[senco-forum] Re: How many rules?

People 'develop' their use of language as they grow (just add water!) -

You have a point, Stuart.

OK, my daughters are both highly intelligent with no learning problems of
any kind, but the older one was never formally taught to read, she seemed
to absorb reading and spelling almost by symbiosis and could read at 4
years old.  She is still addicted to print, in any shape or form and in
Old, Middle and Modern English!  The younger one prefers art to
literature, but she also galloped away with reading, spelling and writing
after two weeks in Reception with the old "Breakthrough to Literacy"
(remember that?).  Both my husband and I are also sure that we developed
use of language as we grew - with or without added water.

I'm sure that this is the way most people do it - no, I don't have any
solid evidence, just experience.  Our difficulty is that we are mostly
concerned with those who, for whatever reason, do not find it at all easy
to develop language through exposure to it.  As all people who experience
problems experience them in different ways, it often seems as though we
need to try as many ways as there are children!  The joy comes when we at
last hit on what works for a child who has been struggling for what can
seem like a lifetime; sometimes that involves learning rules.

Regards

Jean

S Wales

It is quite basic really -
> People 'develop' their use of language as they grow (just add water!) -
> They develop their language through exposure to it in:
> 1. their family circle
> 2. their friendship circle
> 3. their school circle
> 4. their work environment
> ... you get the picture ...
>
> Who teaches pupils to spell every word?
> Who teaches pupils to read every word?
> Who teacher pupils how to write every word?
>
> Answer - pupils develop 'their system'.
>
> Over to the Forum!
> Stuart
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
> [mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Biff Crabbe
> Sent: 04 September 2007 23:25
> To: Maggie Downie; Philip MacMillan; Amanda; Phil;
> senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
> Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Re: How many rules?
>
> 'So what is the most efficient way to grasp literacy?'
>
> Naturally.
>
> You're quite wrong about it being impossible to learn to read and write
> without being taught how they work.  Naturals are taught only the very
> basics (and some can self-teach without any direct instruction) - and
> then off they go.  They make their own generalisations about how letter
> combinations might work, without being told.  So seeing the digraph 'ar'
> behaving similarly in two words prompts a tentative generalisation,
> which gets tested next time 'ar' comes up.  And in time, we might notice
> that it isn't entirely consistent in sound when prefixed with 'w'.  (We
> might not notice this, but still arrive at a consistent recognition of
> how to pronounce and spell words that start 'war'.)
>
> I count myself as a lucky natural in this respect - after Janet and
> John, there wasn't much, if any, explicit teaching - just some
> corrections while the system refined itself.  And my son, given the
> tools only of the initial sounds of the letters, gaily read at 3 and
> carried on at his own pace.  One daughter with severe dysarthria learned
> to read through word recognition (mainly because she couldn't articulate
> many individual sounds, so phonics...was tough).  Second daughter, not a
> natural, only just survived 'whole books' and was saved by her
> intelligence and diligence.
>
> I don't think (and neither do you) that it's a case of learning 180-ish
> correspondences OR learning 250,000 words as discrete entities.
> Knowledge in both informs and supports the other.  Eddie (and I) would
> vouch for the improvement brought about in reading fluency for some
> children using his program, which doesn't have a correspondence in
> sight.  Lots of users will say the same.  I don't think that this
> improvement is brought about entirely by learning to recognise words as
> individual units - my observation suggests that the improvers are
> generalising, making connections and recognising rules - without direct
> instruction.
>
> So trust me, there is an extremely efficient way to grasp literacy, but
> you probably need the gene....
>
> Biff
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Maggie Downie
>   To: Biff Crabbe ; Philip MacMillan ; Amanda ; Phil ;
> senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
>   Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 10:41 PM
>   Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Re: How many rules?
>
>
>
>
>   Biff Crabbe <ba at biffc.vispa.com> wrote:
>     Not a piece of research published in a learned journal, but
> personally I'd
>     recommend Bill Bryson's 'Mother Tongue' as an excellent and
> eminently
>     readable book about the English language. Populist rubbish in some
> circles
>     I'm sure.
>
>     It's apparently encouraging that the number of 'rules' in English is
> finite,
>     albeit with more exceptions to rules than is comfortable. But if
> you're
>     having to learn how to read and spell via those rules, you're
> probably not
>     showing promise of being a 'natural'.
>
>     I'm not quite following your reasoning here, Biff.  How can one
> learn to read and write *without* being taught how reading and writing
> 'work' (i.e, the 'rules', if you insist on being rule bound)?  Reading
> is not a 'natural' process, therefore no-one can be 'a natural' at it...
>
>     Surely, those who are slower to learn have a far better chance of
> learning 180ish 'correspondences', and how to apply them to decode &
> blend words, than they do of learning 250,000 words as discrete
> entities?
>
>
>     Those people lucky enough to just
>     learn to read and spell fluently without particular difficulty very
> often
>     can't articulate the rules, or even recognise that there is a rule
> governing
>     something that they know how to do (as Jean has attested).
>
>     So while we might be comforted by the finite number of rules to be
> learned,
>     we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that those who need to learn in
> this way
>     are already at a comparative disadvantage. And it's certainly not
> the most
>     efficient way to grasp literacy.
>
>     So, what is the most efficient way to 'grasp literacy'?
>
>
>   Maggie
>
>
>
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