Do you feel that? That’s the tides turning. That’s minds shifting. That is what a true understanding of the English writing system will do, it will shift the way we teach our kids, because it shifts the way we, as educators and scholars, understand our own language. And I am not just talking about kids with dyslexia, I am talking about all kids. Because there’s a new, but not-so-new to linguists, game in town and it’s the truth about the English language, and it ain’t written syllables baby.
The use of nonsense words in intervention programs for reading and spelling to struggling readers is ubiquitous. It is ubiquitous in assessments too. Publishers use the rationale that nonsense words help the teacher and assessor know whether or not the student is able to transfer what they have learned about decoding to new words and this signals progress. The problem with this is twofold. First, many of the nonsense words that are used are not possible letter strings in the English language. (For a detailed and well-support description of this, please read Gina Cooke’s article). Secondly, the English writing system is based on meaning before phonology, so when a student is reading a word with no meaning, it can be impossible to really determine what the correct pronunciation is. In teacher trainings, we always ask the group, how do you pronounce the letter string *<chom>? The answer we always get is /chom/ or [ʧɑm] in IPA. The problem with this answer, is that the correct answer is really, we can’t know what the correct pronunciation is until we know what the word is. In the case of a digraph like <ch> the meaning and etymology of the word will drive the pronunciation. Look at the following three common words: chip, machine and ache. Their histories drive their pronunciations, so how in the world can a student know which is correct?
As we completed our last trip for the year, we took a look back at 2016 and were astonished about how much we had accomplished around this country and abroad. We thought it would be fun to share with you so that we can all celebrate the dyslexia movement and the increase in awareness in so many different venues.
It’s no secret that my heart will always be with the adult literacy students I worked with prior to starting the Dyslexia Training Institute. I have even written about the Adult Side of Dyslexia trying to explain the profound impact those students still have on me to this day. Luckily, here at DTI, we still get to work with adults and on some days, and usually the days when I really need a pick-me-up, we get an email like the below from a previous adult learner and today was one of those days in which I received an email that brought me to tears (all identifying information was removed):