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May 30, 2008

The Right Way to Write?

Reading, and reading problems, get lots of attention. But writing, and writing problems, which are equally important receive far less time and effort. The consequences of this neglect are serious—as many discover once they leave college and try to move up the career ladder. Skilled writing is an enormous advantage for both academic and job success. It is also in enormously short supply.

To deal with the problem, schools have placed one technique into center stage. It goes by the name of “journal writing.”

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May 28, 2007

Resolving the Mysteries and Miseries of Punctuation

For many children, even when reading and writing are going well, there is an aspect of the printed page that eludes them. That aspect is punctuation. (That word may send a few shivers down your own spine since many, many adults report that they do not really understand how to use punctuation with any sense of mastery.)

The difficulties are understandable. Punctuation is designed to capture some powerful dimensions of language such as pauses, questions, emphasis, and hesitations--to name but a few. However, to carry out this rather significant assignment, punctuation--and its partner capitalization--have been given a paltry set of minute marks that hardly seems up to the task.

Do these limitations mean we, and our children, are to be condemned to being "punctuation illiterates?" No, not at all.

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February 05, 2007

Duz Ackurit SPELLING Matir?

Four Meny Thee Ansor Iz NO! Butt R Thay Rite?

Thomas Jefferson in a letter to his daughter offered the following advice about spelling: Take care that you never spell a word wrong. Always before you write a word, consider how it is spelled, and, if you do not remember, turn to a dictionary.

Today's world presents us with a dramatically different scene. The bad news is that vast numbers of schools see accurate spelling not only as unnecessary, but actually undesirable. The good news is that you can adopt techniques that can get children over the hurdles that this change has imposed.

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