The Gudschinsky instructional program

The Gudschinsky instructional program has been successfully used in languages with a wide variety of sound systems and grammatical structures. It has been used where alphabets are being formed and people are learning to read and write for the first time in their mother tongue.

The Gudschinsky instructional program is an eclectic approach to teaching reading and writing developed by Sarah Gudschinsky.

Sarah C. Gudschinsky (1919-1974) was a researcher, innovator, and scholar in the specialized field of introducing literacy to preliterate person societies. As a member of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, she worked with the Mazatec people of Mexico. She began developing literacy materials and training teachers. She worked as a linguistic and literacy consultant as well as serving SIL as the International Literacy Coordinator. During these years of teaching, consulting, and writing primers, she developed a reading approach that was based on a linguistic understanding of the language. This approach was named for her after her death. She preferred to call it “an eclectic approach.”

Sarah Gudschinsky defined a fully literate person as one “who, in a language that he speaks, can read and understand anything that he would have understood if it had been spoken to him; and who can write, so that it can be read, anything he can say”. (Gudschinsky 1973)

The Gudschinsky approach to teaching reading is designed to produce the independence, comprehension skills, and fluency skills in reading and writing that will enable an individual to become “fully literate”.

The Gudschinsky instructional program is partially based on a combination of the top-down and bottom-up reading models. This terminology was not in common use when Dr. Gudschinsky developed this program.

The Gudschinsky primer uses an eclectic approach to reading and writing which begins with analysis, rather than synthesis.

Each lesson in the Gudschinsky primer

• begins with a story read by the teacher or a language experience activity (global approach)
• teaches a word that can be pictured
• breaks the word into its parts (analytic approach)
• contrasts and compares these parts
• builds these parts into new words (synthetic approach)
• uses and practices the new words in a story (global approach), and
• practices writing the new letter(s) and words.

Here are some assumptions of the Gudschinsky instructional program:

• Motivation or a desire to become literate is the single most important factor in acquiring literacy.
• A body of literature that the speakers of the language want to read is the single most important factor in motivation to become literate.
• Teachers should be trained according to the learning style appropriate to the community. The amount and type of training depends on the degree of education the teachers bring with them.
• A primer series should be developed and written with the community involved in decisions on all levels.
• Acquisition of writing skills reinforces the acquisition of reading.

Since the Gudschinsky primers have many drills, it is easy for untrained teachers to think the primer is the complete reading program and focus just on the drills. Other aspects of the program may be neglected. Care should be taken that the teachers of a Gudschinsky program are given proper training.

Also, those who design Gudschinsky primers need a good linguistic understanding of the language to design the analysis drills properly.

Curriculum materials may differ among Gudschinsky instructional programs around the world. Here is a typical set of materials:

• Books written in the local language to motivate the community
• Teacher's guides, if needed
• Teaching aids for the classroom.
• Primers
• Numeracy book, if needed
• Follow-up materials such as a continual supply of books, newspapers, and other reading materials written by local writers

Here are the parts of the Gudschinsky instructional program:

Here is an example of a typical Gudschinsky lesson:

• The Gudschinsky lesson

Here are some sample primer pages from the Gudschinsky instructional program:

• Gudschinsky primer page sample

• Current instructional programs

See the following online books for more information:

• Literacy primers: The Gudschinsky primer, Chapter 2.2 Overview
• A manual of literacy for preliterate peoples by Sarah Gudschinsky

See the following online articles for more information:

• Adapting the Gudschinsky method to Sudanese languages
• Some practical applications of the global approach to Gudschinsky materials
• Why the “Gudschinsky method?”

• Structure module: Gudschinsky instructional program, by Ken Boothe, Leah B. Walter (contributor), and Barbara Jean Dawson (editor)
• In overview module: Current instructional programs, by Leah B. Walter, Glenys Waters, and Trudy K. Stewart (editor)
• In overview module: Instructional programs, by Kenneth A. Boothe (contributor), Leah B. Walter (contributor), and Glenys Waters (contributor)
• In modular book: Implement a literacy program, by Carole P. Spaeth (compiler) and Leah B. Walter (compiler)
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 24 September 1999

© 1999 SIL International