The Linguist On Language

The best way to improve literacy is to read, a lot. So I do not understand the relationship between reading and the spelling bee. I would imagine that mostly good spell ers go into spell ing bees, not the children who do not read. In any case, it is better to read than to study isolated lists of obscure words. I am not sure that the spell ing bee actual y encourages those who do not have the reading habit, to go and pick up a book and start reading.

As for the "one book" campaign, this too seems aimed at people who already read.

Undoubtedly some panel of "experts" decides which book everyone should read. But I fail to see why that is a way to promote reading. It can be fun for people in a book club to read the same book and discuss it, but if we want to encourage more people to read we should real y encourage them to read whatever they are interested in.

I am curious to hear opinions on how to get more people to read, for their own sake and for the sake of society, since poor performance in our society seems to be linked to poor reading skill s or reading habits.

The fourth grade slump

"Good readers often have benefited from exposure to a wide variety of spoken language at an early age, and poor readers are often those who did not receive that benefit at home."

Dr. E. D. Hirsch, Jr., founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation and professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia, has written extensively on cultural literacy.

As he points out, different family educational backgrounds can have a decisive impact on reading skill s at school. This difference is not evident in the first few years, but becomes evident during what is cal ed the ―fourth-grade slump."

"In fourth grade, poor children's reading comprehension starts a drastic decline—and rarely recovers. The cause: They hear mil ions fewer words at home than do their advantaged peers -and since words represent knowledge, they don't gain the knowledge that underpins reading comprehension. The Cure: Immerse these children, and the many others whose comprehension is low, in words and the knowledge the words represent- as early as possible."

Hirsch points out in a paper from American Educator in spring 2003 entitled "Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge-of Words and the World" that fluency in a language is key to reading and education. Fluency is greatly enhanced by word and domain knowledge (knowledge of the subject). For Hirsch, the three most important principles of literacy.

1. Fluency all ows the mind to concentrate on comprehension:

2. Breadth of vocabulary increases comprehension and facilitates further learning; and 3. Domain knowledge increases fluency, broadens vocabulary and enables deeper comprehension.

What this means is that the more fluent you are, the better you comprehend what you hear and read. If you understand better, you can acquire more new words as you come across them in your reading. The more words you already know, the more you can learn from your listening and reading. The more words you know, the more different subjects you can enjoyably read about, and this in turn enables you to understand even more of what you read, learn more words and become more literate. It is a tremendously powerful virtuous cycle. Those who read poorly fall further and further behind those who read well . The difference in vocabulary level starts to become evident at grade four and the difference gets greater and greater through life, with major consequences in terms of educational and professional success.

What is interesting in Hirsch's article is his emphasis on building oral comprehension and background knowledge rather than trying to teach specific reading skill s, as the most effective way to improve language skill s.

The importance of listening

Research is increasingly showing that literacy is very much influenced by sound. This is not surprising since language is first and foremost sound. We have been listening for much longer than we have been reading.

If you can listen and understand a language you will find it easier to read it and learn to speak it. I could never get motivated to learn Latin at school because I could not listen to ordinary people using it. Modern research on how we learn is showing that listening comprehension is at the core of language learning and language improvement. The ability to hear words, to listen and understand, is essential not only to developing speaking fluency, but also in order to become a good reader.

The ability to read well , in your own language or in a foreign language is usual y the best indicator of success at school or in the work place. That is why literacy is such an important social issue in most countries, for native speakers as well as for non-native speakers of that language. And literacy is greatly influenced by the ability to understand what we hear.