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Learn why teaching and learning English is so hard.

It is more difficult for everyone to learn to read in English than other languages.

Teach Reading

 

It is recommended that you establish the connection and importance between rhythm and literacy.

Start thinking about music and rhythm research, the importance of rhythm syllables and how tricky this is for all the tonal language speakers in the world who want to learn english.

 

Three Stooges Swinging the Alphabet Song.

Plato warned that reading would be the downfall of the Oral Tradition and memory. CHILDRENS LITERATURE: THE ORAL TRADITION

cur

Teach Nursery rhymes origins and history.
Listen to Curly from the Three Stooges do better version of the Swinging the Alphabet Song.

REASONS WHY
The English language is so hard to learn.

1) The alphabet was created for languages with five vowels, while English has sixteen.

2) The history of English is complicated, is because it incorporates spelling patterns from several different languages. Look to Irish American Vernacular English and also see examples from First Nation languages.

As a result you can appreciate the confusion below.
This is passed on by a linguist, original author unknown.

  1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
  2. The farm was used to produce produce.
  3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
  4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
  5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
  6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
  7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
  8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
  9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
  10. I did not object to the object.
  11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
  12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
  13. They were too close to the door to close it.
  14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
  15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
  16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
  17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
  18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
  19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
  20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
  21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

reading | literacy| teacher professional development | professional association | teacher education | writing |education | language arts |

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes, I think all the folks who grew up speaking English should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down; in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

Four All Who Reed and Right ~ Author Unknown

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes;
but the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.

One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice;
yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?

If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet,
and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
yet hat in the plural would never be hose, and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
but though we say mother, we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
but imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.

What difficulties are unique to Dialect Speakers?

 

 

Can Johnny read yet? What are the statistics?

21st Century Literacy Skills Test - find out what this is and how you need to prepare for it.

SEE CREOLE LITERATURE In the African-American Vernacular English that is widely spoken in most inner cities you will find an extreme simplification of consonants at the ends of words that goes beyond the pattern of any other dialect. The t in test may be pronounced less than 10% of the time, even at the very end of the sentence where it is heard most clearly in other dialects. In words like old, it is not only the d that is not pronounced, but the l is usually converted to a vowel, so that ol and old may be homonyms. Even single consonants may be deleted at the ends of words. And there are differences in grammer. The 's that signals possession at the end of a sentence (This is my mother's) it is rarely used to relate two nouns (This is my mother cousin house). PDF FILE

Linguistic Experts Recommended Reading

1) Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English by John R. Rickford, Russell J. Rickford (Contributor)
American Book Award 2000 from the Before Columbus Foundation.

2) Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks : The Story of the Ocracoke Brogue - by Walt Wolfram & Natalie Schilling-Estes Click to read a few pages that will explain a time line of how American English came into being. Dialect Awareness Curriculum
This is a fascinating book, compelling to read even for those who are not students of language and dialect. Ocracoker the speech of the natives of Ocracoke Island, North Carolina which was virtually isolated from mainland influence for years and years is highly distinctive in pronunciation, vocabulary and syntax. Thanks to the authors' work in researching Ocracoker, efforts are being made to preserve this unique language and to celebrate the culture that produced it.

3) How the Irish Invented Slang by Daniel Cassidy   The originality and importance of the argument makes this an exciting contribution to both American and Irish Studies. This is a landmark book, at once learned and lively and quite enthralling as to how American English acquired so vibrant a popular vocabulary.

ENGLISH WORDS COME FROM FIRST NATION PEOPLE

First Nation Languages
Find the interesting facts that explore the First Nation People's Words from Linguists.
(1607). Two modern accounts -- one by Captain John Smith and the other by the Jamestown colony secretary, William Strachey -- preserved some Virginia Algonquian words. Of the more than 15 original Algonquian languages in eastern North America, the two still spoken are Passamaquoddy-Malecite in Maine and Mikmaq in New Brunswick.

LITERATURE

 

 

 

LITERATURE ONLINE READING RESOURCES - FOR THE CLASSROOM OR AT HOME

LITERATURE
Here are some of the very best resources for both traditional Language Arts and modern communications sites and applications on the web. You will find that they are in a separate class all by themselves and can enrich and even transform your curriculum

The top 20 titles that created readers were:
(1) Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keene
(2) Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
(3) Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
(4) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
(5) The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss

 

TOOLS

 

 

Readability - Quick Assessment Resources

Reading Research New language circuit discovered in humans' points out that between 5-7 years of age is when people develop reading and writing skills.

What I Can Do to Comprehend During Reading
Reading Chart for your Classroom

1) Visualize concepts & situations
2) Summarize the main events or important ideas
3) Clarify confusing words, terms, & sentences, sometimes with an outside reference
4) Question the author & myself, when summarizing & clarifying
5) Connect the text with your own experiences, or other reading
6) Predict what will be covered next

What teachers of reading should know and be able to do
http://www.aft.org//Edissues/downloads/rocketsci.pdf

TIP Database The Theory Into Practice Database
TIP is a tool intended to make learning and instructional theory more accessible to educators. The database contains brief summaries of 50 major theories of learning and instruction. These theories can also be accessed by learning domains and concepts.

 

Teaching English, ESL, English as a second language, learning to read, teaching kids to read

 

WRITING -
KIDS NEED TO TUNE UP

 

 

"Well, I can't take on all of our hurried society at once, but in the handwriting realm, at least, I'm going to have my say. Because most research and the specialists I've talked to agree that children are generally ready to be introduced to writing -- and have the necessary motor and visual skills -- sometime during kindergarten. In fact, not even every kindergartner is prepared to write, say the experts, all of whom advocate waiting until a student is ready and receptive. "It's easier to learn something when everything is in place," says Newman, who is a perceptual motor therapist, runs movement classes for children and thinks kids need to exercise and move to develop good pre-writing skills. Yet many preschools persist in teaching children to write, and even evaluating that writing, before the students have the skills they need. [...Remember the progression when we were in elementary school? Printing in kindergarten and/or first grade. Cursive in third. Penmanship grades. Most assignments in elementary school were handwritten. Typing didn't come until sometime in middle or high school. Compare that with today's curriculum. Handwriting in preschool, probably in reaction to the tougher kindergarten curriculum. Then, in second grade, sometimes before they have the basics of handwriting down, children are often introduced to typing. Cursive still comes around third grade, but nowadays it's often a rushed program, with some people arguing that one script should suffice, especially since most kids are going to wind up on computers. And forget penmanship; kids are lucky if they are taught to sit properly and form their letters efficiently. In fact, according to the experts, not only do most teachers have no training in handwriting instruction, they don't have the time to teach it thoroughly."
Source http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48366-2002Aug6.html

Write in the Middle a workshop for middle school teachers who teach writing, complete with audio files and Best Practices in Teaching Writing.

Writing Tips:
I was once taught that the first sentence of every paragraph should contain the main idea of the paragraph. Then the following sentences should give info about that topic and the last sentence should be the summary of the main idea.
Write about issues you really, really care about like things that frustrate or make you mad. Try to use the simplest-possible language, write like you talk and use personal experience to the maximum. Listen to yourself read it aloud for how it sounds - is it your voice? Is this what you mean to say? Reread and rewrite until it just "sounds right," which seems to have something to do with rhythm and other stuff. Start reading two or three paragraphs before to get a "running start to that will help you shape the next sentence.
Find a way to hook a big idea to something real and immediate and write about whatever is personal to you about that subject. Your life experience - the more the better. My favorite book is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (If you haven't read the book and he seems to be talking about himself as someone else, that "someone else" is him before he had some sort of mental breakdown.) There's a really good description by Pirsig the main character about how he helped a student get around writer's block.The discussion of "quality writing" starts around page 190 depending on which book you have.

Star Teaching / Writing lays out the writing process and also includes K-12 Rubrics and paragraph organizer.

The easiest way to improve writing scores is to use the Fry Formula. The
students must write at grade level. It only takes a few minutes to show the students how to use this formula. Next, you spend an extraordinary amount of time on making sure that the opening sentences don't start with the, a, and, I or any other simple word. They must start with the most important part of the topic sentence by using a phrase. Fry Graph for estimating reading ages (grade level) avg. number of sentences per 100 words. If this is of interest just email me for additional details. ~ Al Haskvitz

Directions for Use of the Fry Readability Graph

 

Listen to Writer William Bourroughs leads a class. "Language is a virus from outer space." and  "Paranoia is just knowing all the facts." ~ Willam S Burroughs, Jr.

Essay Writing sites

English Rules of Thum (sic)

  1. Don't use no double negatives.
  2. Make each pronoun agree with their antecedents.
  3. Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
  4. About them sentence fragments.
  5. When dangling, watch your participles.
  6. Verbs has got to agree with their subjects.
  7. Just between you and i, case is important.
  8. Don't write run-on sentences when they are hard to read.
  9. Don't use commas, which aren't necessary.
  10. Try to not ever split infinitives.
  11. It is important to use your apostrophe's correctly.
  12. Proofread your writing to see if you any words out.
  13. Correct speling is essential.
  14. A preposition is something you never end a sentence up with.
  15. While a transcendant vocabulary is laudable, one must be eternally careful so that the calculated objective of communication does not become ensconsed in obscurity.
  16. Eschew obfuscation.

 

Pronunciation in the English language
The author, Prof. H. L. Chace was a professor of French and wrote these in 1940 to to demonstrate that intonation of spoken English is almost as important to the meaning as the words themselves. He is the originator of ANGUISH LANGUISH, for you, your friends, and your family to half pun wit. Example: Fairy Tales Little Red Riding Hood becomes this title Furry Tells Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.


Welcome to the The Little, Brown Compact Handbook and The Little, Brown Compact Handbook with Exercises by Jane E. Aaron. Students can find material to enrich their learning experience, including video tutorials, exercises, downloads from the textbook, and links to additional resources on the Web. Instructors can make use of all of the resources for students as well as find other teaching-oriented materials.
About the Book - The Writing Process - Writing In and Out of College - Sentences - Punctuation, Spelling, and Mechanics - Research Writing - Documenting in the Disciplines - Usage Flashcards - Instructor Resources

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