Avi

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Comprehending the language of writing

comprehensionOne of the rea­sons read­ing and writ­ing is so dif­fi­cult to teach in today’s schools is because it is not com­mon­ly under­stood that writ­ing is a unique form of the Eng­lish lan­guage. It is, in gen­er­al, dif­fer­ent from the way Eng­lish is spo­ken. It is often dif­fer­ent from the var­i­ous ways Eng­lish is spo­ken, in terms of cul­ture, geo­graph­ic region, class and eth­nic tra­di­tion. Words can and do have dif­fer­ent mean­ings. The gram­mar can be different.

Con­sid­er some 18th Cen­tu­ry Eng­lish words. A “nat­ty lad,” is a thief or pick­pock­et. “A three-legged mare,” is a gal­lows. “I’ll vamp it and tip you the cole,” means, “I’ll pawn it and give you the money.”

Grant­ed, these are slang expres­sions, long out of date, but Eng­lish today is full of com­pa­ra­ble expres­sions, which are per­fect­ly under­stand­able by those who use them.

More­over, if one’s nar­ra­tive expe­ri­ence is pri­mar­i­ly with tele­vi­sion and/or film, you are hear­ing most­ly dia­logue, which has its own gram­mat­i­cal structure.

The teacher who cor­rects a child’s way of speaking—the way that speak­ing is prac­ticed at home—is telling the child that it is wrong to speak that way. It can be bewil­der­ing. If that same child has no expe­ri­ence with writ­ing, think how more bewil­der­ing is the instruction.

Vast num­bers of kids today—because par­ents do not read and/or chil­dren are not read to—have dif­fi­cul­ty com­pre­hend­ing the lan­guage of writing.

Essen­tial­ly, there is one major way to teach them: by read­ing books to them aloud. It is the most pow­er­ful tool for teach read­ing and writing.

2 thoughts on “Comprehending the language of writing”

  1. As a teacher, I love your blog and read 8–10 books aloud every year, includ­ing Crispin and oth­ers. My com­ment is the Urban dic­tio­nary, which I just clicked on is not appro­pri­ate for fourth graders. The entries for today, the 19th, are not some­thing most par­ents would want their chil­dren to read. We’ll read the blog today, but we will use our Smart Board instead of indi­vid­ual Chrome Books.

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  2. I’m get­ting ready to present this evening for Mid­dle School Par­ent Ori­en­ta­tion Night. Thanks to your blog, Avi, I will be dis­cussing the impor­tance of read­ing aloud to chil­dren. By the way, dit­to on the Urban Dic­tio­nary link. Not one for young children.

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