Develop, not Envelop

OK, Phombies, let’s consider phonics from the perspective of professional development. Phonics requires participants to memorize arbitrary sets of made-up things, like these:

~phonograms, which may be single graphemes, clusters, markers, syllables, parts of syllables affixes, rimes, or combinations thereof.

~syllable types, which are an unspecified mix of spoken and written patterns. Are there 6? 7? 8? I’ve heard it all.

~syllable division patterns, which are noncontrovserially artificial. Are there 4 patterns? 5? 6? 8? Where do you divide royal? How about roil? Or father? Is it fa.ther or fath.er? How do you know? What’s the evidence? If you divide de.ter.min.a.tion or ques.tion, you are totally missing everything about those words.

~phonemes for a grapheme, which may or may not actually be phonemes (like grouping <a> in with ‘short u’) or graphemes (like *<eigh> or *<ti>)

~copious, endless lies about etymology (I’ve documented this widely — go look — cry is not Anglo-Saxon and television is not Latin. The Romans HAD no televisions and they were so jealous of the Greeks about that).

~”guided questioning” which teachers are supposed to be able to pull out of their mental hat, and which are based on the rest of the false understanding: “what type of syllable is it?” “what is the vowel sound in a closed syllable?” “How many phonograms are there in nation?” “What spells */shun/?” Infinite questions, finite discoveries.

~red words or whatever you call this abomination. Words are not red or tricky or demons unless human beings make them that way. That is a fact. Give me any word you think is an exception and I will make your brain grow.

~symbols for pronunciation, which differ from one program to another, beyond the short and long vowels. If you represent medial consonant in ‘father’ as */th/, then how do you represent the medial consonant in ‘panther’ (also */th/?) or in ‘hothouse’ (also /th/?). Some programs use /TH/ or they underline it or bold it or whatever — as I said, not consistent.

Phonics makes you good at . . . phonics. It may improve your literacy performance, but it won’t make you good at other things.

And then there’s real language study, in which you get to gather the following things, organized in an elegant framework with finite set of scientific tools to understand and infinite discoveries to make:

~morphemes, which may be free (bases) or bound (bases, affixes)

~graphemes, which are actually visible and have been researched, analyzed, and published in my LEX deck, which my “peers” are welcome to “review” at any time. Graphemes reveal and pinpoint the messiness of the phonemes that are in our heads, about whose pronunciation phonics people are arguing ad nauseum. (How do you pronounce <wh>? Or the <a> in bang or bank? Is <ar> spelling one phoneme or two?)

~syllable types: there are only two: closed, which have a consonant coda, and open, which have no coda. We also get to understand that the nucleus of a syllable is not always a vowel, and under what circumstances. Linguists don’t disagree about this, at all.

~IPA: a comprehensive, real-world symbol system that works not only for English, but for any language, and that is used not only by linguists, but by lexicographers (proper dictionaries), musicians, speech pathologists, dialect coaches, actors, singers, computer programmers, communications researchers, university professors, language teachers and students, translators and interpreters, and more.

~word sums: these work the same way for any word, including checking the joins for suffixing patterns, and they are an established tool in linguistic science.

~matrices: infinite possibilities, finite guidelines, scientific tool.

~questions: Four. The same four, always. Nothing arbitary. Finite questions, infinite discoveries.

~attested roots and reconstructed roots: etymology is a linguistic science, not a triangle with false examples.

~explanations, not exceptions.

~InSights, not sight words

~Tools to form, test, and falsify hypotheses based on physical evidence

I am not interested in developing phonics professionals. I’m interested in developing professionals. Actually, I’m just interested in developing people and being developed by them.

If you want to cheerlead for phonics here, please do so with evidence, not with citations about some article you read or what some government is doing with its schools.

12 Comments

  1. What is the best way to start learning about “real language study.” I have a strong OG background and still feel something is missing. Where do I start?

  2. Pat Stone says:

    I left a comment, supporting your arguments, on Uh Soodoe Whird Kamidey. It is about the iniquities of what happens in England when the phonatics get the ears of Govt ministers over several years…

  3. Michelle Montali says:

    Are “rimes” b/s as content for study? I have found that for young kids learning to spell mostly single syllable words (I wince as I write that anticipating an invective…) they can provide helpful patterns. (…Patterns that are devoid of meaning, certainly, but nevertheless helpful.) I certainly want to mend my ways if I’m doing harm, so I’d appreciate any insight you can provide me.

    • Michelle, really. Invective?

      What a lovely way to start my morning, being winced at and told that my expertise and truth-telling is abusive and insulting.

      If understand correctly, I am supposed to magnanimously answer your questions and help you mend your ways and stop doing harm, but somehow you get to accuse me of being abusive the whole while? I don’t think that’s logical.

      You see, what I’m inclined to write at the moment is not a thoughtful response about rimes (which I am richly capable of), but a self-defense to a complete stranger who has accused me out of the blue of being abusive on my own webpage, but wants me to help her improve her practice.

      Really.

      Go look up the word invective and make sure that’s what you want to say. It does not mean “things that are challenging to my preconceived notions” or “facts that require me to rethink commonly-held misconceptions.” My thesaurus offers these words as alternatives: “abuse, insults, expletives, swear words, swearing, curses, foul language, vituperation; denunciation, censure, vilification…”

      So, assuming that your “b/s” abbreviation stands for “bullshit,” really, who’s got an invective problem? Look, there are plenty of very nice people out there — famous professionals — who will happily lie to your face about language, Michelle, and cover it in syrup. Why don’t you go ask them what they think about rimes. And henceforth, if you’d like to comment on my blog, or ask questions, why don’t you assume the best of me first? Or maybe take a class with me, get to know me before you just assume that I’m cruel because you spent an hour reading my writing.

      I actually discuss rimes in great detail in my Syllables LEXinar.

      Honestly, would you walk into the office of a well-known, brilliant doctor, someone you want to help you with a medical problem, and say, “Here’s my question, and now I’m going to wince because I heard you’re abusive to your patients”? And at least the doctor gets paid in that insulting exchange.

      I wonder whether you would encourage your elementary students to question a teacher with an approach mirroring yours. You seem pretty worried about how I come off to you, but apparently you don’t give a fig about how you come off to me.

      You’re welcome to start over. But I’m done with this conversation.

      • Michelle Montali says:

        I am sorry to have offended you–if that’s the right word. My intent in using that verb was to–playfully!–acknowledge that there may be more “harm”‘in focusing on rimes than I could know without the extensive linguistic knowledge. I clearly placed my hyperbole in the wrong place and used the wrong verb, for which I apologize. I’ll stop there.

      • OK. My 1st grade teacher taught me that nothing is fun unless it’s fun for everyone. I don’t know you. You don’t know me. Why I should assume that your use of the word “invective” — which, by the way, is a noun, not a verb, smh — was just “playful?? Honestly, how would you expect anyone to respond if you walked up to them cold, and said, with a smile, “Hi, I expect you to insult me. Hahaha!” It’s foreign to me why anyone would do that.

        “Playful” and “polite” and “nice” and “kind” are excuses people hide behind for passive-aggression, failures of accountability, lack of self-awareness, and other unbecoming personality traits. It’s dehumanizing for me every single time I fend off some stranger who accuses me of being nasty before they’ve even had one single solitary encounter with me. If it’s invective you want, then I offer you this: Eff That Noise.

        Fend off — because yes, when someone charges at me with fighting words for no reason — that is literally an offense. So thank you for your apology. And by all means, if you have strong feelings about how I’ve handled things here, you’e welcome to talk to your friends about it, or write about it on your own blog.

        If what you actually want is more information about rimes, feel free to sign up for my Syllables LEXinar, but I’m not writing you a personal blog post about a big subject like that.

        Again, thanks for your apology.

      • And no one needs “extensive linguistic knowledge” to study and understand the writing system. That’s a straw man that’s set up to distance me and defend yourself. I work with 7-year-olds. I’ve never insulted a single one, nor has their understanding required extensive linguistic knowledge.

    • Cheryl Person-Tillman says:

      Ignore this bitch…but do study. She’s always been a bitch.

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