Wireless Microphones Help Students Listen Up

Text Box: World Photo/Mike Bonnicksen
Teacher Linda Cameron has a small microphone attached to her smock to help amplify and broadcast her voice for her Washington School students.

By Michelle Partridge

World staff writer

WENATCHEE—A tiny bit of technology is helping thousands of North Central Washington school children hear and learn better.

Small electronic devices that amplify teachers’ voices have now been installed in more than 200 elementary classrooms from Okanogan to the Columbia Basin in the past two years. The units are being credited with improving student learning, grades and attention levels in the classrooms.

“It’s just been incredible,” said Scott McKay, principal and a teacher at Rock Island School, which has the units in all of its classrooms. “It creates such an even balance for the teacher’s voice. The students in the back of the room hear equally as much as those in the front. I don’t know how we got along without them before.”

The units, which cost $700 each, consist of a wireless microphone worn by the teacher and speakers placed around the room to amplify the teacher’s voice. Teachers say the units are especially good for students who sit in the back of the room and students with hearing problems or ear infections. They say the system also works well when teachers are writing on the chalkboard with their back to the class.

Wenatchee clinical audiologist Ken Ullrich, elementary teacher Linda Cameron and the Eye and Ear Clinic worked to get the first unit in a classroom three years ago. Since then, Ullrich has appealed to service clubs, parent-teacher organizations, businesses and individuals to buy them for classrooms.

Ullrich was recently honored with an achievement award from the Washington Speech/Language/Hearing association for his efforts to raise money for units and for improving communication between the medical and educational fields. He also received special recognition at the association’s recent national meeting in New Orleans.

In addition, Beverly Dell, an educational audiologist with the Ephrata School District, was recognized for buying and managing the systems in Ephrata and Quincy schools.

Rock Island, Entiat and St. Joseph elementary schools now have the units in every classroom. About 85 percent of the elementary classes in the Eastmont School District have them. About half the grade school classes in Wenatchee have them. Schools in Okanogan, Pateros, Entiat, Cashmere, Leavenworth, Waterville, Mansfield and several in the Columbia Basin also have them, Ullrich said.

North Central Washington has a higher concentration of the units than anywhere in the country, he added.

He said that, nationwide, teachers are seeing up to a 40 percent reduction in learning disability placements for the children who have amplification units. The results were gathered during a five-year study.

In a survey of 90 elementary school teachers in Iowa, a majority of the teachers rated the usefulness of classroom amplification systems twice as high as any other technology, including computers, overhead projectors, televisions, films and videocassette recorders.

In a local survey of educators, about 20 teachers praised the system for making learning easier for their students and teaching easier for themselves.

“I don’t think I could go without it now,” said Cameron, a first grade teacher at Washington. “It really, really does benefit not only the kids, but the teachers, too.

“We teach so much with sounds and letters in first grade that it’s so important that they hear well,” she added. “So much can be missed if they can’t hear. And there is so much background noise anyway at that age level.”

She said she can even go out into the hall or walk down to the office and still talk to her students. She said it also helps preserve her voice, especially in the winter when she may occasionally get colds.

Teachers have also said the systems are helpful for young minority students learning English.

Ullrich, who works at the Eye and Ear Clinic in Wenatchee, said it has been documented that about 30 percent of young children suffer middle ear disorders, generally from allergies or illnesses, at any given time.

He added that studies of students suffering from ear problems showed that 75 percent of them are academically delayed by the time they leave elementary school.