On the Radio, Whoa-oa-oa-oa
Today I had the pleasure of being interviewed about my work and about words on a radio show with the Dyslexia Training Institute. Have a listen!
Today I had the pleasure of being interviewed about my work and about words on a radio show with the Dyslexia Training Institute. Have a listen!
4 Comments
I found your discussion about syllable division instruction tremendously helpful! Thank you, Gina!! 🙂
Great discussion Gina. Have you written separately about step 4 of the structured word-inquiry process: what aspects of phonology are pertinent in this word ? While I am feeling more confident with steps 1-3, I still am not sure exactly how to approach the phonology piece in this method of investigation.
Thanks again for the discussion: car + y –> carry was new to me. Also: mid + le –> middle, side + le –> sidle.
Marcia Johnson
I haven’t written and probably won’t ever write “separately” about the fourth question, which I typically phrase like this: “What aspects of the pronunciation are relevant to the spelling?”
There’s been plenty written by folks trying to make sense of the phonology independently of the meaning, the structure, and the history, but I see that question as an important part of a whole, not separable. “How to approach” it will depend on the word! In the word ‘cat’, for example, we might talk about using a versus a , because that’s a question for orthographic phonology. With the word ‘carry’ we might talk about how the pronunciation of ‘car’ and the pronunciation of ‘carry’ are different (kind of throws a wrench in the whole “r-controlled” syllable type). We might look for the graphemes that are spelling each of the phonemes; we might consider the difference between ‘tax’ and ‘tacks’ in terms of how graphemes spell phonemes, and what the phonemes are in those words. There’s no one right way to approach this question about the orthographic phonology; sometimes it won’t have a terribly interesting answer; other times it can be very revealing. Consider the ‘o’ in ‘love’ or the ‘e’ in ‘loathe’ — why those letters? What’s going on in the orthographic phonology that is generative for studying in this word at this time? The example of ‘tax’ and ‘tacks’ proves the need for a morphological understanding to come first. A question about the difference in the orthographic phonology of ‘feat’ and ‘feet’ has an etymological answer. The system must be dealt with in order to properly deal with the orthographic phonology.
I hope that helps.
In the top five of the favorite articles, thanks!