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

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