Dear Cyndi,
To an extent, I agree with Bill when he says that non-readers will
not develop an "innate" knowledge of punctuation. I do, however, believe
that systematic instruction in grammar can help non-readers develop that
knowledge. The instruction, however, has to do what most current grammar
textbooks do not even attempt--it has to enable students to analyze the
grammar of real sentences. Such instruction, moreover, cannot "fit"
within a single grade level.
At the KISS Grammar site, we are developing a grammar curriculum
for grades two through eleven. Exercises are almost all based on
sentences from real texts. The second grade workbook introduces students
to subjects and verbs. Then it adds complements, then adjectives and
adverbs, then prepositional phrases. It is still being developed, but
you can see the current work at:
http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/kiss/wb/LPlans/G02_WB1.htm
Each grade will build on the next, and by eleventh grade students
should be able to explain how any word fits into any sentence. Along the
way, students will be studying punctuation in real texts. They will also
be exploring how various grammatical constructions affect the meaning of
sentences.
Exactly how effective this approach will be in improving reading
remains to be seen, but I have already seen some improvements in my
students and have received a few anecdotal reports from members of the
KISS list. As I understand it, poor readers read words, not phrases, and
the KISS approach helps them sees texts as combinations of meaningful
phrases.
Ed
>>> [log in to unmask] 11/12/2006 10:54:22 PM >>>
Dear Bill,
I know this is an old post of yours, but it struck a chord with me.
I've previously posted what I think is an oversight in this "grammar"
discussion--we seem to focus on grammar and writing and focus less on
grammar and reading, which I am seeing is a real lapse.
I have been working one-on-one with a struggling 8th grade reader who
to save her life cannot decode basic punctuation--she doesn't recognize
end stops, she doesn't know intonation for questions or
exclamations--why not, I ask? All I know is that conventional
punctuation is not "innate." She can comprehend a text that she and I
have read, but she cannot read on her own, yet I do not see an obvious
learning disability. I do think that conventional grammar
knowledge-grammar of the 21st century complete with 21st century
punctuation rules, however invented they may seem to us--has a great
impact on reading comprehension.
I find this reading/grammar connection to be an interesting intrusion
on what has heretofore been a grammar/writing discussion on our
listserve and I am hoping that experts like you will respond to my
questions.
Yours in language,
Cyndi
"Spruiell, William C" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I may be digging up a dead horse here just to beat it, but if we're
going to be approaching comma splices, run-ons, and fragments in
connection with the notion of "what native speakers know about
grammar,"
it's crucial to keep in mind those particular types of problems are
artifacts of our punctuation system, not of our language. There *are*
no
sentence fragments or run-ons in normal speech; there are highly
complex
sequences of clause units. Decisions about where to break up those
sequences in writing, and about which punctuation mark to use for each
division, are based on practices which have developed over the past
two
millennia among European writers. The early Romans didn't even put
spaces between words -- a text was a big rectangle formed of lines of
consecutive letters.
This is why, for example, having a student read aloud through a paper
at
normal speed will seldom help that student spot fragments or run-ons
--
s/he will simply adopt the right intonation to make the text work,
ignoring the punctuation. The only luck I've had with "read-aloud"
approaches to spotting fragments is to have the student read each
sentence in the text starting from the end and going backwards (it
destroys the ongoing flow of the context, so the student has to
evaluate
each sentence as if it is in a new context).
Even if one takes a very, very strong position on the side of innate
knowledge of grammar, fragments and run-ons will always be outside of
that "innate" zone. Instead, students who have read avidly will, by
the
time they are in their late teens, have developed an "innate"
knowledge
of punctuation, from exposure to the written texts where punctuation
lives. Non-readers won't, period.
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. To join or leave
this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave
the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
|
