The 90-Minute Challenge (Dare You!) by Carla Kessler

This post is provided by Carla Kessler, Director of Learning at LogixLab LLC, and creator of Word Lab Web. Formerly a Title I Coordinator and Learning Specialist, Carla has been recognized as an Outstanding Educator by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International. As a 25-year veteran teacher of the middle grades, she has been recognized for her skills in implementing innovative curriculum that brings measurable results. Carla writes, "I have spent my career being a "peaceful warrior" in my efforts to advocate for effective student learning."

_______________

I Dare You!! 

What am I daring you to do? I’m daring you to step back and redesign your teaching priorities for a whole month. I’m talking about putting less time into close reading and reading strategies and putting more time into highly focused word learning. For one month (Jan. 31 to Mar. 3), spend 90 minutes a week teaching vocabulary in your classroom. I’m challenging you to create a classroom environment where your students’ appreciation of word knowledge is heightened more than usual. 

I dare you to allocate 90+ minutes a week 

for direct instruction of word learning

for one month. 

Why? 

Because, “…correlations between vocabulary size and life chances are as firm as any correlations in educational research….there’s no better index to accumulated knowledge and general competence than the size of a person’s vocabulary.” (Hirsch, A Wealth of Words)

Because, “…vocabulary size is a convenient proxy for a whole range of educational attainments and abilities—not just skill in reading, writing, listening, and speaking but also general knowledge of science, history, and the arts.”  (Hirsch, A Wealth of Words)

Because as Marzano keeps reminding us, “The importance of direct vocabulary instruction cannot be overstated.” 

Because, "The number of words that students need to learn is exceedingly large; on average students should add 2,000 to 3,000 new words a year to their reading vocabularies" (Beck, McKeown & Kucan, 2002). 

Because, ”The key to increasing upward mobility is expanding vocabulary.” (Carter, How improving Vocabulary Helps Human Flourishing)

Because, “Vocabulary is critical to an active imagination. A child’s ability to imagine things beyond their own senses is directly related to the depth and breadth of their vocabulary.” (Clarkson, Speaking of Imagination)

I can keep going...but you get the idea. 

During my tenure as Title I coordinator, I found teachers reluctant to give up reading-teaching time in order to make time for more vocabulary study. They had to reduce the teaching of reading strategies to make time. There is very little evidence that teaching a multitude of reading strategies improves reading but our teachers had become quite attached to the reading strategies protocols. 

We asked teachers to “just try it” for a while (just like I am asking you now) and see how it went. From there we were able to create a dialogue about prioritizing and what the research says. We changed our focus and started making much greater gains in reading scores. 

Join us in this challenge. Let's create a dialogue. During the challenge month, I will be sending encouragement in the way of research and ideas. At the end, everyone is asked to share their experiences. My hope is that this experience and subsequent dialogue will also give your students a lift in their reading scores and confidence. 

Guidelines for meeting this 90-Minute Challenge:

DO: 

1. Have your middle grade students pick words they don’t know from the context of what they are reading. Paired reading is one way to do this (see VOCABUTRIX for more ideas). 
2. Provide a common word list, that represents the expectations for word learning for your particular group and/or subject area. 
3. Provide personalized structured approaches for dealing with words in challenging texts (see Worder Nerds). 
4. Have students look up words on their phones, on tablets, or on computers. If you’re worried about using cell phones in class, see the tip below. 
5. Have students discuss aloud with their peers their personal connections to any aspect of the word that they have looked up. 
6. Have students discuss different contexts for the words they are learning and the “feeling” the words elicit based on their personal experience (connotations).
7. Do have students review their favorite new words, expecting that the exposure created by sharing personal connections will help the learning stick.

DON’T: 

1. Give everyone the same weekly word list with no opportunities for differentiation.
2. Avoid challenging texts for struggling readers. 
3. Expect students to learn vocabulary primarily via the dictionary.
4. Spend time memorizing rote definitions, without context. 
5. Assess progress by testing word knowledge independent of context. 
6. Feel obligated to teach every aspect of a word’s meaning (see We Don’t Know Words from Adam).

Tip: Cell Phones and Digital Dictionaries: 
Teaching your students dictionary skills is important but should not be required for learning word meanings. What’s important here is to get to a valid definition quickly. If students are allowed to use phones, have them download a dictionary app. Once downloaded, students can put the phone in “airplane” mode. A digital dictionary is of course also accessible from a tablet or computer. Once students can quickly look up words on digital devices, they often make it a habit, and what a great habit to encourage! 

So what do you think? Can you join us? We will help you along the way with tips, inspirations, and motivational support. For a month, January 31 to March 3, prioritize 90 minutes a week for vocabulary growth. Sign up or simply learn more at my webpage on Wordlab:The 90-Minute Challenge. 

Oh, and before you go, tell us in the comments area about any roadblocks to spending 90 minutes a week on word learning. We’d like to hear from you!

MCVIP – A Multi-Faceted, Comprehensive Vocabulary Instruction Program (Baumann, Manyak, Blachowicz, Graves, Arner, Bates, Cieply, Davis, Peterson, & Olejnik)

This post is courtesy of the MCVIP vocabulary research team, which includes primary investigators Jim Baumann (University of Missouri-Columbia), Patrick Manyak (University of Wyoming), and Camille Blachowicz (National Louis University). Mike Graves (University of Minnesota, Emeritus) has been a consultant on the project, and it has been his research and writing that have formed the basis for the MCVIP instructional framework (see Mike's prior post. Also see his newest book, Teaching Vocabulary to English Language Learners by Graves, August, and Mancilla-Martinez). Other persons whose work is represented in this post and who have been instrumental in both developing MCVIP and conducting the research on it are Steven Olejnik (University of Georgia, Emeritus), Jeni Davis (University of South Florida), Justin Arner (Hillsborough Co., FL, Schools), Heather Peterson (Wyoming), and Char Cieply and Ann Bates (National Louis). Most importantly, we wish to acknowledge the teacher-participants, co-researchers, and professional friends whose expertise, enthusiasm, and insight made this project possible. Thanks to David Autenrieth, Julie O'Farrell, Carolyn Gillis, Elizabeth McDermott, Dianne Williams (Wyoming); Marie Chang-Pisano, Carol Clay, Kelly De Rosa, Tom Erf, Vanessa Herrera, Colleen Kelly, Julia Starenko (National Louis); Elizabeth Quintero, Brent Wade, Jill Walters, Heidi Watson (Missouri). A recent publication in which the researchers have contributed one or more chapters on or related to MCVIP is Vocabulary Instruction: Research to Practice (2nd ed., Kame’enui & Baumann, 2012). The research team also has a web site under construction, on which detailed information and lessons from MCVIP will be available upon its completion.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Click any graphic to enlarge it. Right-click to save it. This post elaborates on a prior post:  The Four-Ply Vocabulary Plan.

 

Four Components of MCVIP

MCVIP is a research and development project funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. MCVIP is based on Graves’s (2006, 2009) four-component vocabulary program, which includes “(1) providing rich and varied language experiences; (2) teaching individual words; (3) teaching word-learning strategies; and (4) fostering word consciousness” (2006, p. 5). Working from these four components, we have developed and evaluated the implementation of MCVIP in multiple Grade 4 and 5 classrooms in three states.

When the Word Does Not (Appear to) Add Up

One day, gasoline was labeled "inflammable" and the next, "flammable"  and "extremely flammable."  Or so it seemed.

I was unaware of this change until it reached a critical mass. It may have seemed sudden, but the transition from inflammable to flammable took several decades. The Ngram, graphed below and discussed by The Grammarist, shows that flammable overtook inflammable somewhere around 1978, at least in the publications Google includes in their corpus.

The change occurred to avert possible misinterpretation of the danger signs. (Tap on the graph curve to show stats by year.)

So, inflammable is in transition, losing its prefix in-. In American-English, the transition is  nearly complete. However, the related derivations retain the prefix, as with inflammatory, inflammation, inflammability. This word is also related through the root to inflame, inflaming, and the French loan words flambeau, flambé and flamboyant. See more words from the FLAM root family at Word Info. (See comments for discussion of possible spelling of base as FLAMM.)

Misinterpretation occurred because of the prefix in-. The word inflammable is parsed into in- + flam + -able. The root FLAM denotes 'to kindle, to set on fire, to burn.' This word came to English via Latin by way of French. The prefix in- comes in several spelling forms: in- (indirect), im- (improper), il- (illegal), and ir- (irreligious). 

The prefix in- has three meanings or interpretations. The most commonly used sense conveys 'not' or 'non' as in insensitive, inedible, illegal, implausible, irreverent, etc. 

The secondary meaning for the prefix in- is  'into, in, on, upon' as in insert, incandescent, and implant.  

The third sense of the prefix is qualitative. Sometimes it serves as an intensifier, much like we use very or extremely. 

So, basing word meaning strictly on the meanings of each morpheme, inflammable could be interpreted in three possible ways:

1. 'not flammable'
2. 'flammable from within, able to burst into flame'
3. 'extremely flammable' 

The second and perhaps even the third options are correct; inflammable indicates that something is "flammable from within, able to burst into flame, able to be set on fire." See Online Etymology Dictionary.

But apparently, and understandably, some folks thought inflammable meant 'not flammable' just as inedible means 'not edible.'  So, the decision was made to change the danger signs.  Gasoline and other combustibles are fairly consistently labeled FLAMMABLE. Today, FLAMMABLE and INFLAMMABLE are synonyms. They mean the same thing. They both warn of fire. But FLAMMABLE is seen far more frequently.

To make meaning quite clear, non-combustible materials that are not flammable are now termed non-flammable, thus avoiding the polysemous prefix in- completely. Why muddy the waters with the negative sense of the prefix in- when we have only just clarified things? And using green for the signage helps to convey the meaning. A safe color, green is go.

 FLAMMABLE = INFLAMMABLE = FIRE RISK

Because inflammable derives from Latin, it is likely to have some look-alikes or cognates across the Romance languages. But when it changed to flammable in English, did it also change in Spanish? In French? In Italian? Not so much. See signs.

To reduce confusion, perhaps we should just do away with words and communicate through pictures, icons, signs. This involves semiotics, the study of how signs, symbols, and icons are interpreted and used to convey meaning. A sort of "sign-ology" (not to be confused with scientology).

Before Bill Bryson kindled my interest in morphology and word origins with his engaging if not authoritative book, The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way, I assumed inflammable was just a poorly constructed word. I did not realize that the prefix in- had more than one meaning; instead, I consistently interpreted the prefix to mean 'not'.

But take note! This confusion did NOT cause me to underestimate the danger, spelled out on red cans and orange signs: Given what I know about the world (ah, so we infer!) and particularly about gasoline, I decided I would simply have to ignore the pesky prefix and go with my gut. Those gas pumps are gonna readily burn even though the warning sign does not seem to indicate so.

Perhaps my own coming to terms with inflammable sheds a little light on how we all  process language. When it comes to words, one of the questions linguists debate is which is processed first or the fastest and/or to the greatest extent, the whole word or the morphemes that make up the word? Well, both, actually. In addition, it is context that floats our language boat. Thus, one of my favorite reads: In the Beginning was the Word (Aronoff, 2007) and, I dare to add,  "In the End, the Word" and "Along the Way, the Morphemes."

Implications for Teaching Vocabulary: Teach students whole words. Also, teach them morphology (prefixes especially). Teach them to pay close attention to context. Help them learn to trust their own gut--to develop self-efficacy when interpreting word meanings, by drawing clues from context and from morphemes, and from knowledge of the world. Also, teach them to use a dictionary when needed. This aligns with the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. Here is an example from grade 5:

COMMON CORE STANDARD: Vocabulary Acquisition and Use L.5.4.  
Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 5 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

• Use context (e.g., cause/effect relationships and comparisons in text) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase. 
• Use common, grade-appropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., photograph, photosynthesis). 
•  Consult reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation and determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases.

Also, encourage students to read, especially during the summer. Play word games (so many cool apps for word play--my newest fave is "4 Pics 1 Word"). Kindle interest in words, phrases, and language in general.


See also The Popular Prefix Survey Results

The Underestimated Verb and Morphological Reasoning

To be notified when a new post is published, enter your email address into Feedburner. When Feedburner sends you a verification email, confirm to activate your subscription.

I discuss verbs, including the verb-forming suffixes -ize, -ify, -ate,and -en, the verb-forming prefixes be-,  en-/em- and sometimes de-, and verbs that started life as a noun and underwent grammatical shift, as in table/ to table. 

In a Web search, I found that Amazon can "betterize" their recommendations, someone “argufied somethin’ fierce,” and someone else is "preparing to speechify." The Exploratorium addresses the psychology behind how to cute-ify any creature, simply by making the eyes bigger, the body plump or fluffy, etc.

Action verbs advance the plot, in life and in literature. Only the verb can stand alone as a complete sentence: "Go!" But verbs can be the very devil. In each instance below, the verb went awry:

• “How do you know if you don’t measure if you have a system that simply suckles kids through?”
•  “You know, this issue doesn’t seem to resignate with the people.”
• “They have misunderestimated me.”

(Bushisms, Weisberg, 2001)

How many English words are verbs? While nouns and adjectives make up 75% of the words in the English language, verbs only account for about 14%, according to Oxford Dictionaries.com (estimates only, based on main entry words).

However, this estimate does not take into account words with senses for different word classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.). For example, snowplow is tallied as a noun, but it could also be tallied as a verb: “I will snowplow the driveway.” Thus, the estimate of 14%, or only 1 in 7 words, must be quite low, because converting a noun into a verb is fairly common in English (not necessarily true in every language).

The business of transforming a noun into a verb goes by many names: verbing, verbification, morphological conversion, grammatical shift, functional shift, zero-derivation, etc. Whatever we call it, one thing is certain: It provides for a great deal of versatility and flexibility of expression. If Oxford’s tally of verbs included multiple senses for each given main entry, the number of verbs in the English language would rise, significantly. 

And even though it is possible to convert words across grammatical categories, as from an adjective (green) into a noun (the putting green), verbing is by far the most common type of grammatical shift.

In “You’ve Been Verbed” Anthony Gardner writes: “Mothers and fathers used to bring up children: now they parent. Critics used to review plays: now they critique them. Athletes podium, executives flipchart, and almost everybody Googles. Watch out—you’ve been verbed.” (Update: Also see 10-27-2012 NYT post by Dr. Helen Sword, Mutant Verbs).

Nonetheless, there is some logic to the pie graph pictured above, despite the missing grammatical conversions. It is not surprising that nouns and adjectives outnumber verbs. We can apply one verb to a slew of nouns. For example, the possibilities are endless with the verb fix. Theoretically, we can "fix" any noun that exists!

How does morphology help us understand verbs?

Source: Vocabulary Through Morphemes (Ebbers)

Sentence order helps us understand grammatical function. In addition to sentence order, suffixes--and some prefixes--provide syntactic information. For example, words that end with –ize tend to be verbs, as in verbalize. Words that end with –ion tend to be abstract nouns, as in education and television. Words that end with –ic tend to be adjectives, as in exotic, heroic. The chart shows derivations of drama, formed by adding various suffixes. Read more about derivational suffixes.

When there is no verb-forming suffix, for example when the noun table is transformed to a verb, "Let's table the discussion" we must rely on sentence order to determine word class. Read more about words with multiple meanings, including suffix-less zero-derivations).

How is a verb formed, morphologically? A verb could be a morphologically simple word, with only one morpheme: run, eat, sleep. It could be morphologically complex, composed of more than one morpheme. This includes compound words that are verbs: downsize, whitewash, kickbox. A handful of derivational suffixes create verbs. I list them below.

• -ate, as in evaporate, calculate, demonstrate (more words)
• -ize, as in analyze, revitalize, theorize (more words)
• -ise (the British spelling for –ize) as in exercise
• -ify, as in justify, oversimplify, pacify, electrify (more from Word Detector)
• -en, as in moisten, sharpen, shorten (but not earthen, silken, etc.)
  

Prefixes can form verbs, too. The prefix en- creates verbs like endanger, enjoy, endear. This prefix is also spelled em-, as in embody, empower (see post on assimilated prefixes). Adding the prefix be- transforms a noun to a verb, as in befriend, bewitch, besiege. The prefix de- sometimes forms verbs, as in derail, defrost, and dethrone.

Reading research, morphological insight, and verbs: Researchers use contextualized (and sometimes isolated) invented words that contain real derivational suffixes to see whether or not older children (and adults) understand, even just subconsciously, how the derivational suffix indicates grammatical category. I have used the same process in my dissertation work, using real words and also invented words. Two examples from my test wordPLAY are shown below:

Can the rain ___?   vapor         vaporize      vapors         vaporizing 

We will ____ it.       borkize       borkous      borkment      borkly

Researchers have consistently found that poor morphological insight explains poor vocabulary knowledge: After all the other usual suspects have been accounted for, there is still a difference between students of high versus low vocabulary, and that remaining difference is partially explained when we factor in morphological knowledge. This difference begins in the primary grades and continues through high school and college for some students (e.g., Berninger et al. 2010; Carlisle, 2000; 2010; McBride-Chang et al., 2005, etc.; Singson, Mahony, & Mann, 2000, etc.).

What should students do? Learn words? YES! But also, learn ABOUT words--how they work, how they are formed, how to play around with them. And READ. And TALK. Absorb words, and their patterns. 

That's all. It's summer, almost. It's Sunday, spot on. Why not go outside and verb?

PS. Read more about the suffix -ify in Don't Be Iffy on -ify and see the worksheet that goes with it. Also see Teaching Verbs and Confronting the Skunk, by Georgia Scurletis, at Visual Thesuaurs.

References

Be Not *Dismighted

A note from the publisher:

I will no longer send out email notification for each new Vocabulogic post. If you wish to be notified when a new post is published, enter your email address into Feedburner. After you do so, Feedburner will send you a verification email; you will need to confirm to activate your subscription. To subscribe, click the Feedburner link.

Greetings! 

I am on holiday, so I did not write a post. 

But be not dismayed!

(A curious word--dismayed--composed of dis- + may. With the prefix dis- denoting 'not, opposite of, away' and the forerunner to one sense of may historically denoting 'might, power, ability' (Ayto, 1990) we see that dismayed indicated far more than mere "disappointment" or "shock and surprise" as sometimes used today. For one example, a Google search yielded, "I was dismayed when the TV show was cut." 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines dismay:

 1. trans (verb). To deprive of moral courage at the prospect of peril or trouble; to appal [sic] or paralyze with fear or the feeling of being undone; utterly to discourage, daunt, or dishearten. refl. †To be filled with dismay; to lose courage entirely.

Be not *dismighted.  

Ahem. But maybe a look at dismay is fitting for Memorial Day.)


Instead of writing a post, I offer two treats:

#1 : How Students Approach New Words (podcast)
 
Click this hyperlink to visit the Voice of Literacy podcast page, where Dr. Betsy Baker (University of Missouri ) interviews Dr. Jocelyn Folk (Kent State University). The run time is just over 13 minutes.

Dr. Jocelyn Folk is a cognitive psychologist. She investigates incidental vocabulary learning among skilled readers. In the podcast, Dr. Folk explains:

"I have always been interested in the processes skilled readers use when they encounter a word that is unfamiliar to them--so it's a new vocabulary word--but that is not your task--your task isn't about learning new vocabulary words, you are just reading a book. So the question is this: How do skilled readers deal with words they do not know?"

 #2: The Humorous Option

View a fast and furious video outlining the convoluted history of the English language. This clever video is courtesy of The Open University. If the video does not open in the player below, click one of the links beneath the video.

 

View the video in ten one-minute segments, at The Open University or view the entire ten-minute video on YouTube

View video WHERE DID ENGLISH COME FROM by Claire Bowern

Enjoy!

Susan 

References: 

Ayto, John. (1990). Dictionary of word origins. New York: Arcade Publishing.

Baker, E. A. & Folk, J. (2012, April 2). Vocabulary instruction: How students approach new words. Voice of Literacy. Podcast retrieved from http://voiceofliteracy.org

Videos of Structured Word Inquiry (Bowers)

Peter Bowers contributed the following post. Pete is a doctoral candidate at Queen's University, Canada, with expertise in orthography and morphology, as well as critical thinking. He has investigated how morphological awareness contributes to various aspects of literacy, especially spelling and vocabulary knowledge. As a regular contributor to Vocabulogic, Pete has authored several posts, including Structured Word Inquiry and Meta-Analysis of Morphological Intervention Studies.  Visit Pete's website: WordWorks Literacy Centre.

Current research has converged on the finding that literacy instruction should address morphology from the beginning of instruction and that this is especially important for less able students (Bowers, Kirby & Deacon, 2010; Carlisle, 2010; Goodwin & Ahn, 2010; Reed, 2008). 

Given this evidence, the question facing educators and researches is not whether we should teach morphology, but how to teach it. 

Structured word inquiry (Bowers & Kirby, 2010) is an instructional approach that targets exactly this goal. I regularly receive anecdotal reports from teachers and tutors reporting examples of this effect, such as this account of a student-led investigation of the word condensation. As well, our controlled intervention study using this approach (Bowers & Kirby, 2010) showed that morphological instruction using the structured word inquiry approach brought significant vocabulary gains for words that were not explicitly taught, but which shared a base with explicitly taught words.

It is a challenge to explain what structured word inquiry is clearly and to convey how it operates in classrooms in writing. For that  reason, I am delighted that Susan has invited me to share a few videos that provide a big picture of this instruction and which illustrate this instruction in action in real classrooms. 

• This public lecture on structured word inquiry provides a useful "big picture" of this instruction. The video is from a talk I gave for the J.P.Das Centre on Developmental and Learning Disabilities at the University of Alberta.

• This video shows an investigation of the spelling of the word does in an elementary classroom.

• This video shows a lesson introducing the central linguistic tools of structured word inquiry, the morphological word sum and matrix to a kindergarten class.

To explore other videos illustrating this instruction in action in classrooms around the world, visit this YouTube channel. 

My hope is that these videos will motivate Vocabulogic readers to have a go at morphological analysis using matrices and word sums. There are many free resources available at www.wordwordskingston.com to help you get started.  

At this link, you will learn about a new piece of software called The Word Microscope (that is currently free to download) that you can use to start these types of investigations on your own and with your students. 

You may also be interested in the Teacher Resource Book based on the Bowers and Kirby (2010) intervention and the Word Works Summer Courses. Also consider joining my live on-line broadcast on “Structured Word Inquiry and the Scientific Study of Words” on Lexercise on June 14th. 


Finally, if I were to recommend one article that lays out the underlying principles of how English spelling works that are revealed through structured word inquiry with the matrix and the word sum, it would be Carol Chomsky's seminal 1970 paper, "Reading, writing, and phonology" in Harvard Educational Review.

References 

Berninger, V.W., Abbott, R.D., Nagy, W., & Carlisle, J. (2010).Growth in phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness in grades 1 to 6. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 39, 141–163.

Bowers, P. N., & Kirby, J. R. (2010). Effects of morphological instruction on vocabulary acquisition. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 23, 515–537.

Bowers, P. N., Kirby, J. R., & Deacon, S. H. (2010). The effects of morphological instruction on literacy skills: A systematic review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 80, 144–179.

Carlisle, F. (2010). Effects of instruction in morphological awareness on literacy achievement: An integrative review. Reading Research Quarterly, 45, 464–487.

Chomsky, C. (1970). Reading, writing, and phonology. Harvard Educational Review, 4(2), 287–309.

Goodwin, A.P., & Ahn, S., (2010). A meta-analysis of morphological interventions: effects on literacy achievement of children with literacy difficulties. Annals of Dyslexia, 60, 183-208.

Reed, D.K. (2008). A synthesis of morphology interventions and effects on reading outcomes for students in grades K–12. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 23(1), 36–49.

Puzzling Plurals and the *Potatoe Incident

Thanks for participating in the Puzzling Plurals survey. In this post, after focusing on potato and other singular nouns that end with the open /o/ sound, I discuss the survey questions. To finish, I provide links to references, articles, and games.

It is evident from the survey results that "we" are perplexed. The English language is  puzzling, and plurals trouble all of us at times. As we know, they can certainly stress former US Vice Presidents--at least, that's the argument I make below.

"Now add one little bit on the end."

Some tricky singular-plural pairs are remnants of Old English, and flow from the Germanic layer of the language. Some are artifacts of Greek and Latin influence. Still others flow from Japanese, Arabic, Spanish, etc.

For example, take potato, a word that apparently traveled from native Haitian, was given a  Spanish spelling, and was adopted into English, from Sp. patata, from Carib (Haiti) batata "sweet potato." (etymology here). Basic English 101 says to make a plural, we add either the inflectional suffix -s or -es to the singular noun, right? But we typically add -es to words that end with hissing sibilant sounds like /s/, /z/, /sh/, /zh/ and /ch/ -- including wish-wishes, fox-foxes, and bus-buses. Now, potato does not end with a hissing sound, so why would the plural of potato be potato + es? We do not add an -es to pinto or pueblo, yet like potato, they came into English via Spanish. And if the plural is potatoes (and it is), then we should be able to figure out how to spell the singular simply by removing the final -s. Thus, we might deduce that the singular of potatoes is *potatoe. After all, someone (a teacher, or so the story goes) spelled it that way on the cue card for the ill-famed spelling bee. (See the *potatoe incident on YouTube.)

One can kinda-sorta see why Quayle's handler approved the cue card, and why the VP himself went along with it, telling the 12-year-old--who knew the correct spelling--to "add one little bit to the end" of his perfectly spelled potato. After all, there are just too many strange spellings to remember, and we never add -es to a noun that ends in a vowel.

Visual Thesaurus map for genie

But we do! Potato+es, echo+es, torpedo+es, tomato+es, and hero+es testify to it, while piano+s, inferno+s, video+s, rodeo+s and bistro+s refute it. Meanwhile, playing it safe, several sit the fence: ghettos or ghettoes, cargoes or cargos, flamingos or flamingoes, halos or haloes, tornadoes or tornados, etc. English is pickled with puzzles, and just when we find a pattern, the language genie attacks--sometimes we tangle with two genies at once--or genii?

I spell potato, you spell *potatoe? Pity the former Vice President, but pity even more the millions of English learners around the world. In fact, be gentle with all. From the survey results, even well-educated adults who use English with confidence all day fall prey to the unpredictable plural.

Below, I briefly discuss the survey questions. I note the percentage of 271 respondents who voted in favor of each phrase, deciding it was correct. Kudos (but not *kudoes) for resisting the dictionary while responding. Refer to the prior post to see the closed survey with graphed results and related comments.

• (82%) lots of data is correct. The singular is datum. 
• (55%) seven thesauri is correct. Thesauruses is listed in some dictionaries, but it only appears once every 1,356,110 pages, on average, according to Vocabulary.com. The singular is thesaurus. 
• (63%) a single bacterium is correct (like datum). The plural is bacteria. 
• (12%) six skinny mooses is not correct. The plural of moose is moose.
• (38%) one essential criteria is not correct. The singular is criterion; the plural is criteria.
• (26%) five octopuses is correct. Read about octopuses, not *octopi, below.
  
• (85%) four strong oxen is correct (like children, brethren, and extinct shoon, like shoe + -en; see shoe etymology). The singular is ox. 
• (63%) two loaded dice is correct. The singular is die (but dice is becoming more accepted as a singular form). Note the plural mice and lice are not expressed in singular as *mie and *lie.
• (89%) four flying fish is correct, but fishes would also be correct. 
• (71%) a strange phenomenon is correct (like criterion). The plural is phenomena. 
• (77%) some differing hypotheses is correct, ending with es. The singular is hypothesis (like crisis, analysis, thesis, parenthesis). 
• (13%) hundreds of hopping head lie is not correct. The plural is lice and the singular louse (like mouse, but not house and *hice)

English words reflect the spelling patterns of the parent language, but not with consistency. This is when we teach dictionary skills, an important aspect of vocabulary instruction. However, it is worthwhile to memorize the spellings of words we use frequently. Many of these words actually do conform to a plural-forming pattern. In Words and Rules, Stephen Pinker (1999, p. 26) theorized:

"The mind analyzes every stretch of language as some mixture of memorized chunks and rule-governed assemblies."

Rule-governed assemblies include spelling patterns. What are the spelling patterns for tricky plurals? Several experts have attempted to explain them, or list them. So, for your browsing pleasure, explore the following links -- there's even a game.

The Old English Plural by The Oxford Times

Tricky Plurals in English: Bacterias, Bacteriae, Bacteriums? Plurals of Loanwords in English, by Oxford Dictionaries-Oxford University Press (not sure if this will open without a membership). Here is an excerpt, explaining why *octopi is not the plural of octopus:

Tangled up in the coils of the language octopus
 X Sea lions are carnivores and eat fish, squid, octopi, crabs, clams, and lobsters. 
As the above example (taken from a US scientific publication) shows, a little knowledge of Latin and Greek can be a dangerous thing and sometimes leads people into error. The writer clearly knows that some Latin plurals are formed by changing the ‘–us’ ending of a singular noun into ‘-i’ for the plural, as in alumnus -> alumni. However, octopus is ultimately borrowed from a Greek word and not a Latin one, so it’s incorrect to form the plural according to the Latin rules. If you wanted to be ultra-correct and conform to ancient Greek, you’d talk about octopodes, but this is very rare: the Anglicized plural, octopuses, is absolutely fine. 

A Reference to Strange Plurals in English, at pipTALK Forums

Irregular Plurals and Nouns, at the University of Victoria Study Zone

One Fish-Two Fish, a game-like quiz at Sporcle (Try it!)

Minimum, Minima, and Other Irregular Plurals  by Bill Wilson, engineering

Strange Plurals at English Forums.com

Strange Plurals, an open list at Worknik

What is the Plural of Mouse? Quick and Dirty Tips by Grammar Girl


References:

Pinker, S. (1999). Words and rules. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Cheers,
Susan

Reading with Your Ears: Assistive Technology, 21st Century Skills, and Vocabulary (Filippini & Morey)

Dr. Alexis Filippini is the executive director at Mission Learning Center and a literacy consultant (website). She is passionate about literacy, especially among students who do not fit the "mainstream" mold. She has taught English Language Learners and students with learning disabilities in 1:1 and small group contexts, and conducted research on early reading and vocabulary acquisition. The ideas in this post were first inspired by hearing her husband Ben Foss use text-to-speech for work and play.  

Anne-Marie Becker Morey is the founder of Bay Tree Learning. Anne-Marie is a certified educational therapist with a masters degree in special education from San Francisco State University. She is certified by the Association for Educational Therapists and received specialized training in educational therapy from the University of California Santa Cruz. She has trained extensively in research-based literacy methods, including Lindamood-Bell® and Orton-Gillingham. Anne-Marie is a member of the Association of Educational Therapists, the Council for Exceptional Children, and the International Dyslexia Association.

In my last post, Phonemes and Morphemes for All, I wrote about vocabulary instruction for students with specific learning disabilities (SLD), such as dyslexia, that impact print processing. Today, Anne-Marie and I want to elaborate on my previous hints about using technology to support robust, Vocabulogic-style literacy instruction for these learners. To discuss assistive technology (AT) today, we must consider that we live in an entirely different context than twenty, ten, even five years ago. In the era of "new literacies," many of our students (and most of us!) use computers, phones, smart boards, e-readers, etc. to access information on a regular basis.

New literacies or 21st century information and communication skills are “the ability to use technology to develop 21st century content knowledge and skills in support of 21st century teaching and learning.” In the context of vocabulary, everyday technology offers multi-modal instructional opportunities to hit the major vocabulary principles (e.g., Blachowicz & Fisher’s big four: be active, personalized, immersive, and build multiple sources of knowledge through multiple exposures; 2000). This high-tech plus Vocabulogic-style instruction can capture the hearts and minds of children so much better than copying definitions – but the best part is, it’s more effective, particularly for learners who thrive with accommodations!

For example, learners with SLD may have receptive and expressive language that is far stronger than their encoding and decoding skills and therefore require additional support (accommodations) to access new or old literacies. We commonly focus on remedial support but overlook Assistive Technology (AT) and alternate text formats. AT is any technology that can “increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of a child with disabilities” (Individuals with Disabilities Act Amendments, 2004). Alternative text formats are typically audio that is either a “natural” human voice or a synthesized voice (obviously braille as well, although less relevant to this conversation). These formats are available through commercial avenues, such as audible.com, or disability-specific avenues, such as bookshare.org, learningally.org, or the National Library Service. Simple software can turn any computer or gadget into a talking device to read aloud, as well.

Effective use of technology to circumvent encoding or decoding is like using a wheelchair to confidently roll up a ramp and into a neighborhood public school, rather than being denied access. While the current reauthorization of IDEA requires consideration of AT for children with individualized educational plans (Blackhurst, 2005), “consideration” is often limited to checking a box. This lack of consideration may be due in part to uncertainty about how, when, and what to teach with these tools. One of the questions I am asked most often by teachers is when to introduce accommodations, and when and how to adjust the remediation-accommodation balance (illustration below; Edyburn, 2006) for learners with print-related disabilities. (We could also learn a lot from work on augmentative and assistive technology use among individuals with significant communication needs, e.g., Soto & Zangari, 2009, but that is for another conversation).

(click to enlarge; right-click to download

Research in academic technology, new literacies, and AT is “fragmented” and “inconclusive” (Fitzgerald, Kourey, & Mitchem, 2008, p. 215) due to rapid changes in technology, perceived barriers to implementation, and assumptions about the very nature of literacy. Nevertheless, we have an obligation to open every door we can to support our students in accessing meaningful text independently. There is no other route; we know the importance of exposure to text for vocabulary growth.

Assistive Technology (AT) in the Vocabulary-Focused Classroom

A number of tools are available to support children with SLD in accessing grade level content, such as text-to-speech software and devices and “books on tape” (usually digital files, now), and simple low-tech options such as pencil grips. Many common AT tools for literacy like speech-recognition software and spell checkers come pre-packaged with common software (e.g., Microsoft; McKenna & Walpole, 2007). To be effective tools for increasing learning and independence, however, all technology must rest on thoughtful, evidence-based teaching.

Let’s look at some examples of using speech synthesis or audio books as a route into vocabulary learning. By turning on the text-to-speech feature in plain old Microsoft Word, a student can hear text read aloud. For example, if she opened Dr. Mohler's packet of engaging activities as a Word document, and went to the prefix activity, she could first listen to the directions, then click through each prefix and its definition and hear it read as she chooses its function. (See Dr. Mohler's post.)

This means that rather than being bogged down by decoding: 1) She is building skills and confidence by working independently; 2) She is receiving multiple exposures to morphology, meaning, and word analysis. Far more than she would be in the same amount of time. 3) Odds are that she is more on task, because she is not avoiding work that seems impossibly difficult. This improves the classroom climate for all students, as the teacher focuses on teaching literacy rather than redirecting challenging behavior.

What is Disciplinary Literacy and Why Aren’t We Talking More About it? (Zygouris-Coe)

In this post, Dr. Vicky Zygouris-Coe discusses theory and offers practical applications for helping older students develop disciplinary literacy. Vassiliki ("Vicky") Zygouris-Coe is an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Central Florida, College of Education. Her research focuses in literacy in the content areas, online learning, and teacher professional development. Dr. Zygouris-Coe has impacted reading instruction in the state of Florida through the Florida Online Reading Professional Development project—Florida’s first online large-scale project for preK-12 educators. Her work has been published in a variety of professional journals. She serves in several editorial roles, including Co-Editor of Literacy Research and Instruction, Associate Editor of both the Florida Educational Leadership and the Florida Association of Teacher Educators Journal.

What is Disciplinary Literacy?

Shanahan and Shanahan (2008, 2012) propose that disciplinary literacy, advanced (and specialized) literacy instruction embedded within content-area classes such as math, science, and social studies, should be a core focus of literacy efforts for middle and high school grades. Disciplinary literacy “involves the use of reading, reasoning, investigating, speaking, and writing required to learn and form complex content knowledge appropriate to a particular discipline” (McConachie & Petrosky, 2010, p. 16). According to this perspective, definitions of literacy in the secondary grades must be anchored in the specifics of individual disciplines. Disciplinary literacy highlights the complexity, literacy demands, and differentiated thinking, skills, and strategies that characterize each discipline.

Disciplinary literacy is built on the premise that each subject area or discipline has a discourse community with its own language, texts, and ways of knowing, doing, and communicating within a discipline (O’Brien, Moje, & Stewart, 2001). It moves beyond the notion of “every teacher is a reading teacher” and literacy as an “add-on” set of generic strategies used to improve the reading and writing of subject area texts. Rather, it situates literacy as an integral part of content (Moje, 2008) so that “literacy within the discipline” becomes the goal of disciplinary literacy.” (Zygouris-Coe, 2012, p. 4)

Findings from the Shanahan and Shanahan (2008) study suggest that each discipline (e.g. history, chemistry, mathematics) carries different cognitive and literacy demands. Participants in Shanahan’s and Shanahan’s (2008) study varied in the way the read, in what they considered to be challenges in the text, and in how the texts should be taught. For example, comprehension can be challenging with mathematics when text is extremely dense and students need to understand the flow of information from print to numeracy, to graphs. Vocabulary can be challenging in chemistry due to extensive technical vocabulary in the discipline. Whereas in history, vocabulary can be challenging due to the many dated words and metaphorical terms. In terms of discipline-specific strategies, for example, sourcing, contextualizing, identifying arguments and how the author portrays events, etc. are useful to history. In chemistry, separating essential from non-essential information, visualizing, and thinking of examples are some of the strategies that fit the content demands. Lastly, explaining concepts, writing equations, and illustrating data are some of the strategies that would help students read and comprehend text in mathematics.

Some of the challenges we are facing with preparing students to succeed in disciplinary literacy include literacy professionals’ lack of knowledge of each discipline to be able to provide teachers with specific tools to teach students the kinds of knowledge, literacies, language, and inquiry different experts (e.g., mathematics, science, history) use. In addition, content area teachers lack knowledge in the literacy demands of their discipline. As a result, we have many adolescents who cannot read and comprehend text in different disciplines—we must prepare teachers to develop students’ discipline-specific knowledge and skills (Lee & Spratley, 2010; Moje, 2008; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008; Snow & Moje, 2010). As educators, we need to develop our knowledge of the unique structure, goals, practices, texts, and discourse of each discipline and how knowledge is created and shared (Fang, 2004; Fang & Schleppegrell, 2008; Geisler, 1994; Halliday, 1998; Schleppegrell, 2004).

Why Aren’t We Talking More About Disciplinary Literacy?

We are living in the midst of high accountability and educational reform. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have been adopted by most states and will be implemented in 2014. The CCSS call for literacy within each discipline, for critical thinking of complex texts, for complex knowledge development, and for evidence-based reading, writing, and speaking. Disciplinary literacy tasks are situated within the CCSS. So, why aren’t we talking more about disciplinary literacy efforts or initiatives in secondary pre-service teacher preparation and in-service teacher education?
Shanahan and Shanahan (2012) discuss the existing mixed perspectives about what literacy in the content areas should look like. In addition, they highlight that disciplinary literacy is not a new term for reading across the content areas. Disciplinary literacy refers to the knowledge, discourse, and habits of mind necessary for learning in each discipline (McConachie & Petrosky, 2010); it is not just about a set of strategies for reading and writing across the disciplines. Also, vocabulary learning is not about using core effective strategies to help students memorize or make connections among concepts; there are unique discipline differences that we should take into consideration in each subject area. Students need to learn the scientific vocabulary of each discipline and specific tools to develop and analyze it—they need to learn (and use) the language of each discipline, its grammar, patterns, and uses.

In my opinion, there should be more discussion among educators and researchers about disciplinary literacy, more learning about it in professional learning communities (PLCs), and planning for instruction that would meet both the content and literacy demands of each discipline. We need to get away from using generic strategies that only help students organize text and focus on helping students learn how to think, read, talk, write, communicate, and inquire in ways that are consistent to each discipline. This paradigm shift from generic to discipline-specific literacy would help bring about the development of content, literacy, and thinking skills we have been longing to see in our adolescents’ learning. Of course, this shift would require a different way of teaching and learning in secondary content area classrooms and schools and a different approach to teacher preparation and professional development. We need more dialogue, research, collaborations, and direction on this topic. In the following section, I will focus on one aspect of the disciplinary learning framework, that of accountable talk (McConachie & Petrosky, 2010).

Accountable Talk to Support Disciplinary Literacy Learning

We know from research that students learn best when they are actively involved in their own learning. How can teachers maintain student engagement in, and facilitate ownership of, learning? One way they can do it is through modeling, promoting, and facilitating accountable talk in each content area. Accountable talk is an important component of a disciplinary literacy-learning framework (McConachie & Petrosky, 2010). It is talk that supports the development of student reasoning and their ability to verbalize their thinking (Michaels, O’Connor, Hall, & Resnick, 2002). Accountable talk is talk that reflects student understanding of words and concepts read or discussed in class, participation in co-construction of meaning, and monitoring of meaning as it is “molded” from student to student in class. Accountable talk is respectful of everyone’s ideas. Everyone is expected to participate actively in discussions, listen attentively, and expand on ideas. In addition, everyone is accountable to knowledge building, to providing sufficient evidence for assertions, and to rigorous thinking. According to this type of talk, everyone is “accountable” to the development of meaning “by all and for all.”

Accountable talk will help teachers to “revoice” students’ comments and prompt them to provide additional support for their assertions. It will also help teachers to provide further insight into student knowledge and use higher-level vocabulary while still maintaining contact with student ideas. Students will benefit from teacher modeling, feedback, scaffolded support, and a positive and collaborative learning classroom environment.

Here are some basic examples of accountable talk.

• I have something to say about…
• I agree with ______ because…
• I disagree with _______ because…
• I wondered about…
• Is this your main point?
• Can you prove that …?
• I have a question for _______ about…
• Could you repeat what _______ said?
• Could you say more about that?
• Do you agree or disagree with what ________ said? Explain your thinking.
• Could you give us an example?
• Could you elaborate more on the meaning of this word?
• Do you agree or disagree with _________ statement?

Accountable talk will vary according to content area as a result of each discipline’s structure, goals, ways of thinking and learning, vocabulary, and texts. For more information on discipline-specific examples of accountable talk, please see Figure 1.

Figure 1. Examples of accountable talk in four disciplines. This figure illustrates sample discipline-specific questions that can promote student engagement, use of specialized vocabulary, and learning in each discipline.

Conclusion

Disciplinary literacy includes the use of reading, thinking, speaking, inquiring, and writing required to learn and develop complex content knowledge appropriate to a particular discipline (McConachie & Petrosky, 2010); it is not about a set of generic tools transplanted into the discipline to improve reading and writing of content-specific texts (Moje, 2008; Shanahan, 2012). A focus on disciplinary literacy will help students develop content knowledge and critical literacy thinking skills needed for success in school, college, and career.

Resources

To learn more about disciplinary literacy, please examine the following resources.

1. Dr. Timothy Shanahan’s blog: Shanahan on literacy.
2. Topics in Language Disorders (January/March, 2012). Themed Issue on Disciplinary Literacy.
3. University of Pittsburg, Institute for Learning.

References

• Fang, Z. (2004). Scientific literacy: A functional linguistic perspective. Science Education, 89, 335–347. 
• Fang, Z., & Schleppegrell, M. (2008). Reading in secondary content areas: A language-based pedagogy. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
• Geisler, C. (1994). Academic literacy and the nature of expertise: Reading, writing, and knowing in academic philosophy. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Halliday, M. A. K. (1998). Things and relations: Regrammaticising experience as technical knowledge. In J. R. Martin & R. Veel (Eds.), Reading science: Critical and functional perspectives on discourses of science (pp. 185–235). London, UK: Routledge.
• Lee, C. D., & Spratley, A. (2010). Reading in the disciplines: The challenges of adolescent literacy. New York, NY: Carnegie Corporation of New York.
• McConachie, S. M., & Petrosky, A. R. (2010). Content matters: A disciplinary literacy approach to improving student learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
• Michaels, S., O’Connor, M. C., Hall, M. W, & Resnick, L. B. (2002). Accountable talk: Classroom conversation that works. (Version 2.1). [Online resource]. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh.
• Moje, E. B. (2008). Foregrounding the disciplines in secondary literacy teaching and learning: A call for change. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 52(2), 96-107.
• Schleppegrell, M. J. (2004). The language of schooling: A funcilinguistics perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 40-59.
• Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2012).What is disciplinary literacy and why does it matter? Topics in Language Disorders, 32(1), 7–18.
• Snow, C. E., & Moje, E. B. (2010). What is adolescent literacy? Why is everyone talking about it now? Phi Delta Kappan, 91(6), 66-69.
• Zygouris-Coe, V. (2012). Disciplinary literacy and the common core state standards. Topics in Language Disorders, 32(1), 35-50.