[CW] Instant Recognition

[DANNY DOUGLAS]

NO - I would not attempt to drill only on those characters you are having a problem with.  I start students with those characters which are used most, within the English language.: E T A I O N S.  Once they have learned the character E, with me sending it by hand, dozens of times, so that can hear, recognize, and write it down, I will add the T: sending it several times.  I will then mix the E and the T up until the are 100 percent correct, each time I send it.  I then go on to the next character: A.  Again sending it several times, watching that they immediately recognize it, and write it down.  Then again I will send the three known characters, mixed in a rota, until the student gets all of them correct, several times.  Adding the next character, and the next and the next, the same way.  When they have learned all the first group of letters, I will then start sending words:  AT -IT - TIN - EAT  SAT -  TON - TEA - ANT - STONE - etc.  When the student is able to continually copy each of those words, I will throw in some simple sentences.  NOT A TEN ON IT - NO TOES AT NOSE etc.  Its amazing the things you can say with just a few letters.  Take a short pause, and go on to the next group of letters: commonly 
W D M R H C U, then BGKLPV, and last QJXYZ.  One may wonder where the numbers and things like the period, comma and quesition mark are; and those can be added at the end of each of the above character sets - one or two at a time.  Other times, I have simply waited until I have taught all the letters, then make those into two character sets, and use them amongst the other letters in sentences, questions, statements.  The use of words and sentences, using ALL the learned characters, at the end of each set, will emphasize your recognition of each of the characters already learned.

What this normally takes is a teacher sitting there, sending, and watching the student write down the character, before he sends the next one (at first) and then "pressuring" the student later on, by getting into a rythym and going ahead and sending the next character even though the studend has not gotten the last one written yet.  Teach them to put SOMETHING down, even if it is a period (.), to indicate something was missed there.  If you are using a computer program, you will need to figure out how to do all this, but of course the computer isnt going to know you have gotten the character or not.  I used to have an old basic program that would do just that, so there are probably some out there that will.  

But to answer the question"  NO do not try to just put those problem characters together and study only them.  It would be counter productive to your knowledge and understanding /recognitiion of those characters, when you are presented with the whole package of the language of Morse code.




Danny Douglas
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