#Phonology Assignment Help

[iislak-mewu]

Īslak Mèwu intro post

Shishīkwa prana!¹ Welcome, travellers! I'll try and keep this post friendly and readable to non-linguists, I just wanna infodump about my language lol. This post has gotten a little long though, so apologies! Hopefully it serves well to give you a feel of it <3

¹/ɕiˈɕiə̯kʋa pʁaˈna/ PL~foreigner.PAT welcome

Consider this a formal introduction post to the conlang (constructed language) i've been making for like, over a year now at this point? on and off, mostly off tho lmao. The vast majority of stuff i've made is the grammar (this is very much my favourite area of langs lol, closely followed by the phonetics side of things), and as a result i really don't have many words or actual forms for things lol

Īslak Mèwu² (lit. valley's language) (or just Īsla for short) is a language spoken by the fictional Rūsawlitwā³ people. While the majority of them are a vertical transhumance culture, living in valleys and farming cattle (herders move the flock up and down the mountains in line with the seasons, while the majority of people live permenantly in the village), some groups have moved further afoot and are living in a more settled way in towns and cities in neighbouring regions.

²/iɐ̯ˈsla-k m��ˈʋu/ valley-GEN language (lit. "valley's language") ³/ʀuɐ̯-ˌsaʋli-ˈtˠaː/ cow-herd-AGN (lit. "cow-herders")

I'll start with Īsla's sounds, then give a (not-so-brief) tour of the grammar.

Phonology / sounds

Īsla has the following consonants: (If you don't recognise these symbols, you can find and listen to them here. You won't find ˠ in there, but it makes things sound more "dark".)

Īsla has eight short vowels, /i e ɛ a y ø u o/, along with the long vowels /iɐ̯, uɐ̯, iː, yː, uː, eː, aː/ and the rather distinctive syllabic fricatives /ʝ̩, ɣ̩ʷ, ɣ̩~ɦ̩/. These syllabic fricatives are high pitch, and often realised instead as breathy voiced vowels depending on dialect.

The syllable structure is (C)(C)V(C). Stress is assigned to the last "heaviest" syllable.

I am currently in the middle of reworking the past maybe 100 years of sound shifts, so this is subject to change (especially the vowel system)

Grammar

For the linguistics nerds among us, Īslak Mèwu is a synthetic language that features noun incorperation, a pretty free word order, 3 grammatical genders, split-S alignment, converbs, a shitty verb agreement system that will likely fall out of use in a generation or two (role marking is mostly done by the case system and emphatic pronouns), and TAM is typically marked via auxiliary verbs (tbf these are a lot more irregular so you do get decent verb agreement thru this). I'll explain these features briefly and how they work in Īsla:

Noun incorperation is a process where nouns and verbs are put together (compounded) into one word. We kinda have this in English - think about mountain-climbing, berry picking, horse riding, dishwashing, etc. In Īsla, this is MUCH more common than in English - this is used for basically every conventional activity. Natives talk about dinner-eating, sheet-changing, cow-chasing, dust-sweeping, fish-chopping, etc. These aren't always obvious from the words they're made of though! "whisky-swimming" actually means "to have thrown, to have deliberately lost a game", named for drinking games where people deliberately lose for the aim of getting drunk.

Grammatical gender. Like in French, German, etc. Īsla has 3 of them, and verbs, adjectives, pronouns, and determiners (think English "some", "most", "the", etc) "agree" with nouns in gender. Case markers merge with the gender markers.

Auxiliary verbs are little "helping" verbs that convey grammatical info alongside a more meaningful verb. English has these - "I will do X", "I should do X", "i have done X". Īsla verbs operate in basically the same way, but they come after the main verb, not before:

/niəsɛ sˠɣ̩mˈmuːs-a ɫʋin/ 3M.SG:ERG cook_dinner-NOMIN 3M.SG.IMP "He should cook dinner" /niəsɛ sˠɣ̩mˈmuːs-a tˠʋo/ 3M.SG:ERG cook_dinner-NOMIN 3M.LOC.COP "He is cooking dinner (for a while)" (lit. "He is in cooking dinner")

Case marking: Like in languages like German or Finnish. Little suffixes added to words to show what their role is in the sentence. In Īsla, the cases are the agentive case (do-ers), patientive case (things that have things done to them), genitive case (possessors), dative case (recipients of things, destinations, also used for expressing opinions as in "to me, X is cool"), the locative case (locations), and ablative case (sources and instruments).

Split-S alignment. ohhhhhh boy. this is FAR too complex of a topic to properly get into in an intro post like this, but the short of it that, Īsla just, can't make up its mind about what case to mark Ss with? For ease of writing, I'm gonna use "S" to refer to the only noun in an intransitive sentence (e.g. in "he walks", S is "he", but in "he hits him", there is no S, because this is a transitive sentence)

In Īsla, the main verb chooses what case the S should be in. There are two (main) categories of this:

"Unaccusative verbs" - S is marked with the "patientive" case (the case given to e.g. "person" in "i chase the person") /ˈtaːmu-∅ miɐ̯ˈlij/ person-PATIENTIVE lie "the person is lying down"

"Unergative verbs" - S is marked with the "agentive" case (the case given to e.g. "person" in "the person chases me") /ˈtaːmy jeˈiɐ̯s/ person:AGENTIVE walk "the person walks"

However, this case preference is overridden by most auxiliary verbs. For example /ʀom/, the inchoative auxiliary (="to begin Xing"), demands an agentive S: /ˈtaːmy ˈmiɐ̯lja ʀom/ person:AGENTIVE lie-NOMIN 3N.SG.INCH "the person starts lying down" /miɐ̯ˈlij/ "to be lying down" is typically unaccusative, but the presence of the inchoative auxiliary means that /taːmu/ is marked with the agentive case, rather than the patientive case as in the earlier example.

On the other end of that, /xe/, the past tense auxiliary, demands a patientive S: /ˈtaːmu jeˈiɐ̯s =xe/ person-PATIENTIVE walk =3N.SG.PAST "the person walked" This is the opposite thing - "walk" suggests an agentive S, but /xe/ overrides that.

The actual system is ofc more complicated than this, but this is enough for a quick overview.

I'm gonna stop talking here, before I make a post so long no one will want to read it, but there's absolutely more posts coming! …when i can fit them in between coursework and the adhd distractableness ofc. Hopefully this has given you a decent feel for the language, and please send asks about stuff if you're interested!! (i hope i've explained things ok) There's a lot I didn't touch on here, and a lotta detail I've left out, and I'd love an excuse to talk more about this stuff <3

[cellarspider]

Qunlat 4/12: Phonology

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Qunlat pronunciation has varied widely between voice actors, and it seems likely to continue to do so. I’m of the “follow your heart” style regarding this--if you like a certain pronunciation, go for it.

…But if your heart tells you “follow someone else!”, then I’ll try and help out here. You’ll just have to sit through a bit of linguistics history first, while I explain how Bioware has made this complicated.

So. The spelling of European languages started to fossilize with the arrival of the printing press, at about the same time Europeans started inflicting themselves on more people who didn’t use alphabets. How do you tell people how to pronounce “開顛窗”? If you’re writing the first Chinese dictionary published in Europe (c.1670), you spell it “Çai tiēn h'oâm”, based off of how Portuguese was spoken when an Italian jesuit tried to write down Chinese  in the mid-1500s, then you define it in French as “ouvrir une feneſtre du toi🙲 ou une lucarne.”: “open a roof window or skylight”. For the French, you use a ligature variant on "&" so old that some default fonts on modern computers don't include it anymore (hello mac users! You might be staring at a little square that says "01F672" right now, I swear it's supposed to be a C with a fancy hat).

Also you don’t write down “開顛窗” at all, because obviously that wouldn’t help anyone.

These days, if you run into Chinese written in an alphabet, it’ll be using the Pinyin standard. How does it spell “Çai tiēn h'oâm”?

“Kāi diān chuán”. Would you get that from “Çai tiēn h'oâm”? Hell, if you don’t know Pinyin, do you know how to pronounce “kāi diān chuán”?

Pinyin and our ad-hoc 1600s-French-1500s-Italian-Portuguese model of spelling Chinese encounters the problem of attempting a phonetic transcription of a language, trying to write down what they hear so that others can speak it. They also have the challenge of romanization, using the Latin alphabet to write out a language that doesn’t normally use it.

So. Qunlat, arising completely separately from English The Common Tongue, doesn’t use the Latin alphabet, doesn’t use–uh. The Common Tongue’s writing system, I don't think we actually have a canon name for that.⁽¹⁾ So all Qunlat we’ve seen written down is using a romanization. But is this romanization actually phonetic? Romanization doesn’t have to be. If I show you “Meraad astarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun”, do you know how to pronounce that?

As discussed previously, the voice actors for qunari have all given it their best shot, but come up with different results. We don’t know what the scripts they’ve read from have actually looked like, but we have one potential answer.

And now we have to go back to World of Thedas, volume 2, and meet with my nemesis again.

“MARE-awed a-STAR-eat, MARE-awed it-WAH-seat, ab-AWN AH-kyoon.”

Hooboy. 

This is possibly useful. It’s attributed in the fiction to Philliam, a Bard!, so it’s not reliable, but the fact that it’s been written out implies that the IRL writer behind them was attempting to give people a real pronunciation guide regardless.

This is what we call a pronunciation respelling, where words with ambiguous pronunciation are rewritten to act as a guide to the reader.

…But here’s the problem: How do you pronounce “a-STAR-eat”? It depends entirely on your native language, dialect, and accent, and unless we know who wrote this, we can’t tell what they meant. If you, dear reader, don’t have the same accent, you might come up with something completely different. Just for English alone, wikipedia lists twenty-five different systems, with not a single sound having consistent spelling between all of them.

How do we get around this? How do we write down not just words, but unambiguous sounds?

Welcome to the wonderful world of the International Phonetic Alphabet!

Originally created in the late 1800s, the IPA (no relation to the beer) is a system that assigns letters to sounds based off of how and where sounds are formed. It allows linguists to accurately record the sound of a language, as long as they have a good ear. And from that, other linguists can reproduce the sound of a language, as long as they know how to read IPA. It helps capture accents too: "Car" might seem like a simple word, but in IPA, it's spelled /kɑː/ if you're using RP British English, /kɑɹ/ for General American, [kʰäɾ] for the Scots, and [kʰaː] for Bostonians.

It’s not 100% perfect, but it’s a reliable way to transfer sounds through text. Hell, there’s now ways to plug in IPA to a website and have a little robot voice read it out for you, though they have limitations.⁽²⁾

I, personally, have a hell of a time remembering parts of the IPA. I’m always opening up the IPA Consonant Chart on Wikipedia, because that includes little sound samples of every consonant. The vowel chart is even more helpful, because I can never remember the poxy little bastards.

For a bonus: the vowel chart is mostly pronounced by a single wiki contributor, who speaks loudly and clearly. …But then there’s ɞ and ø̞, which appear to have been recorded by people who were far more shy about it, and ɤ̞ is provided by someone who pronounces it three times, and seems to die a little bit as they finish up. These are the things you entertain yourself with when you’re learning the IPA.

Anyway! If we want to make this pronunciation of Qunlat equally accessible to everyone,⁽³⁾ we should try to translate this guide into IPA.

We’re just going to assume that the writers, when constructing their pronunciation guide, were aiming for a General American or the similar Standard Canadian accent. Those are the regions Bioware is mostly based out of, and they’re the easiest to find phonetic pronunciation. So, for example, “a-STAR-eat” would be transcribed as /əˈstɑɹ.it/, or possibly /æˈstɑɹ.it/ depending on what they mean by “a-”. Already, you can see we have some uncertainty here because of our starting point, but we can take these IPA transcriptions and throw it in a speech synthesizer to get pretty unambiguous pronunciations!

You'll notice that most of the letters line up with how they're spelled in English, though some of the sounds don't line up with how you'd first think to pronounce them. That's especially true around vowels, so always be aware of that when reading IPA.

Now, one might ask, if it was relatively easy to convert this from a generally readable pronunciation guide into the unfamiliar and technical IPA, why bother? Well because I did in fact start with the easiest word to convert. The rest of these were a lot harder. 

How do you pronounce the Qunlat word “ir-vah”? Because according to Philliam, a Bard!, it's “ihr-vawh”. Does that actually make you feel confident you can say it right? “Aw” has a known pronunciation in English, but what's “awh”? What's the distinction? Is there a distinction?

I'm going to have to make assumptions here, informed by my own background with this stuff. It will, by definition, be an opinion rather than an authoritative source. I’ll go with what I think is the most uncomplicated solution, and we can see whether it sounds like what we expect.

So, to start with, I’ve made a breakdown of the sounds found in this text, and what IPA pronunciations they match up with. When the respelling has included english words as pronunciation guides (ex. “a-STAR-eat”), I’ve directly referred to the General American IPA transcription. When the respelling uses nonce words (ex. “AH-kyoon”), I’ve referred to the Oxford English Dictionary respelling system, as it was one of only two that contained the majority of the nonce word respellings. This allowed me to be consistent, though sometimes the text itself was not. Check out the “Phonetics - WoT2” sheet in the workbook linked below:

Note that some words have multiple pronunciations listed. This can sometimes be contextual (ex. “The” can be pronounced at least two different ways in English), but in some cases the context was identical, but the pronunciation was different. If we want an in-setting explanation for this, we can say the transcription was taken from people with different accents. Even different energy levels or moods can affect pronunciation. But honestly, I do not know if this was intentional. There are phonetic spellings that also work their way into the Qunari romanization as well in multiple places, even with words that were previously established under other spellings.

To hear the sentences spoken, plug one into an IPA synthesizer, though be warned: it’ll be a little janky, and a little jarringly American. I don’t actually think this is what the writer had in mind, but this is what they gave us, so I’d like to make it clear why we prefer using the IPA.

I’ve also created an inventory of the sounds in these excerpts, formatted as we would for phonemic and phonological inventories: a chart of the IPA used, and a list of what letters make which sounds. When the list includes something like /x~y~z/, means that the letter can be pronounced as x, y, or z in the wild. When there's a letter with no pronunciation, it means that it's in some sort of Qunlat somewhere, but it wasn't in these examples.

And I have to reiterate: I've reproduced the implied pronunciations from WoT vol.2 as faithfully as I can, but these pronunciations do not accurately reflect the actual way the words have been spoken in the games! You can compare performances to phrases or words in here, and note the difference in pronunciation and stress patterns. 

So, as before, I say to you: if you prefer a different pronunciation, use it. If you want to systematize that pronunciation, organize it and save it for reference, then use the IPA to help you. I can speak from experience, it will save you a lot of trouble if you note down your language work in IPA, rather than assuming you’ll remember your own pronunciation later. Go forth, and have fun with it.

Next time! Finally, the meat of a language: grammar.

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Footnotes

(1) Okay. I don't have enough material to make a full post on Qunlat scripts, so I'm going to just throw it in here, with a further digression about Common as a bonus. In brief: We have no consistent script for Qunlat. There's one in Those Who Speak which... it's okay? Reminds me a bit of Lontara or an Ulu script, but it doesn't have aesthetic cohesion. Inquisition uses another possible script on decorative horn coverings, which... It exists. I'll tell you right now, I'm working on creating a written script for Qunlat for personal use, and I'm not using either of these.

With regards to Common: the games usually seem to indicate that the Common Tongue is written in a runic script, which is not meant to be read by the players.

In Inquisition we have a weird split, courtesy of Varric's romance novels: Tales of the Champion, which the wiki says is "written in Orlesian", is just in English, and... backwards English on the facing page. It's in tiny squint-o-vision, but it is actually about Kirkwall's history and Hightown, and doesn't seem to be a copy-and-paste from anywhere else in the games. Cool!

But there's another book in the series with Aveline on the cover, which is very different. There's a new runic script there, which is mostly composed of rotations on actual runes, but they don't actually line up with any historical runic script. but there's not enough text available to see if it translates into anything. There's a bit that looks like it's supposed to be Varric's name that might give us the letters "V Te(th)ras", but none of those letters are in the title, so we have nothing else to compare to. The script is okay, but there's some letters I'd alter for visual consistency--runes were generally written using different combinations of just three line angles that remained as consistent as possible throughout a text. There's a letter in here that's just a triangle, and it doesn't fit the angles of the other letters at all. That triangle haunts me.

Here's the thing, though. There's also a couple books from Inquisition that I can tell were just straight-up written in an Anglo-Saxon rune font, then flipped upside down, which reminds me quite a bit of a certain web series I could mention. It's a short, non-canon English text repeated in different paragraph format, with some gibberish thrown in. I wasn't going to bother reading any of it once I realized it wasn't anything canon, but then I noticed there's a rogue "c" that appears to have survived the font change. Most runic scripts have no equivalent of "c", but Anglo-Saxon does, so I realized that had to be a capital C. And that's when I read:

"...that this is *not* the Cirth (Certhas) but the..."

Cirth is the writing system Tolkien made for Sindarin, Khuzdul, and Westron.

I think what we're looking at is part of the setting documentation, basically saying, like, 'we want the Common Tongue to look like Cirth, but not actually be Cirth because the legal department told us not to'.

(2) Many of these IPA-to-text things are language-specific. They’re only loaded with the sounds that are used in the language they were created for–so for this one, stick to english text-to-speech IPA synthesizers. Also, you will definitely note accent differences between different synthesizers, even when given the same input! Some of that is due to dialect-specific restrictions on what sounds they pronounce, but there's also smaller distinctions that the IPA is capable of reflecting, but in practice we don't transcribe things with 100% precision.

(3) Of course there’s the caveat that the IPA is based off of the Latin alphabet to begin with, so it makes the most sense to people who already use some form of it. One of the problems is that alphabets are actually uniquely suited to the task of phonetic writing, for reasons I’ll eventually get into. But I’m not actually aware of any equivalents that have been constructed for use with other alphabets or scripts, beyond a number of neography hobbyists (for Kannada, Arabic, etc.), including that one tumblr user who scared off an insufferable dude in a coffee shop by talking about the IPA equivalent they were making that was somewhat based off of the Georgian alphabet. That person is incredible.

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[learning-to-think]

Tuesday 23 April, day 6

I finished my natural language processing assignment and submitted it, then helped a friend do it, and while I was helping them I realised I had made a mistake. I'll have to submit again. Good it's only due in a week and we can modify the work submitted until then!

I also finished writing the conclusion for the presentation, and my classmate finally made the slideshow for it. So we can also submit that tomorrow morning!

Tomorrow, I've got morphology and phonology. I haven't done the homework for morphology, and the class is at 8:30 am, so... I'll wake up at around 6 am and do it then. Between my two classes I'd like to work on the NLP class homework (for Thursday). I'm not sure what we'll do in phonology but I'm sure I'll be fine (I think we're going to finish what we were doing before the break, which I had done already, and maybe we'll have the time to go over something else... not sure. Maybe I'll try doing some other exercises).

[lacampbell2-blog]

readerly exploration

Submission #5:

· The due date of the assigned course reading(s)

December 4th-8th

· The title(s) of the assigned course reading(s)

Hanford (2018) “hard words: why aren’t kids being taught to read?”

Wills Lloyd (2021) “Smoke signals in reading education: what is with the spate of articles about changes in reading education”

· A “big” take-away:

Article one: There are low performance skills in literacy. Research shows that children who don’t learn to read by third grade are at a major reading disadvantage.

Article two: Reading is fundamental to the foundation of early literacy skills. We see opposing viewpoints in this phenomenon. Early reading materials and curriculum vary.  

· A “nugget”: early reading and literacy skills are foundational to increasing academic performances of young learners.

· A paragraph:

As an educator it is important to not only follow curriculum guidelines but to also follow the needs for enhancing the mastery of fundamental skills in literacy for young learners. The building blocks of reading are the foundational skills. The goal is to help students comprehend what they read. As a result, students will be better able to comprehend texts if they develop proficiency with print concepts, phonological and phonemic awareness, and phonics skills. Through setting the foundation to these base literacy skills educators are setting up students to life long academic achievement. It is show that lows with low reading and literacy skills are more likely to drop out of school. As an educator I will make it a point to meet the needs of all students in my classroom and to set a foundation early for literacy skills. Reading skills are used across all content areas and if they are not mastered at a young age it will leave the student at a deficit.

· Multimedia: children practicing early literacy skills

[introverted-ghost]

Hey I need some help for a phonology assignment, please.

Is it 'to do a film' or 'to make a film'? Or both are correct?

Make!

[yuk-tepat]

I’ve helped out with ~4 book projects with people who had already made place / character names before contacting me. None of them were clueless and they were OK with me adjusting stuff. I would try to reverse-engineer phonology and some morphology from names they gave me, that would fit as many names as I could, filling it out according to the “vibes” they wanted from it. In every case, I ended up changing some names because they simply did not fit into the system overall. Usually not huge changes, but yeah some main characters need makeovers. Of course, none of this stuff was published yet. I can’t imagine the headache from trying to shoehorn words from a book that was already in print already.

On my own sometimes I try to generate text from a word generator according to rules for my conlangs, but it’s much more back-and-forth - it spits out long words, I cut them up into pieces and assign meanings to them, then re-tack them onto other roots to create a new text, rather than simply analyze the original text.

Do you ever start with example sentences and work backwards to figure out the grammar? Like start with a pseudo conlang just to look at? Can you recommend any linguistic nonfiction for a hobbyist? I read the art of language invention and the language construction kit but I want something that has more focus on linguistic anthropology.

Thanks in advance

I’ve personally never tried that method. A few professional conlangers have had to work with significant amounts of canon gibberish made by a writer beforehand. And I have seen experiments where one person invents gibberish and the other acts as a field worker trying to analyze it.

The issue with working that way is it’s much harder to make a consistent system. Language is a complex system with a lot of parts. Trying to construct that system to fit something pre-existing means finding some kind of consistency within essentially random noise. Building from the ground up is easier, since you can make things consistent from the start.

On the linguistic anthropology angle, I have a couple of recommendations that might interest you:

The Last Lingua Franca by Nicholas Ostler is a fantastic book about different lingua francas throughout history. It really helps understand the different social dynamics that can lead to one language becoming dominant.

Language Death by David Crystal is all about the social power dynamics that cause languages to die (or that kill them, because there can very much be intent from dominant cultures to kill off minority languages).

Those won’t necessarily help you in the construction process, but they can help you understand the social dynamics of your language’s role in your world. Plus, it’s just valuable to understand this to live in society, especially if you’re a native English speaker like me and shielded by Anglphone privilege from seeing these things.

I’m sure the community can come up with plenty of other books for you to look into.

[smithwill329]

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[willowcrowned]

fuck optimality theory anyway. I have a phonology assignment due tomorrow god help me

the thing about optimality theory is that it is, objectively, so so cool!! we had a lot of data telling us that things usually happen this way, so we went and made a system that mimicked that on paper!! it’s a ridiculously clever analytical framework, all the more so for how simple it is! unfortunately. the fact that it is theoretically simple does not make it actually intuitive. nor does it mean that it is. in fact. simple in practice

anyways good luck

[olivinesea]

Oooh fun! Okay, do you have any headcannons or thoughts on a dyslexic Hotch? I feel like I never see dyslexia with any characters really, and I like the idea of him with it. And if you do and you want to write something about it, a dyslexic Hotch with the team (and them being the supportive and protective family they are?) Thank you! ❤️

I hope you have fun, wherever/whatever you’re doing!!

I love this so much!! Thank you :) okay I don’t have much personal experience with dyslexia so hopefully I get this decently accurate. The biggest thing that surprised me when I was doing a quick search is that it isn’t actually a matter of reading words or letters backwards? It’s more an inability to connect letters to the appropriate sounds or to break words up into component parts; a general phonological awareness struggle.

So, as with many things, it seems to me to be a matter of slowing down, learning at your own pace. This ties in nicely with so many of my other Hotch thoughts, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. Idk what this is, it’s neither headcanon nor proper story but hopefully it’s something like what you were looking for:

When he’s a kid he gets called a slow learner due to his undiagnosed dyslexia. It was much less common to get that kind of diagnosis back then in general and I am sure his dad would have hated the idea of his son needing any kind of extra help. So he’s slow to speak, slow to learn how to read, has difficulty with numbers, absolutely hates being called on to read out loud because it’s actual torture and the other kids have no hesitation about laughing at him. So he becomes withdrawn, labeled a “bad kid,” stops trying because, fuck it, he never gets any kind of support, who cares right? It’s always a fight at home, he starts hiding his work, lying about his grades. This works for awhile bc his parents are distracted by other things. His problems are much bigger than grades by the time they do notice.

However, while he hates school and the way people talk about him and his struggles, like he isn’t even there, he discovers that he doesn’t hate learning. There’s a small library in town where he found he could hide out, no one bothering him for hours if he just sat still for with a book open. He was good at sitting still, at being invisible. But eventually a librarian notices that he’s always got the same book open, some sort of technical manual, that he is rarely turning the pages. She asks him if he likes what he’s reading. He’s just alarmed to be spoken to, afraid that being noticed means he will soon no longer have this sanctuary. He nods and tries to bluff his way through but it’s obvious he hasn’t read it, despite having looked at it for weeks straight. The librarian doesn’t say anything outright, just lets him be for now.

Next time she sees him she brings him a different book, a collection of Grimms fairy tales. He wants to complain that it’s for little kids but is too nervous to refuse it. She asks if she can read him her favorite story from it. It’s dark and twisted and fantastical and he can’t help but be drawn in by it. He’s sad when she’s done reading, wants to hear it again, to capture all the details to replay to himself later. She shows him where it starts, encourages him to read it himself. He doesn’t look at her bc he doesn’t want her to see how upset he is by that, already frustrated by the anticipation that he won’t be able to get through it. But she stays with him, helping him where he gets stuck, asking him questions about the story, making sure it’s making sense to him.

They slowly work their way through the whole collection over the course of months. They spend days on each story, repeating it until he’s confident, she never makes him feel like he’s taking too long or wasting her time. Sometimes has to reread a section multiple times, gets hung up on the language rather than the story but it’s okay, she gives him a notebook to copy down parts that spin too loudly in his mind, saving them and also releasing him from their hold so he can move forward. She lets him keep the book, tells him it was too old to stay in circulation anyway, they had a new copy on order already. She’s the first person who was patient with him, that showed him he could do it, he just needed a little more time, a little more practice than other kids.

In college this is part of why he spends so much time at the library. Part of it is his natural inclination to overwork himself, push until he’s given more than he can in hopes that it might be almost enough. He knows he’s never been enough, why would that change just because he’s in a new place? But the other part is he simply needs more time to get through the coursework, to make it through the excessive amounts of reading he’s assigned. Some other students don’t even bother to read but he would never do that, he makes sure that he not only reads every chapter assigned but he reads it again, takes notes, highlights, annotates, does everything in his power to be prepared. Sure he might work himself to the point of exhaustion, to the point where he makes himself sick (though he’ll try to deny that too) but he’s never caught trying to read something while others wait for his answer, the letters and sounds meaningless, slipping away from him faster the more eyes he feels turn towards him, wondering what could be taking so long. No one ever gets the chance to laugh at him for being slow in college, he never allows them to see that side of him.

As an adult, the leader of the BAU, he’s too well respected for anyone to dare laugh at him but he still hates feeling unprepared. This ends up looking like long nights in the office, reviewing case files to the point of memorization, so that he won’t have to read any of it in front of his team. He can if he has to, he’s developed skills over the years, ways to calm the panic that only makes it harder, can fake it well enough that no one would really notice. Until one day, distracted by a migraine and the fallout of some fight with Haley, he gets stuck. He can’t remember something and he tries to read the sentence that has the information but the stupid word just won’t resolve into sounds that make sense and he just stops talking. He’s glaring at the form like it might catch fire. No one says anything for a moment while he tries to refocus, tries to work around echoes of laughter, decades long past but always ready to jump out at him if he lets his guard down, allows a mistake, a tired moment to derail the image of perfect competence that he’s built around himself. Penelope jumps in, finishing the thought, completing the list of traits shared by the victims. He forces himself to smile at her because he really is grateful, it wasn’t her fault. She scrunches her nose at him, dismissing his silent thanks with a toss of her head. It was nothing, everyone needs a little assist now and then.

No one brings it up and he doubles his efforts not to let anyone see. But he’s so tired on the plane coming back from a case, he’s been staring the same forms for an hour at least. He can feel his ears turning red with frustration. There’s really no reason he has to do this now but the fact that his mind is refusing, almost seems to be teasing him, makes him dig in harder. Emily sits down opposite him, pulling the folder away without asking. He’s about to say something sharp, something he’ll regret saying to her when he really means it for himself, but the expression on her face is so odd, smiling with a frown between her eyebrows. It isn’t pity, she respects him far too much, but there is curiosity and something else, something soft.

“Drink with me.” She slides him a glass and they don’t talk, just look out the window, look at the light playing off the ice in their glasses. He doesn’t see the file again until it appears on his desk, every form neatly filled out, the places needing his signature flagged. All but the last spot, where she’s signed his name eerily perfectly, difficult for even him to see that it’s not his own. Just so he knows she can if she wants to. Equal parts offer and threat.

Penelope and Reid start a book club. Derek joins right away. Emily rolls her eyes when she’s invited, muttering something about spending her free time on more work but they know she will join. Rossi flat out refuses to read the books but offers his house for meetings. Hotch hesitates, wanting to say yes but nervous to commit to an activity like that. He loves books, loves to talk about books. He doesn’t love a time limit on books.

The next time they have to drive to a case, Derek puts on a copy of the audiobook. It’s the first time they make it to a destination without any bickering from the backseat. They don’t get through the whole thing but later he finds a copy of the audiobook on his desk, complete with a disc player and headphones.

A different month, Reid tells him about how his mother always used to read him books and somehow finesses an offer to read to Hotch without him even realizing he’s accepted it. So Spencer comes in to Hotch’s office on lunch breaks occasionally and reads to him whatever the book of the month is. He loves it, remembering the first person who read to him, how shocked he’d been to be treated with patience, with understanding and wondering how he got so lucky to be surrounded by people like her, so ready to support him, wanting him there with them rather than off alone, uselessly fighting with himself to prove his self sufficiency over some uncooperative letters.

Okay, that was so much more than I was planning on but here we are. I hope you liked it and thank you SO much for the idea. If you ever have any others you want to share I am totally here for it. :)

Send me requests!

[guide-on-how-to-read-faster]

Guide on How to Read Faster?

Isn't it so much easier to get through school if you could complete your reading assignments three times as fast? Wouldn't it be more fun to jump right into a good piece of fiction and blaze through it in less than a day? Let's explore speed reading in more detail.

The two ways of thinking about speed reading may be familiar to you if you've already looked into the subject. It is said that speed reading is the essence of success and everything you have ever dreamed of. Others say speed reading is a myth and doesn't work. Truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.

When considering speed reading, the first thing you need to ask yourself is: "Why do I want to read faster?" While speed reading novels for pleasure requires a different approach than speed reading textbooks or research articles for understanding hard science, speed reading novels for pleasure requires one approach. When using RSVP tests or Rapid Serial Visual Presentations, individual words or blocks of two or three appear sequentially on the screen.

Reading Process

Before we move on to the techniques, it's important to understand the reading process.

Reading is the action of analyzing a piece of writing to understand its intended meaning. So, reading effectively requires more than just recognizing a series of words. You must also understand the relationship between the words and the unstated implications of the situation.

Compare this to skimming, which is the rapid consumption of text to gain a general idea of what you're reading. The gist of it will become apparent even if you don't comprehend the details. The goal of speed reading is to maintain skim-like reading speeds while maintaining reading-like comprehension.

An educated adult reads approximately 200-400 words per minute. It is claimed that speed readers can read thousands of words in a minute. To do so, they rely on peripheral vision.

The fovea, or center of your visual field, has the highest acuity, about 1° in any direction. The width of your thumb extended at arm's length is approximately this size. The parafovea has moderate acuity between 1 and 5° from the center, and the periphery is greater than 5° from the center. In peripheral vision, it is physically and biologically impossible to recognize and interpret the text.

Try looking at a stationary object, such as where the wall meets the ceiling. Keep your eyes smoothly moving from one side to the other of the line. Unfortunately, it is actually impossible. Multiple small, jerky movements of your eyes are called saccades. During reading, saccades allow the reader to fixate the fovea on a word by moving their eyes quickly.

When speed readers use their fingers to guide their eye movements, I initially thought they employed smooth pursuit. Smooth pursuit occurs when your eyes fixate on a moving object and can follow it smoothly. If you move your finger from side to side in front of you, your eyes will smoothly follow it without jerking. The finger technique speed readers use is less about the pursuit of smoothness and more about maintaining a metronomic pace as they read.

The saccades allow the fovea to focus on the next word. It is estimated that each fixation lasts around 250 milliseconds, but it can vary greatly based on legibility, difficulty, and whether it is proofreading or reading for comprehension or swiping. However, not every word is fixed.

In about half of the sentences, the word "the" is skipped. In certain cases, a word may be skipped even though it has been processed. The rapid serial visual processing (RSVP) technology is useful for displaying information (usually text or images) in which the text appears word-by-word in a fixed focal point. In addition to being a basic reading aid, RSVP is being investigated as a way to boost individual reading rates. Additionally, RSVP is being used for research in visual impairment, dyslexia, perceptual and cognitive psychology. There are many different languages and platforms available for RSVP.

Through these technologies, words are presented to the viewer in the center of the visual field in rapid succession, thereby eliminating the need for eye movements. In light of the aforementioned individual variations, visual processing physiology, and the way we comprehend language, I would argue that RSVP is an inefficient way to consume text. RSVP does not allow for regressions, which is another problem. Regression is a brief look backward in the text to return to an earlier word. The purpose of this is to correct errors' incomprehension. RSVP further reduces comprehension by eliminating the possibility of regressions.

According to proponents of speed reading, subvocalization, or using your inner voice while reading, will slow you down. Numerous studies have examined the effects of eliminating or minimizing subvocalization. Findings consistently indicated decreased comprehension. It makes sense that phonological processing is an important part of reading and comprehension, since all writing systems represent words, and since the primary form of language is vocal rather than visual.

What does all this mean? Perception of visual information occurs rapidly. However, reading is slowed down by linguistic processing. It has been demonstrated that language processing rather than the ability to control eye movements is the determining factor of reading speed in various studies. We are limited in our ability to read by our ability to identify and understand words rather than by our ability to see them. As a result, reading faster actually reduces comprehension, which may or may not matter depending on what you are reading.

Learn how to read faster

After we have clarified the science behind reading and speed reading, we will take a look at how to speed read faster. To read faster, one does not need to read the same way for every reading goal.

As a method of improving one's reading comprehension and speed, it is suggested that one practice more reading. Even though this does help, it's a very slow and gradual process that doesn't produce drastic changes.

To drastically improve speed, comprehension must be reduced. We need to read slower to increase comprehension. There's no way around that; you can only improve slowly.

In each case, we have to balance reading comprehension with reading speed. Is it possible to reduce comprehension minimally, while increasing speed maximally? I have found the following techniques to be the most useful over the years.

1) Determine the Type of Reading

Determine your reading goal and the type of reading you will perform first. It is not necessary to maximize comprehension for every reading task. Do you read nonfiction for pleasure? Do you proofread an essay for a friend? Do you read a textbook for class? Do you read high yield notes and bullet points for one of your classes?

Having a clear goal in mind will help you determine the minimum level of comprehension required and, therefore, the maximum speed that can be achieved.

2) Remain Flexible

Secondly, make sure your speed is flexible. During the reading process, you will come across sections of text that are easy for you. It's a simple language, you understand the concepts, and you can easily get through it. You don't have to focus on every word to understand it.

In other sections, you will be introduced to new words or concepts that require your attention. Often, this will happen, so you must be flexible with your reading speed to optimize your speed/comprehension balance. If you're not sure about the significance of a paragraph, focus on its first and last sentences.

3) Use a Pacer

Use a pacer, such as your finger or a pen. You can follow along with your eyes by running your pacer below each line from end to end. You will instantly increase your reading speed with minimal comprehension loss.

It is important to find the sweet spot between pushing the boundaries of your comfort zone and only slightly reducing comprehension. My opinion is that if you reduce comprehension by 10% but gain 50% in speed, that's not a bad tradeoff. The pacer will need to move faster in places and slower in others, as described above.

Different Types of Reading

1) Textbooks

There is often a lot of unnecessary text in textbooks. There's no need to worry if you accidentally skip a paragraph or a whole section. Pay attention to bolded words or sections that contain key information, and speed up while reading text that adds context to what you've already learned.

Identifying what is important in each section by looking at section headings and bolded terms will make it easier for you to read the section. It may take a few minutes at first, but overall, if you execute it properly, you should save time.

When I'm finished reading a section or page, I summarize what I've learned. Alternatively, I can write a few bullet points or speak out loud to myself. This greatly improves retention and comprehension.

2) Books for Pleasure

If you read for pleasure, you can do whatever you want. If you want to enjoy the nuances of language, then you should slow down. In contrast, if you only wish to grasp the gist, it won't be a problem if your comprehension drops considerably.

It very much depends on the book and what you hope to gain from it. Depending on the book, I read every word or skip sections. The majority of books fall somewhere in the middle.

3) Research

In reading research articles, which you will read a lot during your pre-med, medical school, and residency years, follow a systematic approach. The best way to gain a deeper understanding of the abstract is to read it slowly and carefully. Focus on those key points when you read the full article.

Spend a few minutes reading the abstract, a few introductory paragraphs, the methods and results in sections quickly, and then spend more time on the conclusion.

A Guide to Speed Reading

Problem – The amount of reading material available these days is so overwhelming that often it's impossible to keep up. In this way, we scroll headlines and teasers instead of reading content that will actually educate us. Our lives are often dominated by the pressure to finish our daily tasks on time or keep up with the latest developments in our areas of interest, regardless of whether we are at work or studying.

Solution – Today, speed reading is a highly valuable and essential skill. People who master speed reading techniques can read as much as three times faster than the average reader, who usually reads between 200 and 250 words per minute.

Benefits – When speed reading, the human brain is challenged to perform faster and better. With speed reading, your brain will be trained to absorb information much faster than it is used to. As a result, your memory and brain function will be improved. Additionally, you may benefit from increased general and specialized knowledge, improved problem-solving skills, or increased self-confidence.

A Final Thought

We have compiled this article to teach you how to read faster. This article will describe how speed reading techniques work and provide you with tips, information, and resources to help you read and learn more quickly.

[cherryblossomjones38]

Technology: Differentiated Learning

Technology in the classroom is a critically important component of learning today. Students use technology daily whether at school in the classroom or at home.  There are several components of technology that can currently be used to appropriately support differentiated instruction and enrich student learning styles. Here are a few:

1.Edpuzzle is a free easy-to-use interactive video for teachers to engage students in learning. Edpuzzle is used over 80% of schools in the United States (Edpuzzle, 2021). Edpuzzle can be used as an assessment for teachers. It allows teachers and students to creatively have interactive online videos that provide open-ended or multiple-choice questions, audio notes, or comments on a video, which gauges the students’ level.  Edpuzzle differentiates for readiness, interest, and learning styles by teachers assigning students to watch videos with appropriate questions to the video. Techers can see how far the students went and how many times they watched the video (Stern,2015).

2. Lexia- is a program used to help students with their literacy. It provides games and lessons for students with individualized learning goals. Based on the needs of the school or district, Lexia offers customized pricing which would be around $12,500 to purchase 25 licenses. Lexia Reading is designed to supplement regular classroom instruction. As children progress through levels, they are building upon their understanding of previous knowledge. This program fits the needs of different learning styles. The program focuses on six aspects of reading such as phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and structural analysis.   Lexie will be used in the classroom to encourage high- order learning. With this program is assess the student’s skills and provides recommendations to teachers on how to boost each child’s outcomes. (Lexia).

3. Socrates- is a learning interactive game that guides each child on there education journal. Children will have a high level of engagement and mastery skills. Socrates makes the core subject fun to learn (Institute of Education Science, 2009). It adjusts to each child needs and wants. Socrates will be used at home and in the classroom, with the subjects Math, Science and Language Arts. Socrates differentiates for readiness by allowing the children to go at there own pace.

All three of the technology tools promote learning and creates ownership of learning among students. They all allow for the student to have confidence in the area they have the hardest with. It allows the students to have fun but at the same time enjoy learning.

References

 Edpuzzle. (2021). https://edpuzzle.com/about

Family Literacy Center (2020). Lexia Core 5. https://www.lexiaforhome.com/lexia-core5

Stern, Julie. (March 30,2015). Enhancing Learning Through Differentiate Learning. http://blogs.svvsd.org/tsssummer2015/2015/07/08/enhanced-learning-through-differentiated-technology/

U.S department of Education. (June 2009). Institute of Education Sciences. https://www.lexiaforhome.com/lexia-core5

[superlinguo]

Mutual Intelligibility newsletter:  A new project bringing online resources to linguistics instructors

Linguistics instructors are currently scrambling to move their courses online and there are resources online that can help, but it’s a lot of work to sort through what exists and figure out what makes sense for you to use. Do you really have time to watch a dozen youtube videos introducing the IPA just to decide which one to have your students watch? Probably not.

Gretchen McCulloch and I have created a new project to help. It’s called Mutual Intelligibility, because we’re trying to make resources and instructors more intelligible to each other.

The first Mutual Intelligibility newsletter contains 3 links to existing resource aggregations. From the first newsletter:

Upcoming topics we’re already planning include: IPA vowels, IPA vowels, morphemes, constituency, world Englishes, world languages, 2nd year phonology, articulatory phonetics, field methods, gesture studies, psycholinguistics, and Natural Language Processing (NLP). We’d love to take further requests! See below for how to suggest topics or contribute resources.

We’ve been making linguistics resources online for almost two decades combined through Lingthusiasm, Superlinguo, All Things Linguistic, and more, and we know a lot about what online resources are capable of. This also means that we know where their limitations are, and we want you to know that your value for your students isn’t as a simple deliverer of lecture content. Instead, it’s through being a real human person that they can interact with, ask questions of, and get feedback from. People sign up for classes because they value the specific scaffolding of content and assignments, and because they feel motivated by having an instructor and peer group who care about them. You wouldn’t feel like you were neglecting your course responsibilities by using a textbook someone else wrote, and you don’t need to worry about using existing online resources either.

Click through to the first Mutual Intelligibility post for the first set of links, and subscribe.

We’ll be producing two kinds of Mutual Intelligibility newsletters, both of which you can sign up for in the same place

Mondays and Wednesdays: 3 Links about a specific topic, with a short description for each so you can easily figure out which ones are useful to assign to your students (Week 1: 2nd year syntax videos)

Fridays: longer Resource Guides for a specific topic, a comprehensive lesson plan like a textbook’s supplementary material but entirely online, including videos and other specific multimedia as applicable (Week 1: Intro to IPA consonants) 

As we both already had full-time jobs keeping us busy, we're also paying linguists whose employment situations have been negatively affected by COVID-19 to help us create these guides faster. Stay tuned for further announcements about our team. To help us do this faster you can support the Lingthusiasm patreon.

If you have other comments, suggestions, or ideas of ways to help, please email mutual.intellig@gmail.com

[gwendolynlerman]

Learn the IPA with me

Introduction

Spelling sometimes doesn't correspond to pronunciation, so languages can't use their own alphabets to encode their sounds accurately.

To tackle this problem, we first need to understand the concept of "phoneme". A phoneme is an individual unit of sound that can be pronounced on its own and considered "one sound".

Then, if we assign a unique "letter" (or a symbol) to every possible phoneme, we could write the pronunciation accurately. This is how the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was created.

The IPA is a set of many symbols that allows you to display and read any stream of sounds in any natural language.

It has three main goals:

To represent the phonetics and phonology of languages;

To help achieve a good pronunciation in foreign languages, and

To develop a "Latin" orthography for languages written using other writing systems and for those that have no written form.

The IPA is reviewed every time new data about sounds in the different languages of the world appear, such as in 2005, when a new symbol for the labiodental flap found in at least 20 African languages—including Kresh, Mangbetu, Margi, Ma'bo, Ngbaka, Ngwe, Sera Kare, Tera, and some Shona dialects—was added.

[starsailorstories]

So these are the 18 letters of the secret alphabet, which if you compare you’ll realize are very simplified versions of the calligraphy on Lux’s medallion. Mainly, they represent sound segments of words--basic consonants and vowels. I’m going to go through them by number and talk about the sounds they represent in Ashtivan first, and then how the factory lux use them when writing other languages.

Some notes if you do want to attempt to decipher: messages are projected one syllable or one one-or-two-symbol shorthand phrase at a time. so like the second message begins

THE

RE

DUK

SHUN 

written out completely phonetically, which if you say out loud is of course “the reduction.” This keeps the projected space small and discreet, and also “chunks” long words to help readability since most factory units know the alphabet well enough to use a filing system but weren’t formally taught to read.

#1

In Ashtivan: [ɪ] (short i sound)

Used for: In-universe, this sound doesn’t appear much in Altamaian, although in the story they do use it for the English short i. This sign, which is the final sound in the Ashtivan words for “who”, “when”, “why,” and “how”, is also used like a question mark. 

#2

In Ashtivan:  [bh] (aspirated b) or [v] (depending on where it is in the word)

Used for: Since Ashtivan doesn’t have the f sound, this symbol is subbed in. Standing alone, it’s a shorthand for “right, yes, correct.”

#3

In Ashtivan:  [ɨ] (form an “o” with your lips but say “ee”)

Used for: The long-e [i] sound in English and Altamaian.

#4

In Ashtivan:  [e] or  [ə] (schwa, the “uh” sound in “the”)

Used for: Literally any “uh” sound whether it’s technically a schwa or not.

#5

In Ashtivan: [m] or [n] or [ (the “ng” sound). Ashtivan phonology works in such a way that you tell which sound is meant based on the vowels around it.

Used for: All m’s, n’s, and ng’s!

#6

In Ashtivan: [t] or [d] (Again, vowels determine which it is)

Used for: [t] and [d] sounds, but also used alone as a quasi-noun referring to superiors and “proper” astraeas, usually translatable as “she” or “they” though perhaps most accurately glossed “the powers that be.”

#7

In Ashtivan: [kh] (aspirated k) or [g]

Used for: English and Altamaian [k] and [g]

#8

In Ashtivan: [l] or  [ɫ] (sounds kind of like a simultaneous “l” and “s”; it’s a sound that appears in some Welsh words).

Used for: English and Altamaian [l], but also used alone for all variants of the verbs “to do” and “to be.” Letters 8 and 7 side by side is a “word” used interchangeably for you, me, us, lux/lux units, and she/her (when the one referred to is a lux). 

#9

In Ashtivan: [ʊ] (long u “oo” sound) or [ɤ] (an “uh” sound but with “oo” lips)

Used for: [ʊ] sounds, but also in a roundabout way as a substitute for the English r sound. If you run into a mess of vowels that don’t seem to make sense it’s probably an attempted r. (Main-character Lux has gotten good at r since living in America with the radio constantly on for several decades, but she still kind of swallows it in fast speech. It’s just not really in Ashtivan at all).

#10

In Ashtivan: [G], [ʔ], and [ɦ] (all uvular or glottal consonants)

Used for: Since besides the basic glottal stop these sounds are barely in standardized English or Altamaian, the symbol is used grammatically, as a way to say “must”/ “have to” or mark a verb phrase as imperative. It’s also used as like, an emoji representing orders/assignments.

#11

In Ashtivan:  [ɛ] (short-e ”ehh” sound)

Used for: Same sound.

#12

In Ashtivan: [ʃ]/[ʃj] ( “sh” sound and “sh” sound with a consonant y attached), [ʂ]/[ʂj] and sometimes [s]/[sj]

Used for: [ʃ], combined with #6 for “ch”. Combined with #17 to mean “beginning, start, origin, initiation”; #17 + #12 + #14 = “first,” “beforehand.”

#13

In Ashtivan: [j] (the y sound)

Used for: Same sound

#14

In Ashtivan: [ç] (hard s-like sound produced with the tongue further back in the mouth)

Used for: Most “s” and “z” sounds, especially at ends of words. The symbol is also a “time marker”--at the beginning of a phrase, it signifies past tense; at the end it signifies future tense; and inserted before the verb phrase it means “already” or “currently.”

#15

In Ashtivan:  [ɔ] (like “o” with a more open mouth)

Used for: Occasionally the English o sound, but most often--because it looks like an empty vessel--for negative descriptors like “non-”, “off”, “disused.” Combined with the verb-making symbol (below) it creates a phrase meaning “to decommission” which is better translated as “to nullify” or even “to off.”

#16

In Ashtivan:  [æ] (long-a ayyyyyy sound)

Used for: Same sound, but also as an ability marker “be able to.” Combined with #15 to mean “can’t.”

#17

In Ashtivan:  [ɑ] (short-a ahhhh sound)

Used for: Same sound and as a verb-making morpheme similar to English “ing.”

#18

In Ashtivan: [w]

Used for: Same sound.

[shogan1464]

Readerly  Exploration #7- November 6, 2019

Course Reading 1: Silverman & Crandell - “Vocabulary Practices in Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergerten Classrooms” The Big Take Away: Specific vocabulary instruction can improve students vocabulary knowledge by acting out and illustrating words, systematically anaylzing words, apply words within context, defining words within rich context, and reinforce letter and sound recognition. Nugget: In this research article they compiled a list with five different practices that teachers can or did use to teach vocabulary that has been effective. The first one was acting out and illustrating words. This practice was very beneficial to students who had low vocabulary knowledge. Another one is analyzing words semantically. This means encouraging children to reflect on language that they use. The next one was applying words within new contexts, this helps students’ to understand the meaning of words. Defining words explicitly in rich context was a practice in which students’ could be taught the meaning of the word explicitly so they have a clearer understanding of the word. The last one is word study and it is helpful for children to learn and remember words by having phonological representations of those words. Within this whole section, it was cool to see which practices worked for children with low vocabulary knowledge and those with high vocabulary knowledge. 

Course Reading 2: Williams et al - “Word study Instructional in the K-2 Classroom” The Big Take Away: Word studies are teacher-directed but is the student centered approach to spelling instruction. When this form of instruction is integrated into a literacy program can help the development of literacy in children.

Nugget: This article was intriguing because she provide nine different ways to implement a word study. This was very insightful because I had no idea what word study instruction was before reading and I didn’t know what it would look like inside a classroom. An example is, the teacher has to take time to prepare for daily instruction and word work. They mention how this might be one of the biggest challenges for implementing this. I like the way this study was worded because it seemed like it is something that teachers who don’t know about it, should know about.

Readerly Exploration: Reflect on the contriubtions of reading experiences to reader identify in an effort to better articulate who he or she is as a reader:  Talk to one classmate about what stood out to him or her in the assigned course readings(s) and share how your reading process was similar or different.

While reading the second course reading “Word study Instructional in the K-2 Classroom” I really stared to think about my field placement. Since Karissa and I are paired together in field, we both decided to talk about this reading together because we were thinking in similar ways.

Karissa mentioned how she saw how these strategies are very applicable. She shared with me that she really enjoyed reading about Tip 6: “Teach Strategies That Support Students’ Use of Word Study Instruction.” She mentioned how she really valued how William et. al. provided strategies that she finds she will be able to apply in her future classroom, but also strategies that she has already been able to identify in our current placement. A specific example she noted was the way that our mentor teacher models writing behaviors for students. Karissa says that she finds this to reflect what is written in the article we read and she has seen how this modeling has positively effected students’ learning in the class.

Multiple Media:

Attached is a picture of Karissa who is my dyad partner for field. We met to sit and talk about what was being discussed in the readings and how we saw similar things within our field placement.

[kkramer19-blog]

Dialogue Response #1

A Struggling Reader: Children cannot excel in learning if their needs as struggling readers are not intervened upon. In order for teachers to meet the needs of a struggling reader, they must be able to quickly identify the student struggling and in what areas the struggles are present. As stated in Hairston’s article, Identifying and Helping Struggling Readers, a struggling reader is one who experiences a weakness in any one of the following processes: orthographic, phonological, morphological, semantic, and syntactic systems. Each of these areas are kind of like their own umbrella, and the struggles a reader could experience can appear in different ways under each umbrella.

The Warning Signs: The warning signs observed by the teacher that lead to the determination a student is struggling with reading mostly depends on the student’s age/grade level. For example, a first-grade student shouldn’t be expected to read multisyllabic words fluently, but if a fifth-grade student was struggling with this skill, they would be considered a struggling reader. In Hairston’s article, Identifying and Helping Struggling Readers, preschool and kindergarten aged students should be able to recognize some letters of the alphabet and have a basic level of phonemic awareness. Warning signs of kindergarten students would include difficulty with learning the alphabet, the sound that maps to each letter, and difficulty with rhyming games (Hairston 2011). If a child does not understand print concepts, phonics, and phonemic awareness by the end of second grade, this would be a major warning sign (Hairston 2011). A few examples of what these difficulties might look like in the classroom includes difficulty with the return sweep (print concepts), not being able to recognize digraphs (phonics), or not being able to identify the middle sound in a CVC word during an auditory drill (phonemic awareness). The warning signs of struggling readers could appear in a number of ways and are different for each grade but all tie back to the five overarching areas children should learn in early elementary. Warning signs for students in grades 3-5 would include difficulty with fluency, comprehension, spelling, writing, and vocabulary development (Hairston 2011). An example of noticing a warning sign in the classroom could be a student struggling with reading multisyllabic words. The student might be able to identify the word after a pause where they are breaking the word apart into the chunks they know. This student would struggle with fluency and might simply need more practice with reading multisyllabic words to gain confidence and automaticity.

Resource for Struggling Readers: Starfall Learn to Read with Phonics is a great web resource for struggling readers. Students can access stories on their level that can be read by a narrator or by the child. What makes this resource unique to me is the multisensory component it includes along with learning to read. I clicked on one story and noticed the nouns in the sentences have a corresponding picture or object above the word. For example, in the sentence “The boy and girl smile,” an image of a boy is over the word boy and an image of a girl is over word girl. The word smile had a smiley face over it. In the second video link on Canvas for this assignment content, the speaker mentioned the importance of reading being exciting and engaging. This interactive and multisensory component achieves this goal. Here’s the link: http://www.starfall.com/