[senco-forum] Re: Spelling reform

On 05/08/2007 Sharon wrote:

The /ph/ tells you the word comes from the Greek, you need different
spellings for homophones so that you can identify the meanings when reading.
When speaking you can ask the speaker for clarification regarding meaning,
when reading you cannot and that is why we have different spellings.  Other
languages have them too.  English orthography is, believe or not, logically
ordered and bearing in mind its historical development and propensity to
import words from other languages this is no mean feat..  What needs to be
understood is that it is organized at levels other than phoneme-grapheme
correspondence.  In return for this we have the biggest vocabulary of any
language and a relatively simple grammar.  English spelling is not that
difficult if it is taught from the simple to the complex.  For teaching it
is all a matter of enquiry and explanation.  The references below will give
a basic grounding in the history, development and structure of what is
arguably the richest and most flexible language in existence.   Like it or
lump it is the lingua franca of the world.  Most of what I know about
English I was taught in school.  The educational cognoscenti in the 60s on
the basis of no evidence whatsoever (in common with almost all of
education's  fads and fashions) decided that this was a waste of time.  We
haven't really progressed all that much despite all the legislation and
educational 'research', 100,000 publications between 1966 and 1996.   Most
of this body of 'research' was just waffle and of little value empirically,
see the report of the National Reading Panel from the US.  It really is time
we woke up as a system and started spending other people's money in a
rational and sensible way by using the tools that science has provided to
us.

Refs.

Coulmas. Florian (1989). "The Writing Systems of the World",  Basil
Blackwell Ltd. Oxford, England  1989
.
Crystal, D. (1987) " the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language".
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

National Reading Panel  Report (2000) " Teaching to Read: An evidence based
assessment of the Scientific research Literature and its Implications for
Reading Instruction. Washington DC. NICHD Clearing House.

http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/nrp/smallbook.htm

Venezky, R. L. (1970) "The Structure of English Orthography". The Hague,
Mouton

Philip EP

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jean Hutchins" <jeanhutchins1 at ntlworld.com>
To: <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2007 11:02 PM
Subject: [senco-forum] Re: Spelling reform

> On 05/08/2007 Sharon wrote:
>> PS  Jean -
>> RE: Spelling reform - I might eventually get used to losing the useless
>> 'ph/f'<
>
> Hooray, hurrah, hurray. My dictionary even says it can be 'hurra'
> as well. I did not know that.
> Do u teach all those? Do u accept them all from pupils?
>
>  >but I cannot 'see' the use of using 'u/you' unless you use U.<
>
> What rule says that single letters that are words
> should be capitalized. U do not capitalize 'a' in mid-sentence.
>
> Spellings are man-made, not God-given.
>
> 'ewe'.
> Do u say 'you', 'ewe' and 'yew' differently when talking?
> So why write them differently?
>
> Grandson, Dominic, has learned one way of writing
> all sounds thru Jolly Phonics at nursery school and home.
> (They did not teach him the vowel digrafs, but we did.)
> He can write any word he wants,
> and it is readable fonetically.
> Now all he has to do is learn all the alternative
> ways of writing those fonemes and when to use each one!
>
> Jean
> -----------------------------------------
> Jean Hutchins, SE Surrey DA.
> RSA Dip SpLD, AMBDA, retired.
> E-mail: jeanhutchins1 at ntlworld.com
> British Dyslexia Association Web: www.bdadyslexia.org.uk
> Also into spelling reform Web: www.spellingsociety.org
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
> ---
> avast! Antivirus: Inbound message clean.
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jean Hutchins" <jeanhutchins1 at ntlworld.com>
To: <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2007 11:02 PM
Subject: [senco-forum] Re: Spelling reform

> On 05/08/2007 Sharon wrote:
>> PS  Jean -
>> RE: Spelling reform - I might eventually get used to losing the useless
>> 'ph/f'<
>
> Hooray, hurrah, hurray. My dictionary even says it can be 'hurra'
> as well. I did not know that.
> Do u teach all those? Do u accept them all from pupils?
>
>  >but I cannot 'see' the use of using 'u/you' unless you use U.<
>
> What rule says that single letters that are words
> should be capitalized. U do not capitalize 'a' in mid-sentence.
>
> Spellings are man-made, not God-given.
>
> 'ewe'.
> Do u say 'you', 'ewe' and 'yew' differently when talking?
> So why write them differently?
>
> Grandson, Dominic, has learned one way of writing
> all sounds thru Jolly Phonics at nursery school and home.
> (They did not teach him the vowel digrafs, but we did.)
> He can write any word he wants,
> and it is readable fonetically.
> Now all he has to do is learn all the alternative
> ways of writing those fonemes and when to use each one!
>
> Jean
> -----------------------------------------
> Jean Hutchins, SE Surrey DA.
> RSA Dip SpLD, AMBDA, retired.
> E-mail: jeanhutchins1 at ntlworld.com
> British Dyslexia Association Web: www.bdadyslexia.org.uk
> Also into spelling reform Web: www.spellingsociety.org
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
> ---
> avast! Antivirus: Inbound message clean.
> Virus Database (VPS): 000763-5, 05/08/2007
> Tested on: 06/08/2007 09:13:33
> avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2007 ALWIL Software.
> http://www.avast.com
>
>
>

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