Lookie here!
Sandra Dodd
Last night late Holly was hanging around where I was filing old
correspondence and papers (really old, some of it) and in filing an
on-paper chain letter, it went next to a folder I started in college
called "Texas talk." One of the phrases I had noted my older
relatives using was "lookie here" (who knows how it would be spelled—
it was never written down). I had made a note there that it was
from "look ye here," and I'm sure it is a long-forgotten contraction
of that, especially in "y'all" land (ye all is a much better origin
than "you all" which is used in more formal situations <bwg>). So
anyway, it was at the tip of my brain and I used it. But it reminds
me about something I quoted here:
http://sandradodd.com/learning
about silent e, and I'll come back about silent e. Please read that
(it's short) and if any of you have stories of something you or your
kids learned that only took a second or two and you can remember
thinking "wow, that's all?" or anything like that, I'd really like to
have it for that page.
But that's not the good part. The good part is that although the top
needs work, I LOVE the way the bottom came out and I hope never to
touch it but leave it just like that.
The page is new this morning—new an hour ago. Please check it out.
Sandra
correspondence and papers (really old, some of it) and in filing an
on-paper chain letter, it went next to a folder I started in college
called "Texas talk." One of the phrases I had noted my older
relatives using was "lookie here" (who knows how it would be spelled—
it was never written down). I had made a note there that it was
from "look ye here," and I'm sure it is a long-forgotten contraction
of that, especially in "y'all" land (ye all is a much better origin
than "you all" which is used in more formal situations <bwg>). So
anyway, it was at the tip of my brain and I used it. But it reminds
me about something I quoted here:
http://sandradodd.com/learning
about silent e, and I'll come back about silent e. Please read that
(it's short) and if any of you have stories of something you or your
kids learned that only took a second or two and you can remember
thinking "wow, that's all?" or anything like that, I'd really like to
have it for that page.
But that's not the good part. The good part is that although the top
needs work, I LOVE the way the bottom came out and I hope never to
touch it but leave it just like that.
The page is new this morning—new an hour ago. Please check it out.
Sandra
Sandra Dodd
-=-http://sandradodd.com/learning
-=-about silent e, and I'll come back about silent e. Please read
that (it's short) and if any of you have stories of something you or
your kids learned that only took a second or two and you can remember
thinking "wow, that's all?" or anything like that, I'd really like to
have it for that page.
-=-But that's not the good part. The good part is that although the
top needs work, I LOVE the way the bottom came out and I hope never
to touch it but leave it just like that.-=-
Okay! It's not great.
It's great on my Mac G5 using Safari.
On Kirby's and Marty's computers using Windows something 95 or 2000
or who knows what it's messier. The links work, but some things
aren't cool and one thing doesn't appear at all. I'll mess with it.
So about silent "e"...
Skip the next two paragraphs if you want to. (Skip it all; I'll
never know, but "very best part" part is the best part.)
As with every other single letter in native English words, it was
once pronounced. The more we say a word, the mushier and shorter and
"flatter" it gets, over the centuries. Final vowels turn to a low-in-
the-mouth "uh" sound, but the vowel *before* the final vowel is
pronounced clearly (generally, in English words).
So the word for the female mom-horse used to go "MAYruh but now it
flattened out to a little shorter "a" and a don't-bother "uh."
"Mar," meanwhile, had a short a always. E's weren't put on to "make
the vowel long," they're left over from when they gave the vowel more
punch in the days they were pronounced, 600 years and more ago.
Here's the very best part: In school they told us that an
apostrophe in a contraction indicates that letters were left out.
Well surprise! The apostrophes in posessives show that letters were
left out too, because even after the silent e's became more silent,
sometimes it was pronounced in a possessive. But the way to indicate
a possessive was to put an "es" sound at the end of a word. Not "an
s," but the sound (even before spelling and writing were part of
English) "es." So if that sound is going to be mostly left off (the
vocalized "e" part), they just put 's.
It just occurred to me to wonder (I'm not in a hurry to find out, but
if any of you happen to know or to be in a hurry to think it through
or look it up) whether all or most of the "silent e" words, which are
pretty much four letter words from Old English that go consonant-
vowel-consonant-silent e are nouns and adjectives. I'm thinking
they're all nouns and adjectives, because the endings that went on
verbs were different than the endings of nouns.
Sometimes when people are writing for Rennfaire menus or for some
reason Being Fake-Medieval and writing junk like "Ye Olde Soup Potte"
or whatever, they end up putting "e" on words for which it makes no
sense whatsoever. And you all know that although there was a
"ye" (form of 2nd person pronoun) that the "Ye" as "The" came about
because the mark for "TH" (a combined letter at one time, called a
thorn) looked like a y to people who didn't know what it was? It's
kind of a pointy backwards p, or a "less than" mark with a vertical
line that cuts through the pointy ends a little bit.
TOO much history of English. Sorry.
I did spare you any mention of declensions.
[DOH!!!]
Sandra
-=-about silent e, and I'll come back about silent e. Please read
that (it's short) and if any of you have stories of something you or
your kids learned that only took a second or two and you can remember
thinking "wow, that's all?" or anything like that, I'd really like to
have it for that page.
-=-But that's not the good part. The good part is that although the
top needs work, I LOVE the way the bottom came out and I hope never
to touch it but leave it just like that.-=-
Okay! It's not great.
It's great on my Mac G5 using Safari.
On Kirby's and Marty's computers using Windows something 95 or 2000
or who knows what it's messier. The links work, but some things
aren't cool and one thing doesn't appear at all. I'll mess with it.
So about silent "e"...
Skip the next two paragraphs if you want to. (Skip it all; I'll
never know, but "very best part" part is the best part.)
As with every other single letter in native English words, it was
once pronounced. The more we say a word, the mushier and shorter and
"flatter" it gets, over the centuries. Final vowels turn to a low-in-
the-mouth "uh" sound, but the vowel *before* the final vowel is
pronounced clearly (generally, in English words).
So the word for the female mom-horse used to go "MAYruh but now it
flattened out to a little shorter "a" and a don't-bother "uh."
"Mar," meanwhile, had a short a always. E's weren't put on to "make
the vowel long," they're left over from when they gave the vowel more
punch in the days they were pronounced, 600 years and more ago.
Here's the very best part: In school they told us that an
apostrophe in a contraction indicates that letters were left out.
Well surprise! The apostrophes in posessives show that letters were
left out too, because even after the silent e's became more silent,
sometimes it was pronounced in a possessive. But the way to indicate
a possessive was to put an "es" sound at the end of a word. Not "an
s," but the sound (even before spelling and writing were part of
English) "es." So if that sound is going to be mostly left off (the
vocalized "e" part), they just put 's.
It just occurred to me to wonder (I'm not in a hurry to find out, but
if any of you happen to know or to be in a hurry to think it through
or look it up) whether all or most of the "silent e" words, which are
pretty much four letter words from Old English that go consonant-
vowel-consonant-silent e are nouns and adjectives. I'm thinking
they're all nouns and adjectives, because the endings that went on
verbs were different than the endings of nouns.
Sometimes when people are writing for Rennfaire menus or for some
reason Being Fake-Medieval and writing junk like "Ye Olde Soup Potte"
or whatever, they end up putting "e" on words for which it makes no
sense whatsoever. And you all know that although there was a
"ye" (form of 2nd person pronoun) that the "Ye" as "The" came about
because the mark for "TH" (a combined letter at one time, called a
thorn) looked like a y to people who didn't know what it was? It's
kind of a pointy backwards p, or a "less than" mark with a vertical
line that cuts through the pointy ends a little bit.
TOO much history of English. Sorry.
I did spare you any mention of declensions.
[DOH!!!]
Sandra
Jenniffer Baltzell
I thought of some silent E verbs off the top of my head:
stare
share
bore
tire
Though it occured to me that these might have been adjectives or nouns
first.
--
Jenniffer in Harpers Ferry
Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life? ~Mary Oliver
stare
share
bore
tire
Though it occured to me that these might have been adjectives or nouns
first.
--
Jenniffer in Harpers Ferry
Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life? ~Mary Oliver
On 7/8/06, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
>
> -
> It just occurred to me to wonder (I'm not in a hurry to find out, but
> if any of you happen to know or to be in a hurry to think it through
> or look it up) whether all or most of the "silent e" words, which are
> pretty much four letter words from Old English that go consonant-
> vowel-consonant-silent e are nouns and adjectives. I'm thinking
> they're all nouns and adjectives, because the endings that went on
> verbs were different than the endings of nouns.
>
> Sandra
>
>
>
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Sandra Dodd
-=-Though it occured to me that these might have been adjectives or
nouns
first.-=-
No, that shoots my theory. I don't mind. Thanks for the data!
-=-I thought of some silent E verbs off the top of my head:
stare
share
bore
tire
Though it occured to me that these might have been adjectives or nouns
first.-=-
spare
care
dare... But wait! They don't have a long "a" either.
Bore and tire, both of which are nouns (and verbs) DO get a longer
first vowel.
My theory gets three steps back and one step forward.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
nouns
first.-=-
No, that shoots my theory. I don't mind. Thanks for the data!
-=-I thought of some silent E verbs off the top of my head:
stare
share
bore
tire
Though it occured to me that these might have been adjectives or nouns
first.-=-
spare
care
dare... But wait! They don't have a long "a" either.
Bore and tire, both of which are nouns (and verbs) DO get a longer
first vowel.
My theory gets three steps back and one step forward.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Jenniffer Baltzell
snore
mute
cure
implore
shake
make
flute?
admire
retire
inspire
--
Jenniffer in Harpers Ferry
Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life? ~Mary Oliver
mute
cure
implore
shake
make
flute?
admire
retire
inspire
--
Jenniffer in Harpers Ferry
Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life? ~Mary Oliver
On 7/8/06, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
>
> -=-Though it occured to me that these might have been adjectives or
> nouns
> first.-=-
>
> No, that shoots my theory. I don't mind. Thanks for the data!
>
> -=-I thought of some silent E verbs off the top of my head:
>
> stare
> share
> bore
> tire
> Though it occured to me that these might have been adjectives or nouns
> first.-=-
>
> spare
> care
> dare... But wait! They don't have a long "a" either.
>
> Bore and tire, both of which are nouns (and verbs) DO get a longer
> first vowel.
>
> My theory gets three steps back and one step forward.
>
> Sandra
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
colsamrus
--- In [email protected], Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
have a good story for this subject. My name is Colleen, I've been
married to Rusty for 21yrs. come this Oct., we have two dd's, Sami
almost 13 and Madi almost 4. We have always "unschooled" even when I
didn't have a name for it. We just did what 'felt' right and natural and
didn't cause conflicts. Sami was very easy going and agreeable back
then (not as much now at 13)<g> so parenting was quite easy. Since Madi
was born, parenting has been a bit more challenging since she has a
strong sense of what she wants and we have had to reassess our parenting
and go with a more gentle 'hands off' approach.
Anyways to get to the point of why I am posting, when Sami was
about 8yrs. old she was heating up two pieces of pizza in the microwave,
she knew that one piece took 1min. so she asked me if 2 pieces takes 2
min. and I said yes probably. She then asked me how many seconds are in
2min., she knew there was 60 seconds in 1min., I then got paper and
pencil and showed her how to add 60 + 60, she got it right away, it
literally took seconds. She then asked me to make up a whole page of
double and triple digit addition questions so she could do them after
she ate her pizza, she has loved 'math' ever since!!!! There is also so
much 'math' in the analog clock. When Sami was about 4-5 we made sure
that most of the clocks in the house were analog with numbers and there
were many many conversations about fractions and counting by 5's and
10's, etc.
When Sami learned to read it took a little longer than a
few seconds, it took about 2 weeks. She was 8yrs. old and she was
playing a Pokemon video game (her favorite still to this day) and she
kept calling me in the living room to read to her what the game said,
after many times of leaving the kitchen to read to her I got a little
frusterated and said to her I can't keep coming in and reading to you
right now or I'll never get dinner ready and proceeded to tell her if
she wanted to learn to read she should just learn, and she knew she
could when 'she' decided to. Well in less than 2 weeks she went from
recognizing a few words to reading chapter books. I'm guessing the
motivation to read her video game helped alot.
I truly, honestly believe that a child can learn whatever
they want to learn when 'they' want to learn it and not before. I feel
the hardest thing about unschooling is NOT listening to the negative
comments and just living our life the way we feel is right for us.
Thanks for listening
Colleen & Rusty, Sami (12) & Madi (3)
> if any of you have stories of something you or yourI haven't introduced ourselves yet so I'll do it first then I
> kids learned that only took a second or two and you can remember
> thinking "wow, that's all?" or anything like that, I'd really like to
> have it for that page.
>
> Hi everyone,
have a good story for this subject. My name is Colleen, I've been
married to Rusty for 21yrs. come this Oct., we have two dd's, Sami
almost 13 and Madi almost 4. We have always "unschooled" even when I
didn't have a name for it. We just did what 'felt' right and natural and
didn't cause conflicts. Sami was very easy going and agreeable back
then (not as much now at 13)<g> so parenting was quite easy. Since Madi
was born, parenting has been a bit more challenging since she has a
strong sense of what she wants and we have had to reassess our parenting
and go with a more gentle 'hands off' approach.
Anyways to get to the point of why I am posting, when Sami was
about 8yrs. old she was heating up two pieces of pizza in the microwave,
she knew that one piece took 1min. so she asked me if 2 pieces takes 2
min. and I said yes probably. She then asked me how many seconds are in
2min., she knew there was 60 seconds in 1min., I then got paper and
pencil and showed her how to add 60 + 60, she got it right away, it
literally took seconds. She then asked me to make up a whole page of
double and triple digit addition questions so she could do them after
she ate her pizza, she has loved 'math' ever since!!!! There is also so
much 'math' in the analog clock. When Sami was about 4-5 we made sure
that most of the clocks in the house were analog with numbers and there
were many many conversations about fractions and counting by 5's and
10's, etc.
When Sami learned to read it took a little longer than a
few seconds, it took about 2 weeks. She was 8yrs. old and she was
playing a Pokemon video game (her favorite still to this day) and she
kept calling me in the living room to read to her what the game said,
after many times of leaving the kitchen to read to her I got a little
frusterated and said to her I can't keep coming in and reading to you
right now or I'll never get dinner ready and proceeded to tell her if
she wanted to learn to read she should just learn, and she knew she
could when 'she' decided to. Well in less than 2 weeks she went from
recognizing a few words to reading chapter books. I'm guessing the
motivation to read her video game helped alot.
I truly, honestly believe that a child can learn whatever
they want to learn when 'they' want to learn it and not before. I feel
the hardest thing about unschooling is NOT listening to the negative
comments and just living our life the way we feel is right for us.
Thanks for listening
Colleen & Rusty, Sami (12) & Madi (3)
Roberta Rideout
love your story Colleen, I am so glad to be reminded
that we don't always have to drill our children. I
have a 7yo that "I" believe refuses to learn to read,
enjoys most other things, math via cooking and games,
science. But does not have the ability, it would
seem, to memorize even one sound. But I do notice he
attempts to memorize the whole word, so many Dolch is
the way to go with him.
But it has been hard sometimes, he went to a summer
camp one of the teachers just stayed on him at 6yo
that he could not read, even telling him tell your
mother to read to you more. Little does he
know.....it is nice to be reminded that when their
brain is open to it, they wil do it.
Berta
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
that we don't always have to drill our children. I
have a 7yo that "I" believe refuses to learn to read,
enjoys most other things, math via cooking and games,
science. But does not have the ability, it would
seem, to memorize even one sound. But I do notice he
attempts to memorize the whole word, so many Dolch is
the way to go with him.
But it has been hard sometimes, he went to a summer
camp one of the teachers just stayed on him at 6yo
that he could not read, even telling him tell your
mother to read to you more. Little does he
know.....it is nice to be reminded that when their
brain is open to it, they wil do it.
Berta
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
Sandra Dodd
-=-I truly, honestly believe that a child can learn whatever
they want to learn when 'they' want to learn it and not before. -=-
It takes more than wanting to learn something, though. Many children
want to read or ride a bike before they have all of the several
abilities required to do it. If you find other things for them to do
while those skills and cognitive abilities are developing, they can
be happy and successful all the time instead of ever being failures.
-=-I
have a 7yo that "I" believe refuses to learn to read,
enjoys most other things, math via cooking and games,
science. But does not have the ability, it would
seem, to memorize even one sound. But I do notice he
attempts to memorize the whole word, so many Dolch is
the way to go with him. -=-
Seven is really young.
"Memorizing sounds" isn't the way to learn to read, so don't press
that. Spend your time other, better ways.
Dolch might be the way you decide to go, but it's not a good topic
for this list. Here are lots of unschooling reading accounts
collected over the years that might help you appreciate what he IS
doing instead of what he's not doing.
http://sandradodd.com/reading
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
they want to learn when 'they' want to learn it and not before. -=-
It takes more than wanting to learn something, though. Many children
want to read or ride a bike before they have all of the several
abilities required to do it. If you find other things for them to do
while those skills and cognitive abilities are developing, they can
be happy and successful all the time instead of ever being failures.
-=-I
have a 7yo that "I" believe refuses to learn to read,
enjoys most other things, math via cooking and games,
science. But does not have the ability, it would
seem, to memorize even one sound. But I do notice he
attempts to memorize the whole word, so many Dolch is
the way to go with him. -=-
Seven is really young.
"Memorizing sounds" isn't the way to learn to read, so don't press
that. Spend your time other, better ways.
Dolch might be the way you decide to go, but it's not a good topic
for this list. Here are lots of unschooling reading accounts
collected over the years that might help you appreciate what he IS
doing instead of what he's not doing.
http://sandradodd.com/reading
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]