Teaching Beginning Reading
Step #8 Understand the History of English and How the English Language Works
Estimated time to complete this step: 25 minutes
The History of English
Learning a bit about the history of English and how it evolved can help us appreciate modern day English and why our words are spelled the way they are.
Video:
Short Film the History of English
English File Advanced (May 24, 2020)
General American English
General American English (GAE) is the variety of English used for instruction, business, and government in the United States. Now is the time to dust off the GAE grammar you learned in school and think about how you use different versions of English yourself in varied settings. A fast-talker versed in linguistics explains the difference between descriptive grammar and prescriptive grammar and whether English grammar matters or not. Please view this next video from Morgan of The Linguistics Channel.
Video:
Is Grammar Important?
The Linguistics Channel (June 11, 2013)
Morphology
You have already learned about phonemes and graphemes (also known as phonograms) but now you will learn that a morpheme is the smallest part of a word that carries meaning. Morphology is the study of morphemes which consist of roots, base words, suffixes, and prefixes. Teaching morphemes will supercharge reading comprehension for your students, particularly the older students who want to use longer complex words. Please watch this other video from Morgan from The Linguistics Channel to understand English morphemes and morphology:
Video:
An Introduction to Morphology
The Linguistics Channel (July 2, 2013)
English Can Be Logical
The inexpensive entertaining little book, Uncovering the Logic of English, will deepen your understanding of how the English language really works if you are new to English or you have been speaking a variant of English for many years. Denise Eide explains that English spelling is not random, but rule based. One of the rules that I did not remember ever learning before is that English words do not end in i, u, v, or j. This is why there’s an e added to the end of words like “give” or “have” or “love,” or that words like “spaghetti” and “Hawaii” can be quickly identified as words of non-English origin because they end in i. Denise Eide finally makes English make sense for the masses. Morphemes are explained clearly. Everybody should own a copy of this book.
Book:
Uncovering the Logic of English
Denise Eide
Putting It All Together
UFLI (pronounced “you fly”) stands for the University of Florida Literacy Institute. UFLI developed a manual full of detailed, easy-to-follow lesson plans to provide firm foundational reading skills. They have free online resources to accompany the manual including videos and decodable text. Enthusiastic teachers created a very active UFLI Facebook group. The purchase of a manual is a very worthwhile investment but if the cost is an obstacle, UFLI has lots of excellent material that is free online.
Lesson Book:
UFLI Foundations Manual and Resources
Evolving Resources for Reading Success
We strongly believe in staying up-to-date with the latest reading research and incorporating valuable user feedback to continuously improve our resources. Our goal is to adapt and evolve, ensuring that we provide effective teaching methods for everyone to learn how to read.
If you have a source with excellent information about reading, please share it with us!
