Category: Language
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Phonics is just 30 minutes a day. C’mon!
Don’t sleep on that 30 minutes of high quality, well-delivered, direct, explicit, and systematic daily phonics instruction in the earliest grades.
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Diglossia, African American English, & Literacy Instruction in the United States
There is a concept termed diglossia worth exploring in relation to dialects of African American English used in the United States. What is diglossia? Diglossia can be defined as “the coexistence of two varieties of the same language throughout a speech community. Often, one form is the literary or prestige dialect, and the other is…
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Why assessing bilingual children in two languages is just a start
Gaining a clear picture of a student’s language and literacy abilities in both English and their home language is critically important in two scenarios: Gaining information in both languages for bilingual students in these situations can portray a completely different spectrum of profiles than when assessing in English only. Two Different Home Language and Literacy…
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An Ontogenesis Model of Word Learning in a Second Language
A recent paper caught my eye, Ontogenesis Model of the L2 Lexical Representation, and despite the immediate mind glazing effect of the word “ontogenesis,” I found the model well worth digging into and sharing here—and it may bear relevance to conversations on orthographic mapping. Bordag, D., Gor, K., & Opitz, A. (2021). Ontogenesis Model of…
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Phonemic Proficiency: A Hypothesis to be Tested
There’s been a kerfuffle in the reading nerd sphere for a while now about Dr. David Kilpatrick’s theories of orthographic mapping and the advanced phonemic awareness activities promoted by his Equipped for Reading Success program. At issue have been the following: Are phonemic awareness activities without letters time well spent for Tier 1 instruction? Are…
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A Finale: Learning to Read and Write is a Remarkable Human Feat
What have I learned from my exploration of whether learning to read is natural or unnatural? It’s complicated.
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The Relation of Speech to Reading and Writing
In this post, we examine another argument made against the naturalness of reading by Alvin Liberman in 1992. The distinction, according to Liberman, may be that one is biological in evolution, while the other is cultural.
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An Interlude: What do we mean when we say learning something is unnatural?
An interlude reflecting on what we’ve learned from the Goodmans and Gough and Hillinger on the debate of whether learning to read is natural or unnatural.
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Learning to Read: An Unnatural Act
In this post, we’ll explore a strong counterargument to the Goodmans’ argument that learning to read is natural. And it has something to do with the distinction between a code and a cipher.
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Learning to Read is Natural
In this paper, the Goodmans claim that learning to read is natural. Are they right?
Language & Literacy 