Karen GoatKeeper's Blog - Posts Tagged "language"
More on Words
Words are on my mind lately as I have been working on pencil puzzles for The Pumpkin Project and my Q entry for the goat alphabet alliteration just for fun book.
Years ago my mother worked at later directed an historical museum in a small Ozark town. I had the chance to browse through some of the old text books from local one room schools.
My grandfather had left school at age 13 when his father died and he had to work the farm. I always wondered why he seemed to have such a good education without much time at school.
Looking through a sixth grade McGuffey's reader, later other readers from the same time period I found the answer. In spite of reading far above my grade level, completing a bachelor's degree and being, at that time, a voracious reader, I needed a dictionary for some of the words in the reading selections.
A memory from one of my first substituting days before getting a teaching position is using the term general consensus and watching all mouths in the room drop open.
So often writers are advised to write on grade level. Check your vocabulary. Check your grade level. Simplify your vocabulary.
So many young people have limited vocabularies now. Maybe we should share the blame.
Teachers are told to set high standards for their classes to encourage students to strive to improve. Not impossibly high just higher than mediocre.
Perhaps we should do the same as writers. Maybe we should use bigger vocabularies, longer words in our writing. Challenge our readers a bit. Grow their vocabularies a bit.
My mother introduced me to teaching ESL English to adults. The rule of thumb was to use a word five times for the reader to become familiar with it, to own it.
English is a rich language, one of the richest in the world as it includes words from many languages and times. It can be a beautiful language. What a shame to let this diversity vanish as we write to grade level.
Years ago my mother worked at later directed an historical museum in a small Ozark town. I had the chance to browse through some of the old text books from local one room schools.
My grandfather had left school at age 13 when his father died and he had to work the farm. I always wondered why he seemed to have such a good education without much time at school.
Looking through a sixth grade McGuffey's reader, later other readers from the same time period I found the answer. In spite of reading far above my grade level, completing a bachelor's degree and being, at that time, a voracious reader, I needed a dictionary for some of the words in the reading selections.
A memory from one of my first substituting days before getting a teaching position is using the term general consensus and watching all mouths in the room drop open.
So often writers are advised to write on grade level. Check your vocabulary. Check your grade level. Simplify your vocabulary.
So many young people have limited vocabularies now. Maybe we should share the blame.
Teachers are told to set high standards for their classes to encourage students to strive to improve. Not impossibly high just higher than mediocre.
Perhaps we should do the same as writers. Maybe we should use bigger vocabularies, longer words in our writing. Challenge our readers a bit. Grow their vocabularies a bit.
My mother introduced me to teaching ESL English to adults. The rule of thumb was to use a word five times for the reader to become familiar with it, to own it.
English is a rich language, one of the richest in the world as it includes words from many languages and times. It can be a beautiful language. What a shame to let this diversity vanish as we write to grade level.
