the logic of English 6
0 (0 Likes / 0 Dislikes)
A solution to the problem of English
Now that you´ve completed your phonogram practice
I´d like you to explore another difficulty with learning English
The fact is that there are multiple spellings to the sound of English
On page 95 of your teacher training menu you´ll see a chart
representing the sounds and how they are spelled in English
and many teachers don´t even realize
that this is where one of the hang-ups are for students
students hear a sound and then they are not sure
which spelling to choose
Well, let´s look at this problem a little bit more closely
Out of the 45 sounds in English only 15 of them
are represented by only one spelling.
So if you hear the sound "a", you absolutely know
how to spell it
If you hear the sound "ah", there´s only one spelling
Now, 22 of the sounds, can be figured out logically
there´s a spelling rule or something that will help us
to determine which phonogram to use
or they have a very rare spelling
so some of the sounds are represented in multiple ways
but one of these ways may be used in only 8 or 9 words on the whole language,
so that can be very helpful in helping us to determine which spelling to use
and you can see a list of the 22 that can be figured out logically
or have rare spellings on page 96 of the Teacher Training Manual
now 10 of the sounds which is quite a lot, it’s a four almost a four quarter
have multiple spellings that are very common
and so when we are teaching English we need to come up with a strategy
to help students to understand the phonogram
or the sounds that have multiple spellings
and so, um, we need first of all admit them that this is happening
and that this is one of the areas that they may be struggling with
when it comes to spelling
and we need to create a system to help them master those words
now, before we dig in to actually experiencing this as the students do I’d like
I'd like to talk about some of the reasons
that students struggle with reading and spelling,
and how this relates to these multiple sounds.
So first of all,
one of the most common reasons
students struggle with reading
and then also with spelling
is inadequate practice.
Whenever there's something
that has an area of memory to it,
that we have to internalize,
we need to practise it regularly.
and I´d like to visualize it like this:
in one student or one child
is learning to ride a bike
and they have mastered or
are starting to ride a bike with training wheels
we don´t go out
the reality is that, learning happens with repetition over time
and if we don´t have that repetition over time
we tend to forget
One of the examples that I sometimes give is when I was at the university
doing my bachelors' work I was actually a chemistry major
and one of my favourite classes.. amm... in all of my
under gradual work was organic chemistry.
However, today I can't even really tell you
what organic chemistry was about
and the reason is because I haven't used it.
Now if for using something again and again and again,
then we will be able to recall it.. am..
and so with reading which is so foundational
on the phonograms, this is something that we need to practise over time.
It is also important we understand
Chose the correct one
It's multiple choice
It's actually how
most of our students's testing is done
That is the easiest level of knowing
The second most difficult thing would be
to see a phonogram and be able
to read it sounds
or to see a word and be able to read it
That is another level of knowing
The deepest level of knowing in language
would be to hear a word
and then be able to spell it
because if you can spell a word
you absolutely know how to read it
but if you can read a word
you don't necessarily know how to spell it
so when we are practising with our students
it's important to practice all the depth of learning
we need to practise in a multiple choice setting
where they can choose the correct answer from
I's also impregnance educators that we understand
the elements of effective practice, now
row practice is very boring for the students and they really struggle with it
and that should be true I mean we don’t want to do anything with killing drowe
to have the practice be boring.
Instead practice should always be fun, should be engaging
we should use games, we should use activities that engaged the students interests level
We should practice that it’s meaningful to them. We also need
to practice on a daily bases
Sometimes we don’t understand
and we think that if we tell the students information on one day
that they should know the next day and the students show up to class, or you know
with the tutor and they look like they never seen him before.
Well that’s completely normal it's when we practice things
daily over a period of time that we internalized them
Another literacy instructure I know was actually on an airplane
and she sat down next to a gentleman in his 50s or 60s
they started a conversation and this gentlemen
um asked her what she did and she said
well I teach reading and I'm off to do a literacy training course
and he said like oh oh oh ow f off now immediately
she knew that he have some exposure to the orton phonograms
because that whould be the ough phonogram in all six sounds
and so she said wll sir how do you know this
and he said oh well how could I not I learned it in elementary school
and she said you learned it in elementary school
And you still remember it, how can that be?
and he said, well how could I not remember it.
We practiced it every day for five or six years.
And she said, every day. How on earth did you have time to practice the phonograms every day?
And he said oh it didn't take long. We used to raise ourselves.
We could read all 70 phonograms in less than 90 seconds.
And what she learnt at that point and what I've really taken away from it is that
reading in the phonogram spelling
These are the foundations to everything else we do
The practice does not need to take a long time
but we should include 5 min of practice or shorts amounts of practice
over many years
so the students internalized this information
Now we need to remember:
don’t assume that if you do a long 2h lesson on phonograms and spelling on Monday,
that you know they will retain that info on Friday
if you dont practice sistematically.
It´s important to remember the principle that what we do not use, we lose
Practice should it be short, it´s important not to bored our students with long, long lessons in this
And it should be meaninful
we also need to respect the age and learning styles of the students
and we need to prioritize
I think one of the biggest issues that we face
in our schools, in our home schools, in our tutoring sessions
is that students are asked to complete everything,
all the subjects.
and if they are in 4th or 5th grade
and they are struggling with reading and now
they have science and history and literature and all
this things powered on topping them many times we
don't place the priority we should be on
reading instruction. I highly recommend that we just
set aside some of the other subjects for
a very short period of time and teach
the students intensely how to read and then
everything they do will be much more efficient.
The same is true with spelling
if the students are too struggling with spelling
to the point that they're struggling
to write words as they are doing composition.
If we take a short period of time
and make spelling a high priority and teach them
the rules on phonograms it would save them
countless hours in the future.
So now I would like to go ahead
and give you some ideas for how to mastering
spelling that have multiple options.
One of the best things you can do actually
is to create a spelling journal
sounds a spelling journal but this is not something you need to buy
Rather you can create this very simple notebook
I've an example here up on the screen
Where you can see that the way we organize the spelling journal is by sound
So this page shows the long A sound and some of the options for spelling it
In spelling journal, students then can write down words
that they are struggling with because of the sounds
but categorize them by the sound they are struggling with, and by their spelling
And this is very helpful, because It creates a systematic tool
and also creates a reference tool for students
They can put their spelling word in here
but they can aslo put words that they're misspelling in other subjects
We should also practice those words in meaningful ways
Use them in sentences, learn the grammar of the word
Learn the rithm of the word
So practice (am) spelling not by just sending the student to copy the word
thirty or fourty times but by using the word in meaningful context
We also should be using multi-sensory games
The logic of english phonogram and spelling game book
has lot of ideas
and in your teacher training manual
you are going to see many ideas in this section
for games that you can use with your students
that are a lot of fun
And in this way they can engage with the material
and not just memorise it in a boring way.
An other idea for you is to leverage the fact that English is morpho-phonemic
Now, we talked earlier in this session about how English is a morpho-phonemic language
which means that language is based on both sound and meaning
So let’s say that the students has a word like night
Where we are using the three letter I
Many students will misspell this word using a single letter I
and a silent final e
So let's think we wanna help them remember that this is the three letter i
So one of the ways we can do this is we can say to them
Well, what are some of their evidence
What are some other words that inlcude the word night.
Why don't you take a minute just now and
think what words can you think of that use night,
maybe nightingale, nightly, tonight.
But you'll see, here is a whole list of words
and that use the word night in them.
You can find this list on page 100 of your teacher training manual.
As students learn these words which incorporate the word night,
they'll be practicing the spelling and
they'll be expanding their vocabularies.
Another idea that I like to do
when a student is having a difficulty spelling a word
is to give them what I call word sums.
Here you'll see, there's a word and then a suffix
and this way the student has to add the suffix to the word,
they can practice the suffix in roles and they begin to learn
new, uh, deliveries, new meanings, new vocabulary words.