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Time For Games And Rituals: However ritual is interpreted, it must be considered as one of the primary forces which stabilize and give continuity to institutional religion. It also appears to serve man's deep-seated urge to formalize and stylize his most significant acts. Religious rituals are most evident at such moments in life as birth, marriage, and death. When a people are primarily dependent upon agriculture, there are innumerable rituals associated with the harvest; and seafaring people develop rituals around the naming and launching of ships.
In Europe, during medieval times and later, elves, fairies, and witches (who occasionally took the shape of cats) were believed to fly on All Hallows Eve, and bonfires were lit to ward off these spirits. Vestiges of these beliefs and practices persisted in Scotland and Ireland into recent times. Halloween was also a time for games and rituals involving methods of foretelling the future. Through such omens as apple parings thrown over the shoulder or nuts burned in the fire, young people tried to determine their marital prospects.
In the way of practical help, suggest games that could be played at home (e.g. word bingo or a cloze game where children fill in missing words or phrases), explaining the particular value of games to a child with reading problems -namely that they're fun and so don't seem too much like hard work, and also that they have a useful repetitive, reinforcing function. When you recommend a game, try to explain just how it is designed to help. There are booklets and pamphlets available, which give ideas for games that can easily be made and played at home (e.g. Hip Pocket Spelling Games series, New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983). |
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