Tom,

My students do not find the following too complicated and the symbols were done on the computer from a free download at  www.SIL.org  This is the Modified IPA which has been in use for decades. I don't use it to teach reading. However my students who choose to learn it are able, within a day, to read my transcriptions of new or difficult-to-pronounce and hard-to-hear English words. Most of it is compatible with the system in the Kenyon and Knott "Pronouncing Dictionary of American English," which some of my students buy. My students are adult immigrants who speak various languages. I always train their ears first. They learn first to identify vowel sounds numerically 1-11, as well as diphthongs. 


Cheers,   Ted

       Theodore A. (Ted) Klein, Jr.
  Independent Consultant in Language
         and Intercultural Training
                 Austin, Texas
             taklein at austin.rr.com
            www.tedklein-ESL.com     
             



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Zurinskas" <truespel at hotmail.com>
To: <englishlanguage at nifl.gov>
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 12:47 PM
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3542] Re: oral vs reading traditions



Amy,
 
Thanks for your message.  Children learning the IPA in China as a precursor to reading is absolutely remarkable.  I give them great credit.  No wonder those kids are good readers.  They must be a super bright sample to sort through the overly complicated IPA.
 
Basically the IPA is English and computer unfriendly.  Linguists realized that with the introduction of SAMPA in 1987.  But SAMPA is English and computer unfriendly as well.  IBM's Writing to Read was far more English friendly and had great results except is was a bit keyboard unfriendly and very expensive.  Truespel solves all this.  Simpler is better.
 
See below on the Oral vs. Reading link:
 
 
 
A hundred years ago, Edmund Burke Huey published his classic work, ThePsychology and Pedagogy of Reading (1908) (reprinted by the MIT Press in1968). In his book Huey passed on professional wisdom about reading and theteaching of reading of his day. Now, a century later, an extensive study of early childhood literacydevelopment has been published by the National Institute for Literacy(NIFL) in Washington, DC. entitled "Report of the National Early LiteracyPanel: Developing Early Literacy: A Scientific Synthesis of Early LiteracyDevelopment and Implications for Intervention" (2008) (for copies of thisreport download at www.nifl.gov). In the extensive review of research onchildren’s development of literacy in early childhood the report isremarkably reminiscent of Huey’s ideas of 1908. To illustrate thissimilarity, following are some extracts of paragraphs from some of Huey’sbook chapters along with the results from the Delivering Early Literacy(DEL) report. Huey: Chapter VI The Inner Speech of Reading And the Mental and PhysicalCharacteristics of Speech. "The child comes to his first reader with hishabits of spoken language fairly well formed, and these habits grow moredeeply set with every year. His meanings inhere in this spoken language andbelong but secondarily to the printed symbols. To read is, in effect, totranslate writing into speech." (Huey, 1908/1968, pp. 122-123). Here Huey makes the point that in learning to read the child learns todecode written language into his or her prior oral language. This means, ofcourse, that children with higher levels of oral language will become thebetter readers when they learn to decode the written language back intotheir spoken language. DEL study: Following a study in which the DEL looked at how well variousmeasures of literacy (e.g., alphabet knowledge, etc. and measures of orallanguage, including oral vocabulary and listening comprehension) predictedreading achievement when children entered school, the authors concludedthat along with other variables, "...more complex aspects of oral language,such as grammar, definitional vocabulary, and listening comprehension, hadmore substantial predictive relations with later conventional literacyskills" p. 79. In these analyses, listening comprehension of preschoolchildren tended to correlate mildly with their reading comprehension inkindergarten, first grade, or second grade. Importantly, however, the authors seemed to misunderstand the relationshipto be expected between listening and reading comprehension as childrenenter school and progress up the grades. In a discussion of factors thatcan influence the size of correlations, the authors say, "Another factorthat can affect the size of the correlation is the length of time from theassessment of the predictor to the measurement of the dependent variable.Correlations would presumably be lower, on average, with longer intervalsof time in between assessments" p58. But this is incorrect when it comes to understanding how reading maps backonto listening comprehension as children go through the K-12 system. Whatis expected is that in the early grades the correlation of reading withlistening comprehension will be low in the early grades because there isnot much variation in children’s ability to comprehend the writtenlanguage. As their skill increases with additional practice in the schoolgrades, the correlations of listening and reading should increase as thosewith high listening skills before school become the better readers, whilethose with low preschool listening skills once again gain access back totheir relatively low listening skills. This has in fact been substantiatedby considerable research (google: Sticht Auding and Reading: ADevelopmental Model and download a free book on this relationship). Despite the DEL studies misunderstanding of the relationships amonglistening and reading comprehension, the study nonetheless confirms Huey’searly statement about the relationship of oral and written language. Italso bears on another bit of Huey’s professional wisdom. Huey: Chapter XVI Learning to Read at Home. "The secret of it all lies inthe parent's reading aloud to and with the child. The ear and not the eyeis the nearest gateway to the child-soul, if not indeed to the man-soul.Oral work is certain to displace much of the present written work in theschool of the future, and least in the earlier years; and at home there isscarcely a more commendable and useful practice than that of reading muchof good things aloud to the children" (p. 332 & 334). DEL: After examining research on parents and teachers reading with children,the authors of Developing Early Literacy conclude: "Despite any analyticallimitations, these studies indicate that shared-reading interventionsprovide early childhood educators and parents with a useful method forsuccessfully stimulating the development of young children’s oral languageskills" (p. 163). "Overall, the evidence supports the positive impact ofshared-reading interventions that are more intensive in frequency andinteractive in style on the oral language and print knowledge skills ofyoung children" pp. 163-164" "It seems reasonable to proceed with the ideathat shared reading would help all or most subgroups of children, given theinclusion in these studies of mixed samples of children from differentsocioeconomic backgrounds, different ethnicities, and different livingcircumstances" p.164. Again, a hundred years later, the wisdom of educators of the 19th and early20th centuries is confirmed in the 21st century! And there is moreconfirmation of this wisdom. Huey: Chapter XV The Views of Representative Educators Concerning EarlyReading. "Where children have good homes, reading will thus be learnedindependently of school. Where parents have not the time or intelligence toassist in this way the school of the future will have as one of itsimportant duties the instruction of parents in the means of assisting thechild's natural learning in the home." (pp. 311-312) DEL: The DEL researchers evaluated research in which "the instruction ofparents in the means of assisting the child’s natural learning in the home"took place, as suggested by Huey. They reported, "Some educators considerparent education an integral component of early childhood programs;however, reports of their effectiveness have varied widely. Many of thestudies reviewed in this chapter were initiated with the assumption thatsuccessful PI [parental involvement] programs help parents understand theimportance of their role as first teachers and equip them with both theskills and the strategies to foster their children’s language and literacydevelopment" (p. 173). Following their research review, the DEL authorsconcluded, "Overall, the results indicate that home and parent interventionprograms included in these studies had a statistically significant andpositive impact both on young children’s oral language skills and generalcognitive abilities" ( p. 174). Now, over a hundred years since Huey made his observations about orallanguage and early childhood literacy education in the home, the DevelopingEarly Literacy report has provided an extensive review of hundreds ofresearch studies that place a scientific veneer on the solid professionalwisdom of literacy educators. What is needed now is the will to provide theextensive adult education that will permit parents to develop theirchildren’s oral language skills which provide the foundation for skilledreading comprehension. 
 



Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
Learn truespel in 15 minutes at http://tinypaste.com/76f44










________________________________

> Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:26:15 -0800

> From: astotts at gicw.org

> To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov

> Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3541] Re: oral vs reading traditions

>

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> To clarify, Chinese children do learn to

> use a phonetic representation in the early grades of primary school before

> transitioning to the characters even though they already know the sounds of the

> words. This is where I see the analogy. Few seem to suffer ill effects of learning

> a second code.

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> There is some evidence that Chinese

> students process English words as sight words rather than (or in addition to)

> the phonetic units. Keiko Koda at University

> of Illinois has written some

> very interesting studies looking at the nature of processing first language writing

> and its impact on second language processing. It’s fascinating stuff.

>

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> In fact your comment about learning

> Chinese with phonetic notation is precisely where I see tru-spell or having

> students learn IPA fitting in. Because I know the sound and writing system of

> Arabic and Spanish, I can read, write, and say new words that I have never

> heard before from text fairly reliably. In English, seeing a new word in text frequently

> does not provide reliable cues for words a learner has never heard, and this

> seems particularly challenging to students who process primarily (solely) through

> phonetic means. If integration of skills is a goal, some learners could be

> assisted by the use of phonetic codes. I frequently encourage particular groups

> of students to annotate materials phonetically (usually using their own

> language as the reference) so that new words and phrases become useable beyond

> the classroom. This has increased the return rate on homework that includes

> interviewing and interacting with others in English outside of class because of

> the increased confidence the annotation provides.

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> I have some friends that learned IPA as

> children before they learned to read in what I suspect was a precursor to

> tru-spell. They have been excellent readers. I was taught with traditional phonics

> methods and am also an excellent reader. I have a brother that was taught to

> read with a traditional phonics approach and really is a poor reader and writer

> as an adult. It seem that there are methods to keep in mind that address the

> unique difficulties learners have as they arise even if we might not use them

> as a primary instructional method. Never hurts to have a few extra rabbits in

> our bag of tricks.

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> ________________________________

>

>

>

>

>

> From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov

> [mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On

> Behalf Of Steve Kaufmann

>

> Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009

> 1:54 PM

>

> To: The

> Adult English Language Learners Discussion List

>

> Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3530]

> Re: oral vs reading traditions

>

>

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> Having learned Chinese myself, I should say that I see little

> connection between learning to write and read Chinese, and using different

> phonetic systems to represent English or European languages.

>

>

>

> I needed a phonetic script when I learned Chinese because I had not heard these

> words before. I suspect that Chinese children have already heard most of the

> words they learn in school. Of course as they learn newer more obscure

> characters they need a phonetic script since there is no regular or reliable

> connection between the characters and their pronunciation, although there are

> some hints. And there are at least 4,000 characters to learn.(At least I

> learned 4,000 of them).

>

>

>

> In English there is a pattern, albeit irregular, connecting the written word

> and its pronunciation. The more words we have heard, the easier it is for us to

> read them. The more we read, the easier it is to guess at the pronunciation of

> previously unseen words. So a great deal of reading and listening are a great

> boon to literacy. And we only have to learn 26 characters or letters.

>

>

>

> I wonder if your beginner Chinese learners are not just better schooled, and

> have already had quite a bit of English at school, but just cannot say much in

> the language. Also, if they have had the pin yin phonetic system in school,

> they are familiar with the alphabet. This might not be the case with an Arab

> student, or a not very literate Hispanic.

>

>

>

> Steve Kaufmann

>

> www.lingq.com

>

>

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