Western world.¹³ One of the reasons for this explosion is that repetition or drilling has been dropped out of the school system. As Kronick said — the memorizing of poems would not help you to remember what to buy at the supermarket. What she does not realize — and many others too — was that by reciting and repeating these poems over and over we were building this pyramid of repetition. Therefore it was not useless at all!

Educators should take into account that the learning material, that children are expected to master, continually becomes more, and more difficult, year after year. Unless the teaching methods take note of this — and due to the removal of repetition or drilling modern-day teaching methods do not — it is inevitable that they will start battling, sooner or later. One can compare this to the story of Milo, the famous Greek wrestler from the sixth century B.C. He is said to have carried a calf on his shoulders every day from its birth and eventually to have carried the grown cow around the Olympic stadium. Like the calf inexorably grew and therefore became heavier and heavier, the learning material, that children are confronted with year after year, also becomes more, and more difficult. The fact that Milo carried the calf every day, however, made it possible for him also to carry the grown cow. The repeated carrying of the calf had a permanent effect on Milo. In the same way repeated learning experiences also have a permanent effect on the learner.

In regards to building a “pyramid of repetition” there are two very important factors that should be kept in mind: The first is that there is great individuality among different people, and even within the same person, in the amount of repetition required to learn something. The amount of repetition that is enough for one person, may not necessarily be enough for another. The amount of repetition that a certain person requires in mastering a certain skill, may not necessarily be enough to master another skill. Mrs. Butler might need ten lessons to master the skill of driving, Mrs. Brown might need twenty, Mrs. Lane thirty and Mrs. Jones forty. Mrs. Jones, who struggled to learn to drive, may, on the other hand, need only ten lessons to become expert at sewing. One should note, however, that Mrs. Jones was not diagnosed as “driving disabled” because she needed forty lessons!

The second important factor is that one should not lose sight of the stratified nature of learning. If a child has not yet mastered the skill of counting, ten thousand repetitions in adding and subtracting will not teach him to add and subtract. The child needs to learn how to count first, although he may need more repetitions to master this skill than some other children.

The Audiblox program, a development by Dr. Jan Strydom, is based on the principles that learning is a stratified process and that a “pyramid of repetition” has to be constructed.

Audiblox can be applied one-on-one and in a group setting. For more information on Audiblox visit Audiblox2000.com

References:

1. Kramer, R., “Inside the teachers' culture,” The Public Interest, 15 January 1997.

2. Bremmer, J., “What business needs from the nation's schools,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 19 April 1993.

3. Bassnett, S., “Comment,” Independent, 14 October 1999.

4. Dixon, R-C. D., “Ideologies, practices, and their implications for special education,” Journal of Special Education, 1994, vol. 28, 356.

5. Bartoli, J. S., “An ecological response to Coles's interactivity alternative,” Journal of Learning Disabilities, 1989, vol. 22(5), 292-297.

6. Skube, M., “Professor out to put 'learning' back into education,” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 12 March 2000.

7. Nash, J. M., “Special report: Fertile minds from birth, a baby's brain cells proliferate wildly, making connections that may shape a lifetime of experience. The first three years are crucial,” Time, 3 February 1997.

8. Polaneczky, R., “How kids get smart: The surprising news,” Redbook, 1 March 1998.

9. Suzuki, S., Nurtured by Love: A New Approach to Education (New York: Exposition Press, 1969).

10. Hornsby, B., Overcoming Dyslexia (Johanesburg: Juta and Company Ltd., 1984), 43.

11. Kronick, D., New Approaches to Learning Disabilities. Cognitive, Metacognitive and Holistic (Philadelphia: Grune & Stratton, 1988), 9.

12. Maclean, M., Bryant, P., & Bradley, L., “Rhymes, nursery rhymes, and reading in early childhood,” Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, vol. 33, 255-281, cited in K. E. Stanovich, “Learning disabilities in broader context,” Journal of Learning Disabilities, May 1989, vol. 22(5), 287-297.

13. Kramer, “Inside the teachers' culture.”