Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/463339
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2015 11 News Dyslexia: thinking outside the box GRTU take exception at Valentine's Day street vendors WORDS Matter, a game being made available to children as part of the government's One Tablet Per Child initiative, will pit users into a stylized environment resembling the Mexican 'Day of the Dead' celebra- tion, as the player is set tasks aimed to test their reading and word- processing skills in an encouraging and engaging way. "The world relies on a special sub- stance – 'word matter' – that only the player can extract. Different ar- eas of language difficulty are mapped to game characters, exercises are mapped to world locations, and ac- tivity recommendations are mapped to event invitations," Prof. Rilla Kha- led, Associate Professor at the Insti- tute for Digital Games at the Univer- sity of Malta, says. She explains how the game – which was conceived under the ILearnRW initiative within the Institute – came about after research conducted with Greek and British counterparts, and aims to help young children with a profile of dyslexia to overcome self- esteem issues. "The game is about strengthen- ing literacy skills if you are dyslexic. We chose a game world setting in which the player is the only charac- ter around with any semblance of lit- eracy skills – in this way we wanted to make the player feel like a hero, because low self-esteem is frequently associated with dyslexia," Khaled says. Khaled explains how previous research shows that best practice teaching for dyslexia involves 'ex- plicit phonics teaching', which is of- ten performed through multisensory drill and practice activities. "Part of our design challenge there- fore became to present versions of these activities within a motivat- ing frame. In particular, we sought to pique enough interest in players such that they would return to the activities repeatedly, with the game featuring no set ending point." She adds that the game, which is aimed at children between the ages of nine and 11, also focuses on the social aspect of dealing with dyslexia, as players are allowed to compare themselves to those with different literacy skills. "These friendships are strength- ened by performing learning activi- ties. So the primary motivation for learning in the game becomes to form friendships and help out your friends, leveraging young people's deep understanding of social media and social interactions. We have our own version of Facebook in the game, in fact – called Ghostbook!" Khaled however also stresses that the game can't be expected to help children with a dyslexic profile "in isolation", and that educators are ex- pected to guide their students as they play, so as to maximize the game's benefits. "We have designed our game such that it can be used in a guided way (such as in a classroom) or in a more exploratory way (such as at home). What is extremely important, though, is that the learning skills practised in the game be recontextualised in eve- ryday reading and writing activities – and this is where educators outside the game itself become absolutely crucial," Khaled says. While stopping short on comment- ing on the Words Matter game in particular, learning difficulty experts Dr Ruth Falzon and Dr Rachael Ag- ius both stressed how the education- al system would greatly benefit from some 'out of the box' thinking when it comes to children with a dyslexic profile. Both of the experts agree that the educational system is far too rigid, particularly when it comes to the examinations process. In fact Falzon, together with Edu- cational Psychologist Juan Camilleri, submitted a petition to the Min- ister for Education last October, which suggests that written exams at MATSEC level be done away with entirely for students with a dyslexic profile. Instead, Camilleri and Fal- zon propose that these students be exclusively assessed through oral examinations, since they believe this option would not compromise the assessment process in and of itself. In other words, since exams chal- lenge students to show their innate knowledge of the subject at hand, penalizing them on spelling misses the point, unless it is spelling in par- ticular that is being assessed. "In both [oral and written exams], students have to answer to demon- strate sufficient knowledge of the subject in order to pass the exami- nation. As such, examination objec- tives are not compromised if aural input and oral output are used, un- less reading and spelling themselves are being assessed," Camilleri and Falzon write in their petition, adding that even our automatic assumption that 'essay' implies a written format should also be questioned. "In dictionaries, an essay is usually defined as a 'short literary composi- tion on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analyt- ic, speculative, or interpretative'. No definition of 'essay' includes that an essay must have been written/typed by the author," they write, adding therefore that, "One would need a good speller to proofread documents but this is different from the ability to transform thoughts, creativity and ideas into readable linguistic com- munication for others to access in another time and space." Camilleri and Falzon also pointed out that oral examinations should in no way be considered the 'easy op- tion' since they require just as much – if not more – preparation as written exams do. Additionally, they point out that PhD candidates defend their work during a viva voce – which is in fact an oral examination. "During an oral examination one cannot revisit what was said as in a written paper. Orals require mental planning which is a skill in itself, so that one's answer is structured and cohesive. In the PhD candidate's fa- vour is the fact that the document would have been prepared before- hand. Younger students sitting for their MATSEC will not have this advantage," Camilleri and Falzon write. While agreeing with Camilleri and Falzon that oral exams are the way forward for dyslexic students – "after all, exams are meant to test knowledge of a subject rather than the medium with which they have to present that knowledge" – fellow learning difficulty expert Dr Rachael Agius also stressed the importance of considering the bilingual context of Maltese culture and education. While English is considered a 'deep' language because its written form differs substantially from its spoken form, Maltese is 'transparent'. "It is therefore incorrect to test a Maltese child on a test that is stand- ardized on English speaking mono- lingual children," Agius says. treljc@mediatoday.com.mt THE Small Businesses Chamber (GRTU) called on authorities to intervene and investigate "rampant abuse" by street vendors selling flowers on Valentine's Day. Ac- cording to the GRTU, "mystery shoppers" buying from these sell- ers were not given receipts. "We feel that seven out of seven is a good enough sample. GRTU has therefore alerted the Commis- sioner for Revenue and called for an immediate investigation of this clearly rampant abuse," it said. It said that the "occasional sell- ers" not only set up tents in the street but have been competing unfairly. "Mystery shoppers sent by GRTU made purchases from seven differ- ent street sellers in seven different localities and not once where they given a receipt and no cash regis- ter or VAT receipt book was to be seen. It could hardly be a coinci- dence that only those sellers that GRTU's mystery shoppers bought from did not give receipts while others did." The GRTU said that while the street vendors should be operating at much lower costs, their average prices were 30% higher than the prices one would find in licensed flower shops. "GRTU is never against competi- tion that is fair but we are having a very hard time finding the fairness and the level playing field in this scenario." The GRTU added that enterprise owners were hard working people constantly trying to find way how to maintain their business, their workers and the workers' families. "Even though it is widely ac- knowledged at global, EU and national level by the authorities that enterprises are the drivers of growth, job creation and their suc- cess reflects on the country's pros- perity, the public perception of lo- cal businesses is poor. "This scenario of unfair competi- tion is not acceptable because any abuse is unjust, being it tax abuse by economic operators or even so- cial welfare abuse by any individ- ual. One cannot pick and choose. What is wrong is wrong and can in no way be argued in favour of." It said that it was expecting the authorities to immediately address the situation. Prof. Rilla Khaled from the Institute of Digital Games at the University of Malta speaks to TEODOR RELJIC about a newly developed game aimed at helping children with dyslexia, while learning difficulty experts suggest that oral exams are the way forward for helping dyslexic children in education The game Words Matter – part of the One Tablet Per Child initiative – aims to help children with dyslexia by challenging their word-skills in an engaging way Prof Rilla Khaled: "It's extremely important for educators to recontextualise the game into everyday reading and writing activities" Ad hoc kiosks set up shop in the street selling Valentine's day flowers.