Vocabulary Building

[naomikritzer]

Ed to Molly, discussing her spelling list: What's the use of knowing how to spell a word if you don't know what it means?
Molly: I can use it in Scrabble.

*

Ed to Molly, going over her spelling list, a few minutes later: What does 'tripod' mean?
Molly: It's something you use to listen to music.

("Tripod" was actually one of the more reasonable words on Molly's spelling list. Last week included "perspicacious" and "paradigmatic," to give you some idea. I am pleased that her teacher is trying to challenge her, but given that Molly still regularly misspells words like "color" and "again," I think there's a potential sweet spot here that is being missed.)

(And "perspicacious," if you were wondering, means "of acute mental vision or discernment: KEEN. Syn: see shrewd." I know this because I just looked it up, not because I actually knew the word, and having read this definition, it's still not clear to me whether you would use "perspicacious" to compliment someone's observational abilities, or their insight, or their native intelligence, or if you'd actually use it as a subtle insult, as you might use "shrewd.")

Comments

[redbird]

I would consider "perspicacious" to be a compliment, and more likely of someone's insight or observation than native intelligence. Then again, I probably wouldn't use shrewd as a subtle insult, though I'm aware of the ways it has been so used.

[naomikritzer]

I probably wouldn't use shrewd as a subtle insult, either, but I would probably also not use it as a compliment because it can be used that way.

perspicacious

[romsfuulynn.livejournal.com]

I hope it's a compliment - for me it's a "grandfather" word and part of my active vocabulary. (my grandfather had a PhD from Harvard, but most things my mother or I would feel were extraordinary he claimed to have learned in by the time he was in 8th grade. But he was born in 1883, so maybe so.)

I would say that it is description of insight or analytical thinking combined with observation. That is, seeing something or reading something and drawing complex and thoughtful conclusions or deductions.

I am sure he used it as a compliment.

[jmartin2.livejournal.com]

Why, oh, why, oh, why do teachers insist on wasting time on Spelling Words and Vocabulary Words? When kids could be spending all that time and anxious energy on Reading For Pleasure (or even *gasp* Writing For Pleasure), and encountering real-live words that, when seen and used again and again, become *natural* parts of a child's spoken and written vocabulary? I think that, in general, kids want to do well and get things right, and until we squash them into thinking they're bad at spelling and vocabulary by doing things like testing them on words they don't even understand, they *will* do well -- but with repetition and gentle correction, and in their own time.

[writingjen.livejournal.com]

My daughter's teacher does this pretty well, but then it's a non-traditional school. The week's words (about 5, I think) are chosen from what she's been doing/reading. If there's a particular word that has come up for her, the teacher will ask her if she wants to learn to spell it, then the teacher often picks other similar words (if the word was "snake," she might add "awake" and "stake" for instance).

Usually these are pretty much "everyday" words, but one week Hannah, displaying some perspicacity, asked for "paleontologist" as one of her words, as that's what she wants to be when she grows up. The teacher didn't know how to spell it, either! They went together to the dictionary to look it up and put on her list.

[naomikritzer]

See, that's an awesome way to do spelling words.

There were 31 kids in Molly's class at the beginning of the year, and there are 27 kids in there now, and only one teacher. So a customized spelling list for each kid is somewhat impractical, which is a shame.

[naomikritzer]

Well, in order for Molly to spend her classroom time reading for pleasure, someone would have to remember to send her down to the library.

One of the things they are encouraged to spend work time on is silent reading. Since the teacher has almost no chapter books (this is a mixed-age first-through-third-grade classroom) I asked her teacher what Molly was supposed to be reading, and the answer was, she's supposed to be reading books from the school library. But they're only allowed to check out two books at a time. Her teacher said that Molly should just ask when she's out of books, and she can go anytime. The problem is that Molly doesn't think to ask until the teacher is involved with giving other kids a lesson, at which point she isn't supposed to interrupt. To make matters worse, for the last two weeks they've had "media on a cart," which means the media teacher comes to their classroom and the kids don't go to the library at all, because the library was being used for state testing. Which also meant Molly couldn't go any other time, because there were kids in there taking tests.

Fortunately, Molly reads voraciously during her off hours, too, and I take her to the public library every week to keep her in books. I don't think her spelling words are harmful, and she's proud to be learning to spell such difficult words....I just think it's kind of silly.

[jmartin2.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I wasn't thinking so much of Molly when I wrote that as I was of Cherell, a 5th grader I tutored (back when I was teaching in a small independent school) who was given words to define and spell such as "duplicity" when she had a hard time spelling words like "like." And as I think about it, her teacher had a fabulous classroom library and actively encouraged the kids to do extracurricular reading. I liked the teacher and the novels she taught with a lot. They were totally outside Cherell's scope of understanding, though, which made it impossible for her to participate in the 5th grade language arts program. We talked about how wonderful it was that the school was so "diverse," but we never did accept the fact that the kids from the inner-city type areas and the kids from the ridiculously wealthy suburbs had very real differences that never got addressed.

Not sure how or even if that pertains to your original post, just thinking our loud, I guess.

[naomikritzer]

And today was Media Day (no one has a library anymore, they have a "media center" -- don't get me started) and ONCE AGAIN they did not get to go check out books. At least today they were doing something cool -- they had an in-school concert done by the SPCO or some similarly cool group.

And once again Molly forgot to ask if she could go during class time, and her teacher forgot to send her, so next Monday she will ONCE AGAIN not have any books to read unless I make sure she brings something from home. Which I should probably just resign myself to doing but it infuriates me that there's this wonderful library with an excellent selection of books a hundred paces from her classroom door, and for all practical purposes it might as well be in Duluth.

[yankee-in-texas.livejournal.com]

You sound like a crazy person! Like my kind of crazy person! Yay, learning by pleasure!

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Scrabble and Crosswords are good reasons for knowing how to spell. You don't have to know how to spell a word to use it correctly in conversation.

[naomikritzer]

Just how to pronounce it. She also doesn't know how to pronounce most of the really interesting words she knows, but that's pretty typical for a bookworm child; I had exactly the same issue.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Me too. Let's share mispronounced words stories next time we see each other!

[snippy]

I'm sure if you used shrewd there'd be an outcry for your punishment. It's just like niggardly.

[naomikritzer]

Niggardly gets a bad rap because of the other word it sounds like.

Shrewd doesn't get a bad rap because it sounds like shrew, IMO. It's a word you use carefully because it genuinely can mean "conniving and sly" rather than just "smart in a practical sort of way," and you don't want to insult Caeser if you came to praise him. I'm extra-careful with "shrewd" because historically it's often been used in an anti-Semitic way, and you will occasionally spot it being used in a way that is supposed to telegraph that you're not exactly talking about Lutherans here.

[elizabethth.livejournal.com]

Perspicacity is definitely a fine thing.

I had a 10th grade English teacher who taught us unusual words every day (and used such words regularly), which suited me just fine, but first-through-third grade seems kind of early for really big words.

[naomikritzer]

Hey, I was just thinking today that I wanted to ask you if Dreamhaven will have a table at Convergence.

[elizabethth.livejournal.com]

Yes we will.