Cynthia,
   I think this all comes down to a recognition of the meaningfulness of
grammar. Because we don't currently have that consensus, we don't have
a program for teaching awareness of form as a "meaningful" activity. As
Bill says, even students who find their way to college aren't generally
aware of these forms at a conscious level. I have found once again this
summer that students don't come out of college knowing what a clause
is. The term "phrase" is new to them. What little attention is paid to
this, even in the handbooks, is an attempt to teach conventions, not an
attempt to teach the grammar/meaning connection.
   I suspect the students who get hurt most by this are those who have
trouble reading. It would be interesting to see some sort of
intervention at earlier grade levels.
   The current whole language approach is to encourage reading and writing
(certainly a good thing) in the expectation that fluency will come from
that. The focus on grammar seems error driven. There's no reason why we
can't add conscious attention to how writing works when it works well.
   If my memory is accurate, the sentence combining programs that have
gotten the best results include reflection on the effect of the various
choices, but those were specifically testing for improvement in
writing. (One study showed that one group of students who did sentence
combining became more "mature" in language structures, but scored lower
holistically. Complicated structures are not inherently more
effective.) It would be interesting to test a carryover to reading fror
students who have not only become more "fluent" wioth those structures,
but more aware of them as rhetorical choices. >
   Maybe the argument comes down to whether grammar is something we all
already possess or whether it is something we grow into and therefor
might benefit from some sort of mentoring. Certainly the kinds of set
expressions that Bill wrote about aren't common to everyone's
experience.  For students most at risk, it might be prudent to assume
the need for mentoring.
   When I teach reading, I teach a conscious attention to how a text
means. It's easier to do at the level of whole text, but it certainly
involves choices at the level of the clause and the phrase and the
sentence. In a very basic way, students who read well read through to
the meanings, but even they benefit enormously from conscious attention
to how those meanings are formed.

Craig

Cynthia,
>
>
>
> I can't think of much that would be *more* in line with the listserv's
> purpose. I suspect there are at least two partially different kinds of
> "phrasing" going on with fluent readers.  One involves recognition of
> things like idioms and set phrases that have to have specific words in
> particular places - things like "to put up with <s.t.>", "for all
> intents and purposes,"  "other things being equal" and so forth.  People
> can use those almost as if they're single vocabulary items, and some of
> the problems students have with them are simply *because* those phrases
> are so invariant that people can avoid thinking about the internal parts
> altogether, or misconstrue them ("for all intensive purposes," for
> example).  Getting some "sight recognition" ability for this kind is
> easily possible (if sometimes tedious) and can speed up reading. I found
> myself memorizing a lot of German equivalents when I was learning to
> read linguistics articles in German, and they certainly helped me
> navigate.
>
>
>
> The other kind is tied to word categories but not to particular words,
> and involves recognition that (for example) all  of a noun clause
> "belongs together" in some way. It may simply be the abstract end of a
> scale that starts with the set phrases, but you obviously can't learn
> them as single vocabulary units; they're inherently flexible. With
> college students, I've noticed enormous variation in their ability to
> recognize that second kind of phrasing at a conscious level, and that's
> an issue for grammar teachers as well as reading teachers. I've had a
> tiny bit of success using a kind of audio comparison trick - just as an
> awareness-raiser, I'll try reading a sentence from the board as if it
> had the wrong groupings. The students have absolutely no problem
> noticing how horrible it sounds, and then I can try to get them talking
> about how they're able to hear that the sentence is "off-key."
>
>
>
> Bill Spruiell
>
> Dept. of English
>
> Central Michigan University
>
>
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Cynthia Baird
> Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2008 8:38 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: phrasal fluency
>
>
>
> This question probably goes out to the secondary (even elementary)
> teachers on the list more than the professors, but I'm hoping to get
> some responses, and I also hope that this question isn't too far from
> the listserve's purpose.
>
>
>
> I am teaching a literacy class this year to high school students who are
> below-grade level in their reading.  The material I will be using is
> pretty decent but leaves out one reading skill that I have never seen
> addressed in literacy programs--phrasal/clausal fluency.  Does such a
> term even exist?
>
>
>
> I believe that good readers do not read word for word, but in groups of
> words--phrases and clauses (anyone who has listened to a "word reader"
> understands the difference).  And I believe that when a reader cannot
> distinguish words that group together for meaning, reading rate and
> comprehension are both hindered.  Such weaknesses are particularly a
> problem for readers of higher-level texts with sentences that contain
> numerous embedded clauses and sopisticated sentence structures.
>
>
>
> Am I mistaken in thinking that phrasal (or clausal) fluency is a factor
> in reading comprehension?  For English language learners, particularly,
> I am wondering if there is anything I can do to point out to them the
> "method" or "madness" of phrases and clauses in the English language
> that can help them master fluency.
>
>
>
> Does anyone have resources that can help me to teach or remediate such a
> skill? Am I crazy or mistaken?!
>
>
>
> thanks for any responses!
>
>
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