The United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Culture and Youth has launched a new strategy to overhaul its literature and publishing industry. Noura Al Kaabi, minister of culture and youth, announced the move on the opening day of the Arabic Language Summit, explaining that it would consist of policies and initiatives designed to govern and enhance both industries, with a focus on copyright protection and intellectual property.
Organized by the ministry and the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, the two-day summit, held at Manarat Al Saadiyat, brought together regional authors and thought leaders for discussions surrounding the current state and advancement of the Arabic language. “The Ministry of Culture and Youth will launch a strategy to stimulate and govern the literature and publishing sector; develop current laws and legislation related to the protection of copyright, publishing, and intellectual property; and analyze the sector’s current and future needs,” Al Kaabi said in her keynote address.
“We will document Emirati literary initiatives and programs and measure their presence in educational curricula. We will build a digital database documenting these achievements and prepare implementation reports that include the most important strengths, challenges, and opportunities for improvement.”
Larry grew up in the US. His parents were from Cantonese-speaking areas, and both are highly educated and very competent in English. Larry is English dominant but has excellent oral/aural competence in his heritage language, Cantonese. He speaks Cantonese to his parents and grandparents, and they speak Cantonese to him. He speaks English with friends and his brother.
All of Larry’s formal education has been in English, and he attended a Cantonese heritage language class for one year while he was in kindergarten. Larry learned about two dozen characters during this year, which laid the foundation for his Chinese literacy development later in his life, as Mandarin uses the same characters. Larry had not taken any classes in Mandarin until high school, when he enrolled in a beginning Mandarin class in his first year.
Larry found his high school Mandarin class dull: the method was very traditional, and the focus was on rote memorization. Larry did not study for the class and was occasionally scolded by teachers for not paying attention. He nevertheless got straight A’s. In contrast, his classmates found the classes to be very difficult. Many of them had to study very hard. Even with private tutors and extra help from teachers, they still struggled with homework, tests, and finals.
How Larry Developed Chinese Literacy: Old Master Q
Larry got very interested in a Chinese comic book series, Old Master Q, and read it voraciously throughout his elementary school years. He got so interested in Old Master Q that it was all he read for pleasure during his entire elementary school years (except for Calvin and Hobbes in English). Old Master Q is largely wordless but contains a fair amount of print in Chinese and is the best-known and most popular series in the history of Hong Kong comics (Ng and We, 2018). Because of his great interest in the stories, Larry was eventually able to understand some of the print, despite his lack of Chinese literacy education, which resulted in the acquisition of about 200 Chinese characters, of great use in his high school Mandarin class.
Larry’s acquisition of Chinese characters through pleasure reading is consistent with research findings on the acquisition of Chinese characters as a first language (Ku and Anderson, 2001) and as a second language (Zhou and Day, 2020) via reading.
How Larry Acquired Oral Mandarin
Larry, his brother, and his dad watched Mandarin movies and TV shows regularly on weekends. Larry was able to understand some of the Mandarin input because of the highly interesting plots, and because Cantonese and Mandarin are related languages and have some shared vocabulary. Over time, he acquired a considerable amount of Mandarin, thanks to the comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985).
Conclusion
Larry had a de facto course in Mandarin. The class he was registered for simply gave him credit for what he acquired watching TV with his dad and his brother, and he acquired Chinese literacy from reading Old Master Q.
Furthermore, the entire collection of Old Master Q that Larry owned contributed to his success in acquiring Chinese characters without conscious learning and is consistent with Shu et al.’s study on how the home-literacy environment contributes significantly to children’s Chinese literacy development (Shu et al., 2002). As noted above, some of the other students in the class are speakers of Cantonese as a heritage language and speakers of Mandarin as a heritage language. Sadly, the Mandarin course did not take full advantage of this. The class could have easily provided the comprehensible and compelling input (Krashen et al., 2017) that Larry got from TV, movies, and Old Master Q and could have provided the students with the knowledge that would have helped them continue to make progress in Mandarin (Lao and Krashen, 2014).
References
Krashen, S. (1985). The Input Hypothesis. Beverly Hills, CA: Laredo Publishing Co. Krashen, S., Lee, S. Y., and Lao, C. (2017). Comprehensible and Compelling: The Causes and Effects of Free Voluntary Reading. Libraries Unlimited, Inc. Ku, Y. M., and Anderson, R. C. (2001). “Chinese Children’s Incidental Learning of Word Meanings.” Contemporary Educational Psychology, 26(2), 249–266. Lao, C., and Krashen, S. (2014). “Language Acquisition without Speaking and without Study.” Journal of Bilingual Education Research and Instruction, 16(1), 215–221. Ng, K. H., and Wee, L. H. (2018). “Chiaroscuro of the Uncanny: An unknown side of Old Master Q.” In J. S. Polley, V. W. K. Poon, and L.-H. Wee (Eds.), Cultural Conflict in Hong Kong, pp. 211–233. Shu, L., Anderson, K., and Yue, X. (2002). “The Role of Home-Literacy Environment in Learning to Read Chinese.” In L. Wenling, J. Gaffney, and J. Packard (Eds), Chinese Children’s Reading Acquisition, pp. 207–222. Zhou, J., and Day, R. (2020). “The Incidental Learning of L2 Chinese Vocabulary through Reading.” Reading in a Foreign Language, 32, 169–193.
Dr. Christy Lao is an associate professor of education at San Francisco State University, actively involved in Chinese bilingual education. For the past 20 years, she has worked with Chinese bilingual schools and Chinese immersion schools and teachers in San Francisco, New York City, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China.
Applications for 2022-23 Golden State Teacher Grant (GSTG), which provides up to $20,000 to support teachers and counselors, will be accepted through April 1, 2023, or until all funds have been awarded, whichever occurs first.
Applicants agree to complete their program and obtain their credential within 3 years from the first distribution of GSTG funds, and serve at a priority school in California for four years within eight years of completing their preparation program.
“We recognize the moment, and the California Department of Education (CDE) is stepping into the gap,” said California’s Superintendent Thurmond. “We are reaching out to the thousands of talented corps members who already understand why it is important to give back to our society and our youth, and we are providing them with the ‘how’ to become a teacher or counselor in our schools.”
The CDE has also supported efforts across the state by raising awareness, reducing barriers, and helping to streamline fiscal resources so that more individuals can access the information and the means to make the transition to support students in the classroom.
Advocacy by Superintendent Thurmond on this issue has helped secure a record $3.6 billion in investments over the last four years that are designed to improve educator recruitment, retention, and training in California. In addition, Superintendent Thurmond has helped expand education career pathways, made tax credits available for teacher housing, and improved and bolstered educator recruitment efforts by sponsoring legislation that has spurred key budget investments by the state.
While you may know that French is spoken by 300 million people around the world and by 2 million people at their homes in the US, and that much of what is now the US was once part of New France, there is so much more to know—about French language and Francophone culture, right here and right now.
What’s Happening
There are events happening all around us that not only remind us that the French language and Francophone presence form part of our identity and offer the possibility to learn more, but also provide entertainment, fun, and the opportunity to connect socially to a wide range of interests and ages.
LaJournée internationale de la Francophonie, the International Francophone Day, is observed on March 20th throughout the world, including the US. A program of the OIF, or Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, the Journée internationale de la Francophonie is observed each year to celebrate French language and Francophone culture. A wonderful sign of support from the OIF for French here in North America is the establishment of an OIF office in Québec, and for French in the US, the visit of OIF Secretary General Louise Mushikiwabo to Louisiana in 2022.
While March 20th is important for French language speakers and for French and Francophone cultural supporters and stakeholders, events, programs, and activities right here at home across the country reveal the true extent and impact of French language and Francophone culture in the US.
Bastille Day, the French national holiday, is routinely celebrated in towns and cities across the US on or around laFête nationale on July 14th, with noteworthy celebrations in New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, Milwaukee, and many other towns and cities—a recent count included more than 50. La Saint-Jean-Baptiste, also known as the Fête nationale du Québec, is widely celebrated in New England and beyond on or around June 24th.
The Congrès mondial acadien, held every five years, has been held in both Louisiana and Maine. The Carnaval de Québec and Mardi Gras draw crowds to Québec and Louisiana respectively, including both locals as well as visitors from around the world, including Americans of French ancestry.
The Alliance Française, with 850 chapters in 136 countries around the world, and 114 in the US alone, promotes French throughout our country and worldwide. Immersion programs and bilingual schools provide education with French as a medium of instruction in many states, and the French heritage language program provides instruction and support to heritage speakers from around the world.
Although Louisiana is home to the largest number of Francophones, Maine is home to the highest percentage of those with French or Francophone ancestry, and NYC alone is home to over 80,000 Francophones. The French-American Foundation of Minnesota strives to increase awareness of the French history of Minnesota and much of the central US.
Beyond the Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans and the Carnaval de Québec, iconic in-person events include Mardi Gras celebrations at the Franco-American Centre in Manchester, NH, and the Franco-American Centre at the University of Maine. Other noteworthy in-person events include the annual NH PoutineFest, the recent Forum Économique: French means business in the United States—through the Nous Foundation, the Consulate General of France in New Orleans, and Tulane University, and frequent French heritage events in Minnesota.
Online events include the Acadian Archives Lecture Series through the University of Maine Fort Kent, the series on Femmes Peintres at the Alliance Française of Philadelphia, the Le Cercle Francophone d’Histoire at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, and the Laura Plantation podcast. In addition, the French-Canadian Legacy Podcast offers new content on a regular basis, and the Alliance Française sponsors a wide range of opportunities for language and cultural learning both in-person and online.
Colleges and universities are also often the setting for French language and Francophone cultural events, including institutes, centers, and film festivals. La Maison française of New York University has been recognized as a Center of Excellence by the French Embassy of the United States and, in January 2023, Dr. Shanny Peer, director of Columbia University’s Maison Française, was awarded the French national Légion d’Honneur.
There are Francophone communities, stakeholders, supporters, and enthusiasts across the country, and online worth watching. In addition to French media, including TV5Monde, the worldwide Francophone television network offered by the OIF, the representatives of France and Québec in the US—the services culturels français, Consulats de France, Alliance Francaise, et Délégations du Québec, and the Centre de la Francophonie des Amériques are wonderful sources of information and support. At the local and regional level, Franco-American Programs, University of Maine, The Franco-American Centre in Manchester, NH, and The Nous Foundation, in New Orleans, and the ACQS (American Council on Québec Studies) are among organizations to watch.
There are also wonderful French language learning initiatives, including immersion programs and the French Dual Language Fund. Organizations to watch include the AATF (American Association of Teachers of French), CODOFIL (Council on the Development of French in Louisiana), and the French Dual-Language Learning Network. Most recently, on his historic visit to Louisiana in December 2022, French President Macron announced the launch of the French for All initiative, intended to promote and support bilingualism and French language learning in the US.
French language and heritage communities in Maine, Louisiana, and New York City are establishing of pre-professional pathways based on French language skills and knowledge of French and Francophone culture.
What We Know: French as a Global Language and a US Heritage Language
Many Americans, relatively unaware of these present-day and historical connections, may wonder why French and Francophone events and initiatives are everywhere, and the answer lies in what we know about the longstanding relationship between the French and the Americans. Many Americans, accustomed to the prevailing British historical narrative highlighting the 13 British colonies, are often surprised to learn that most of what is now the US was actually part of the French and Spanish colonial empires.
Much of what is now the US was once part of La Nouvelle France, with place names throughout the country signs of the French presence and heritage – examples including St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit, Vermont, and Boise among many others, along with the motto of the State of Minnesota, L’Étoile du nord. In addition, the ideas of the French Enlightenment/Siècle des lumières were central to our American Revolution, which we may well not have won without the aid and support of France.
The Francophone presence in the US is not limited to its historical role, and the recent visit of French President Macron—the first official state visit of the Biden administration—to Washington, DC and to New Orleans, was national news and included support for French language learning, the French for All initiative. Many recent immigrants to the US from France and the Francophone world contribute to vibrant and growing communities in many regions of the US, including Maine, the setting of the recent film, Le Carrefour (Intersection).
What’s Next – French Language Learning and Use in the US
French language and Francophone culture have always been part of our American identity, and now is the time for us all to recognize not only our French and Francophone heritage, but also our present and future. While we know that 2M in the US speak French in the home, and that French is the second most frequently studied language, it is important to understand not only its impact on our history, but also to envision its role in our future.
Building on the historical relationship between the US and France, and the global appeal of French language and Francophone culture, there has already been a resurgence in American visits to France since the pandemic, which is likely to continue. The closeness and complexity of the ties between the US and France have recently been clearly demonstrated in the visit of French President Macron and in the French for All language learning initiative in support of French immersion programs that was launched in December 2022.
We need to provide opportunities for children and young people to learn French, whether as an additional or a heritage language, through immersion, community programs, or through traditional language programs in schools.
Our Francophone reality here in North America is closely linked to Québec and to the many French-speaking immigrants who brought French to the US, especially the newest arrivals many of whom have come from Haiti.
Raising awareness, supporting parents and families, and “building opportunity through multilingualism” and francoresponsabilité
Building on our French and Francophone past, our global and local present, our French and Francophone future relies on local communities, educational institutions, and global connections through family, media and communications, and business and careers. It’s all about “building opportunity through multilingualism,” the theme of Language Advocacy Days 2023—for ourselves, our children, and our communities to engage with the globalized and multilingual world both abroad and right here at home.
Francoresponsabilité, a term from Québec defined as developing the use of French in daily life, is key to the future of French in the US. The challenge remains to build that bridge between heritage language communities and the motivation for school students at all levels to reconnect and to learn more – a bridge between languages and cultures, and between generations. Important steps include raising awareness of the importance of languages, language learning and language use, and supporting parents, families, and communities in their efforts to promote languages and to protect heritage languages.
It is equally important to recognize the disparity that may exist between the presence of a significant heritage language community and the desire of a child or young person to learn their heritage language, to learn the language of their parents and grandparents, even when the language in question is a global language. This disparity can result in declining enrollment even in regions with a strong Francophone history.
The challenge for heritage languages generally is the transmission of the language and culture to future generations, and it is not unusual to hear Americans of many backgrounds refer to a language spoken by parents and grandparents that they themselves may no longer speak, or may only speak to a limited extent, and French is no exception.
T help overcome this, parents can create an environment where French is present throughout the daily routine of the young child, from stories told or read to the young child, to developmentally appropriate media, and to conversations and activities in the extended family and community. An example of a parent group addressing this challenge is Canadian Parents for French.
For school-age child, immersion and bilingual programs go a long way toward building on those language skills and cultural knowledge acquired at home, and parents have the opportunity to work with their schools to develop extra- and co-curricular activities to support language learning and use.
However, the opportunity to learn and to use language cannot stop when the school bell rings, and parents and communities can develop those after-school, weekend, and summer activities best suited to their children’s needs. Examples include the French classes and story time for children offered by the Franco-American Centre, and Camp Bienvenue offered by the Franco-American Centre and SNHU, along with the Coupe de la Francophonie soccer tournament in Brooklyn. Technology can also help to bring authentic audio and video to children. The important thing is to support learning and use of the language by children and young people wherever they may be. For older children and young people, it is also important to clearly demonstrate the benefits of language skills in the workplace in real-life settings and to support local French language job fairs and career events like the recent Forum Économique in New Orleans.
We should be building opportunities for all interested students to learn languages, with the array of personal, professional, and societal benefits they provide. It is never too soon to begin learning French, whether as a heritage or additional language, and all current and prospective language learners, as well as their families and communities, deserve our support.
Kathy Stein-Smith, PhD, is associate university librarian and adjunct faculty in foreign languages and related areas at Fairleigh Dickinson University—Metropolitan Campus, Teaneck, New Jersey. She is chair of the AATF (American Association of Teachers of French) Commission on Advocacy. She is Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes académiques andMember, Pi Delta Phi, The National French Honor Society. She is the author of three books and several articles about the foreign language deficit, has given a TEDx talk, “The U.S. Foreign Language Deficit—What It Is, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do about It,” and maintains a blog, Language Matters. Kathy has also recently been elected to the executive board of the American Society of the Academic Palms (https://www.frenchacademicpalms.org/).
Canada has agreed to pay out C$2.8 billion ($2.09 billion) to settle a decade-long lawsuit seeking reparations for the loss of language and Indigenous culture caused by the residential school system.
The class-action lawsuit, first presented by 325 First Nations in 2012, expressed that mandatory residential schools tirelessly eroded Indigenous culture and imposed bans on Native languages.
Over 150,000 Indigenous students educated at approximately 130 residential schools across Canada from the 19th century until the 1990s were forbidden—often violently—from speaking their ancestral tongues or practicing any kind of traditions.
During court proceedings, survivors painfully testified about deaths of their classmates at the schools, abuse suffered, and poorly built, unsanitary facilities. In many cases, children were removed from their families by force and sent to the schools, often run by churches. In 2021, radar technology produced horrifying evidence of unmarked graves containing the remains of 215 students on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. Thousands of students are believed to have died at the schools from neglectful conditions leading to disease, malnutrition, accidents, fires, and violence.
At a recent event, Shane Gottfriedson, the former chief of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation and British Columbia regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations, said that it had “always been a fight with government” to fairly settle Native Canadian human rights and claims to Indigenous land. Also speaking at the event, Marc Miller, minister of Crown–Indigenous relations, said the recent settlement would not “erase or make up for the past” but “what it can do is address the collective harm caused by Canada’s past.”
A 2015 report by the landmark Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) concluded Canada’s residential school system amounted to “cultural genocide.”
Rosanne Casimir, current Kúkpi7, or chief, of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, said in a statement, “Canada spent over 100 years trying to destroy our languages and cultures through residential schools. It is going to take incredible efforts by our nations to restore our languages and culture—this settlement gives nations the resources and tools needed to make a good start.”
Under the new settlement, the Canadian government will place the compensation amount into a not-for-profit trust for Indigenous communities to fund education, culture, and language programs. In a statement, the government said the funds will also be used to design projects dedicated to “healing, wellness, education, heritage, language, and commemoration activities” for former students, to help them in “reconnecting with their heritage.” The full agreement is expected to be released after a hearing in late February.
The United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Culture and Youth has launched a new strategy to overhaul its literature and publishing industry. Noura Al Kaabi, minister of culture and youth, announced the move on the opening day of the Arabic Language Summit, explaining that it would consist of policies and initiatives designed to govern and enhance both industries, with a focus on copyright protection and intellectual property.
Organized by the ministry and the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, the two-day summit, held at Manarat Al Saadiyat, brought together regional authors and thought leaders for discussions surrounding the current state and advancement of the Arabic language. “The Ministry of Culture and Youth will launch a strategy to stimulate and govern the literature and publishing sector; develop current laws and legislation related to the protection of copyright, publishing, and intellectual property; and analyze the sector’s current and future needs,” Al Kaabi said in her keynote address.
“We will document Emirati literary initiatives and programs and measure their presence in educational curricula. We will build a digital database documenting these achievements and prepare implementation reports that include the most important strengths, challenges, and opportunities for improvement.”
In 1999 UNESCO declared February 21 to be International Mother Language Day to promote awareness of linguistic diversity and multilingualism. Although there are about 6000-7000 languages spoken or signed around the globe, there are a number of mathematical patterns or rules found in all languages that make us more similar to each other than we might think from listening to each other speak or watching each other sign.
One of those rules about words, called phonotactics, determines which sounds belong to which language, and how those sounds can be put together to make a word. For example, the “ng” sound (like in the English words sing or ring) is an acceptable sound in English, but only at the ends of words; it can’t be used to start a word in English. In Albanian, however, it’s okay to start a word with that sound, as in the Albanian word ngaqë (‘because’ in English). Some languages don’t even use that sound at all. People who are good at the game Wordle know these phonotactic rules very well.
In addition to the rules about which sounds are used to form words, there are also mathematical patterns about words themselves. You may have noticed that some words are used more often than others. If we mathematically plotted this pattern, we find that the most common word (“the” in English) occurs twice as often as the second most common word (“be” in English), and three times as often as the third most common word (“to” in English). This pattern is known as Zipf’s Law.
If we looked more closely at the common and less common words, we would find that the more commonly used words tend to be shorter (like the, be, and to in English), and the less commonly used words tend to be longer, like Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. This relationship between how often a word is used and the length of the word is known as Zipf’s Law of Brevity (yes, George Kingsley Zipf was a very busy linguist).
These mathematical patterns are not only found in spoken languages, but are also found in the nearly 300 signed languages used around the planet, like American Sign Language. It is important to note that American Sign Language (ASL) is completely different from spoken English; it is not simply a gestural version of English. And, although spoken English is pretty similar in Great Britain, Australia, and other places where English is spoken, ASL is completely different from British Sign Language (BSL), Australian Sign Language (Auslan), and other sign languages in the world.
I hope you found the mathematical patterns in the languages of the world interesting. Unfortunately, there’s a mathematical fact about languages that should scare you. The National Geographic Society estimated that every 14 days a language goes extinct. Just like a plant or animal species goes extinct when the last of its kind dies, the death of the last speaker of a language marks the extinction of that language.
Why should that worry you, you ask? After all, doesn’t the story of the Tower of Babel tell us that if we all used one language, we’d be able to work together to do anything, even reach the heavens?
Well, languages are more than just a bunch of words. They shape how we see the world. They connect us to the past. They help form our current identity. And they allow us to pass on our culture to future generations. Language is so powerful that if it weren’t for the Native American Code Talkers in World War 2, everyone in the world might be speaking German or Japanese right now. So take some time today to celebrate International Mother Language Day, to appreciate the languages you use and hear or see around you, to visit Planet Word (a museum in DC that highlights the power and diversity of the world’s languages), or to think of new ways to preserve or revitalize a language before it’s too late. Just like a diverse biological ecosystem leads to a healthy and productive environment, a diverse linguistic ecosystem leads to a healthy and productive world.
Michael Vitevitch, PhD is a professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Kansas. His research applies the mathematical tools of network science to language, and also examines various types of speech errors (including the tip of the tongue state) and auditory illusions (like the speech to song illusion).
Researchers in second language acquisition have hypothesized that there are two very different ways of gaining knowledge of language: acquisition and learning. Learning results in conscious knowledge of rules and is the result of deliberate study. Acquisition results in a feel for correctness. It is the result of understanding what we hear and read. We propose that this distinction applies to how we acquire/learn and use phonics.
Examples of Learned and Acquired Competence
The simpler phonics rules can be consciously learned. For example, b at the beginning of English words is pronounced as is the first sound in bee. But if b comes at the end of a word and is after m it is silent, as in comb. In an informal study, one of us (SK) estimated that about 20% of literate English speakers have consciously learned the rule, even though all have acquired it.
But then it gets more complicated. Why is b silent in combing? And why is b pronounced in combination? Nearly all of us have acquired these rules: we don’t make mistakes in reading these words out loud. Not many of us, however, have learned the rules. (Very few of the people SK asked knew these rules, and SK had to look them up.)
It has been asserted that all rules of phonics must be taught and cannot be acquired. Gentry (2022), in fact, has claimed that this has been demonstrated by research but presents no citations.
Acquisition of Phonics: Learning to Read without Instruction
McQuillan (1998a) presents an extensive review of cases in which children learned to read at home but did not get extensive instruction from their parents. They did not receive metalinguistic support (“learning” about language). They learned to read without “systematic formal instruction usually associated with school—phonics training, phonemic awareness exercises, and other skill-building activities” (p. 34). Krashen and McQuillan (2007) also present several cases of children who learned to read well after the time formal teaching of reading is done in school. The cases include Mason (1993), who reported that her daughter, who was homeschooled, “could not/did not want to read” at age eight and a half.
Having tried earlier to push her to learn math, and finding that the pressure made her hate arithmetic, Mason decided not to intervene on reading.
Around her ninth birthday, “she began to read, and two months later she could read at the level of her literate friends. Then she extended her reading, and now (age 15) she reads the way very literate adults do’ (p. 28).“ H. K., described in Kerman (1993), was another homeschooled child. Kerman notes that H. K. “refused instruction.” Her mother reported that at age ten, H. K. “learned the basics about reading although I shall never know how.”
In cases such as these, “the children made rapid progress once they began reading material they were genuinely interested in of their own volition” (Krashen and McQuillan, 2007).
In many cases, children received “elaborative” support, that is, help in making input comprehensible. Goodman and Goodman (1982) reported that their daughter Kay learned to read on her own at age five years, six months. Her parents provided elaborative support, including being read to and talked to… and a great deal of “singing, poetry, and oral language games” (McQuillan, 1998a, 21). McQuillan (1998b) reviewed a survey done by the US Department of Education of over 6,000 parents of children aged six to nine and concluded that about one in ten children learn to read in the home environment, where “in many cases… systematic intervention is unlikely” (p. 16).
In our discussion of the studies reviewed just above, we have assumed that successful reading means that phonics has been acquired or learned, that readers need to be able to accurately pronounce every word in order to understand what they read. In other words, we assumed that total mastery of phonics is necessary for reading. This may not be true. In the two studies reviewed in the next section, the tasks, carefully sounding out isolated written words, do in fact require mastery and use of the rules of phonics, and are therefore a better test of knowledge of phonics rules. The following two studies thus confirm that phonics can be acquired, and also provide a comparison between the efficiency of acquiring and learning phonics.
More Willing to ‘Sound It Out’
In Gambrell and Palmer (1992), first and second graders in “literature-based” classes that “emphasized whole language… and the integration of reading and writing” were compared to students in conventional classes. The conventional classes relied on basal series, workbooks, “and the use of children’s literature during voluntary reading time” (p. 216).
Children were asked what they would do if they were reading and came to a word they didn’t know. The literature-based children were far more likely to say they would try to “sound it out” (69% in first grade, 52% in second grade, compared to 21% of the conventional students in first grade and 19% in second grade).
More Accurate in ‘Sounding It Out’
In Freppon (1991), first graders in “literature-based” classrooms were compared to first graders in traditional skill-based classrooms. The literature-based teachers identified themselves as “literature-based and whole language” (p. 142). Literature-based classes emphasized reading for meaning and strategies such as guessing/predicting and rereading (p. 144); “no mandated phonics or vocabulary curriculum was present.”
Instruction in the skill-based classes had “a strong emphasis on traditional, sequenced phonics” (p. 142), with “drill and practice on discrete skills using worksheets” (p. 144).
Literature-based students devoted substantially more time to reading, 18 to 20 minutes per day, compared to five to nine minutes in the skill-based classes. The literature-based students were more successful in correctly sounding out the words in a story (53% compared to 35%), even though the skill-based students had received much more instruction in phonics.
The Two Studies: Summary and Discussion
The literature-based children were more likely to use their knowledge of phonics and used it more accurately, even though children in the conventional classes had more exposure to traditional phonics instruction and more practice learning and using the rules relating sounds to spelling.
The two studies described here confirm that children can acquire rules of phonics from reading, and the results are consistent with conclusions about the conditions needed: a great deal of comprehensible and highly interesting reading material. They are also consistent with the conditions for “optimal input” for language acquisition in general (Krashen and Mason, 2020).
The superior performance of acquired phonics in these studies may be due to these factors:
Even the best students do not learn all the rules presented in class. In fact, the most knowledgeable teachers don’t know all the rules, and even the most expert scholars have not discovered the rules (Smith, 2004). This is a powerful argument for the reality and usefulness of acquired phonics.
The complexity of some consciously learned rules requires time and effort for retrieval and application. In other words, acquired knowledge is easier to apply.
Do We Need ANY Instruction in Phonics?
We do not conclude from the evidence presented here that conscious knowledge of phonics is useless. It has been argued (Smith, 2004) that some conscious knowledge of phonics might help reduce alternatives and make input more comprehensible (McQuillan, 1998a, p. 40). But there is no support for making it the central part of instruction.
The Disdain for Acquired Knowledge
Learning to read without instruction is mentioned in the professional literature, but is it in passing and often without comment. The following is from an interview with Joel Gomez, in Ehri et al. (2022), commenting on interviews with various experts on reading:
“One of the primary outcomes of the discussions was the case made for the importance of teaching the fundamentals of reading as an important step toward learning how to read. It was emphasized that instruction on the grapheme-to-phoneme relationship was an important element of these fundamentals.
However, a counterpoint to this approach was provided by some of the roundtable participants, who shared memories on how they learned to read as children.
Some of the participants stated that they learned to read before attending school by listening to books being read and then looking at the books. One participant said that he learned how to read by listening to oral tapes synced to pages on the book” (Ehri et al., 2022). No further comment was made on this observation. All that was stated was that acquisition without instruction existed. This negligence gives acquired phonics the status of an odd and rare phenomenon.
We feel that enough evidence was presented here to warrant serious study of acquired phonics and its applications.
References
Ehri, L., de Jong, E., Kurto, K., and Gomez, J. (2022). “Unifying Language Acquisition with Literacy Instruction for Language Minority Students.” Language Magazine. www.languagemagazine.com/2022/07/18/unifying-language-acquisition-with-literacy-instruction-for-language-minority-students. Fink, R. (1995/6). “Successful Dyslexics: A constructivist study of passionate interest reading.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 39, 268–280. Freppon, P. (1991). “Children’s Concepts of the Nature and Purpose of Reading in Different Instructional Settings.” Journal of Reading Behavior, 23, 139–163. Gambrell, L., and Palmer, B. (1992.) Children’s Metacognitive Knowledge about Reading and Writing in Literature-Based and Conventional Classrooms. NCR 41st Yearbook, pp. 217–223. Gentry, R. (2022). “Why Spelling Instruction Should Be Hot in 2022–2023.” www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/raising-readers-writers-and-spellers/202101/why-spelling-instruction-should-be-hot-in-2022-2023. Goodman, K., and Goodman, Y. (1982). “Spelling Ability of a Self-Taught Reader.” In Gollasch, R. (Ed.), Language and Literacy: The Selected Works of Kenneth S. Goodman, 2, pp. 221–226. London: Routledge and Kagan Paul. Kerman, K. (1993). “A Mother Learns to Understand Her Child.” Growing Without Schooling, 92, 27. Krashen, S. (2009). “Does Intensive Reading Instruction Contribute to Reading Comprehension?” Knowledge Quest, 37(4), 72–74. Krashen, S., and McQuillan, J. (2007). “Late Intervention.” Educational Leadership, 65(2), 68–73. www.sdkrashen.com/content/articles/late_intervention.pdf. Krashen, S., and Mason, B. (2020). “The Optimal Input Hypothesis: Not all comprehensible input is of equal value.” CATESOL Newsletter, May 19, 2020, 1–2. https://tinyurl.com/y7h64zhr. Mason, J. (1993). “Without a Curriculum.” Growing without Schooling, 94, 28. McQuillan, J. (1998a). The Literacy Crisis: False Claims and Real Solutions. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Publishing Company. McQuillan, J. (1998b). “Is Learning to Read without Formal Instruction Common?” Journal of Reading Education, 23(4). Smith, F. (2004). Understanding Reading, 6th ed. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Stephen Krashen is professor emeritus, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California.
Jeff McQuillan is the author of The Literacy Crisis: False Claims, Real Solutions (Heinemann, 1998).
“When we use story to help students tell their own narratives, literacy roadblocks and anxieties dissolve for even the most hesitant of learners and teachers are able to cultivate world-changing writers.”
“Even the most proficient writers can’t use their skills if they don’t feel empowered by stories themselves…”
In over 20 years of work with schools, students, and teachers, we have advocated for the power of story to leverage a mindset for learning and to serve as the greatest underrated tool for literacy development there is. In school, we often unconsciously begin reiterating the difficulty of storytelling at a very early age, sending the message to our youngest students that there are landmines everywhere we look: from the ways we spell words to intricate and ever-changing grammar rules to a daunting blank page or screen waiting to be filled.
The flood of rules and norms, constraints, and stumbling blocks in the teaching of writing can be overwhelming to our students, who arrive in our classrooms with varied ways of thinking and speaking, with diverse perspectives, languages, and needs that a story-rich understanding of the teaching of writing could embrace. Teachers, too, can feel ineffective with this method, finding it hard to make room for all voices in the classroom, encourage creative play with words, and support students struggling with writing all at the same time. Even the most enthusiastic educators can find it hard to teach the diverse students they want to thrive when the power of story is knocked to the side.
Remember: writing is powerful when it’s done well. The grammar rules, punctuation norms, and sentence structures are all tools in the toolbox of a writer, and a good writer knows how to use them and celebrates their uses. But even the most proficient writers can’t use their skills if they don’t feel empowered by stories themselves, whether fictional or nonfictional, whether about science or sports or personal memory or history. If there’s no story there, then the techniques do not matter and will not compel an audience of one or an audience of many. Unlocking the stories our students want to share, that belong to them, that come from their diverse lives and experiences, makes the techniques come to life.
The story wants to live. Together we can flip the notion of story back to our students and allow their own voices to empower them as writers. In the classroom, we can reset and realign our priorities to our larger mission of why we write.
We can ask our students about their stories to communicate to them that their stories matter to us, to this community of learners—that this is a community of belonging for the power of stories. We can use prompts to say “I know that you have a life that is worthy of story and that you have the eloquence, knowledge, and skills to tell it best/better than anyone.” There are ten principles upon which we can build our communities of belonging to develop, teach, and nurture great storytellers who become great writers. Here we outline these strategies and give you prompts that will harness the power of story for every student in a diverse classroom of learners.
Center joy.
Joy is an instrumental part of making our classrooms feel like safe and jovial homes for all. With joy comes bonding, vulnerability, and communities of belonging. There are tangible ways to spark this.
Create time and space for storytelling circles where students can share and receive stories.
Give easy access to abundant resources for storytelling: technology and tablets, yes, but also notebooks with personalized pages such as photos of friends and family, hopes and dreams, favorite hobbies, favorite books, pets, memories, funny images/memes, sports, art, collages, journeys, special moments, quotes, and favorite authors, illustrators, or musicians.
Play fun, community-building games that get students thinking creatively and using their imaginations, like “Yes, and”: Plan an imaginary party. Pick a person you all know, or a celebrity, and talk together about what the party would be like. Go around the group and have everyone share a detail about this party. Start each sentence with “yes, and.” For example, “At Oprah’s birthday party we will have balloons.” “Yes, and we will have cupcakes.” “Yes, and there will be a petting zoo.” Keep playing until you have planned an entire party. Talk together about the party. How did it feel to build something imaginary together? What did saying “yes, and” do to your party?
Be a deep listener.
Deep listening sets the tone of the storytelling environment with open and curious communication. As listeners lean in and ask questions, they can spark creative courage in the storyteller, who is then motivated and inspired by the invested receivers of their story. Listen deeply to what your students say and enjoy within the classroom as well as outside it. Some of the ways we can do deep listening include the following:
Take notes when your students are storytelling. Carry a notebook, tablet, or phone with you to every writing conference with your students. Create a “listening corner” in your classroom, with recording tools such as notebooks with pens and tablets, so that students can record one another, interview each other, and generally practice active listening.
Post on walls and in online documents different ways for you and your students to practice deep listening: “What are you dreaming about?” or “Tell me a story about your childhood.”
Value wonder.
We are writing, talking, and imagining our way through our deepest questions every day we are alive. In every genre, be it nonfiction, poetry, a science lab report, or a historical analysis, the writer becomes a storyteller, envisioning a question as they write and exploring an idea. Make time for asking questions about student and author writing.
Keep a class wondering journal. This can be online or offline. Each week, assign students a day to create a wondering prompt for their classmates.
Establish wondering partners. Each week, assign students to work in wondering partnerships and to react to each other’s ideas with a wondering stance:
“I’m wondering what made you write this.”
“I’m wondering where this idea came from.”
“I’m wondering what you could do to expand on that idea.”
Use open-ended questions or wondering-centered questions when conferring with students:
“What are you thinking about right now?”
“What are you wondering about?”
“What do you wonder about this story/author/writing choice?”
Prioritize creativity and value student innovation.
Creativity and innovation happen in every step of the writing process. If a plot is why things happen or why events happen in the way that they do, then discovering that reason is a creative, innovative project. The details need to be chosen, and a new world needs to be created. Innovation and creativity are intrinsic to that process.
Perhaps a student wants to make a song inspired by a story or to paint a canvas. Let students create in the modality they feel comfortable in, and then ask them to write with their creations as their muses.
Give your students a list of simple descriptions and have them make the descriptions as dramatic as possible. For example, “The grass is green and soft” could become “The grass was a bright green, and it felt soft like a bed” or even “The blades of grass were glowing and green under the sun. Touching the grass felt like touching the softest silk.”
Give your students creative prompts and allow them to respond in any way they care to:
“Envision a world of peace. What would it look like or feel like?”
“What would school be like if you could tell a new story about it?”
“Imagine you go on a trip with magical powers to help you get there faster or to fly there, and write or tell us about it.”
“Imagine a beautiful country where the laws were made by children or teens.”
Become problem solvers.
Writing and storytelling skills include problem solving—both as we read and as we write. Get students interested in narrative structures, characterization, and other toolkit techniques to create their own stories, and spark curiosity by asking them to problem solve within their own lives.
Ask students to problem solve specific moments in the texts with questions about how characters were feeling or why a character made a certain decision.
Make problem solving a norm by establishing time for writing as time for problem solving. Ask students to list three challenges they are trying to solve in an everyday way. Then, have them write a story for ten minutes to see if by the end of it they would have solved those problems.
Make empathy a core value.
Give students access to books that offer a glimpse into someone else’s reality and life experience so they are able to practice perspective taking and empathy, and then help them extend this empathy to themselves with books that represent and honor who they are.
This empathy building will make them stronger writers and stronger people.
Give students access to books that represent them to help them practice self-love.
Ask your students to select a character from a book they’ve read or that you’ve read aloud to them and to write about their experience from a first-person perspective.
Share a variety of genre options with your students (including op-eds, poems, social media) and invite them to write what they would do to help a fellow student.
What would they say if they could reach out and really affect the life of another person?
Create story and writing routines.
In order to thrive, our students need encouragement, affirmation, their voices centered, and the necessary resources to make writing and story a regular routine. We cannot expect our students to thrive with occasional writing opportunities or when writing appears only as an evaluation tool. The room must be alive with routines for writing.
Build a daily calendar that calls out writing as sacred time, at every grade level, and not just as a thing we tack on or take for granted. But let us also make sure writing becomes ordinary and common as our daily bread. Writing has to be valued yet also so ordinary that our students come to see it as a practice that is as essential as breath.
Share with students abundant materials and resources for storytelling and writing in every subject area, not just technology (although yes to that). Remember that writing comes in different forms and different practices: notebooks, sticky notes, varieties of pens and pencils, and opportunities to sketch and draw.
Help students thrive independently.
While collaborative storytelling can yield incredible work and community, give students moments to work on these skills independently. Create time at least three times a week for structured independent writing (SIW). We can do this during an ELA block or in any subject area, even if we give it just ten to 15 minutes three times a week. You can even plan with your colleagues to share the responsibility: on Mondays and Wednesdays SIW happens in ELA, and on Thursdays it can happen in a subject-area class such as science or social studies.
Let students know this is the time for them to explore story in writing and oral storytelling too.
Interrupt negative thinking and turn to the positive.
Writing can be the greatest tool for finding comfort, peace, and equilibrium even when times are tough. Internal negative thinking around writing is profoundly disengaging and troubling for students as learners. What does it mean to create safe spaces for our students? What does it mean to encircle them with the kind of care that’s going to enable them to be at their best and empower them to accelerate their achievement?
Remind learners when reading mentor texts that wherever they are in their storytelling skills journey is okay, and remember to praise their work often for its strengths.
Set up rituals for storytelling and writing that involve sound, such as background music, and get input from your students about what forms of music will feel the most soothing and encouraging as they write (or allow them to use headphones to make their own musical choices if this is possible).
Self-kindness and self-empathy are a huge part of storytelling practice and writing routines. Talk honestly with your students about this and invite them to notice and be aware of when they are being critical of themselves and to turn that narrative around toward self-care and empathy for themselves. Talk about this when you come back together at the end of a writing period.
Celebrate every day.
We often talk about the “serious joy” that is sometimes forgotten in our anxiety about meeting standards, fulfilling a checklist, or addressing skills. But we learn to do well what we love to do. And the spirit of who taught us flows through us. This all adds up to serious joy. It’s not lighthearted, but it’s full of heart. It’s the strongest pulse we need to do things well.
Celebrate the work students do as a result of author and text studies by having a celebratory share-out class, or offer prizes or stickers to students for their incredible work.
Invite an author of children’s or young adult books to join a video call and talk about their own storytelling journey.
Offer affirmation coupons to all students regularly, and congratulate them on their progress throughout the year.
To build a community of lifelong writers in our classrooms, we must show students what it looks like to belong. Foster a community of belonging that overcomes anything or anyone in our students’ lives that makes them feel small, excluded, or undeserving. As our students begin to love themselves and see their potential, they start to feel energized and interested in their writing and begin to share their stories with the world.
Pam Allyn, creator of LitCamp, LitLeague, and World Read Aloud Day, and Dr. Ernest Morrell, associate professor of humanities and dean of equity at Notre Dame University, began their work together with the creation of LitWorld, a global nonprofit organization to ensure that young people have inclusive spaces to share stories that reflect their worlds. They continue this work with the creation of Dewey, which helps families learn and grow with the power of stories. Their most recent book is Tell Your Story: Teaching Students to Become World-Changing Thinkers and Writers (ASCD, 2022).
Regardless of the reason for coming to the US, all immigrant children who speak a language other than English share a common risk: the danger of losing their mother tongue.
Maintaining one’s native language is important for several reasons:
Native language retention and development affects personal identity and helps English learners develop a relationship with their culture and heritage, thereby contributing to a positive self-concept.
Native language retention helps English learners maintain strong ties to their families and their cultural communities.
Native language retention improves long-term academic achievement (Garcia-Vazquez et al., 1997).
Native language retention improves economic opportunities, as multilingual individuals have better employment/business opportunities, both in the US and abroad.
Reading is an extremely important part of maintaining and strengthening native language skills. While listening to music, watching television programs, and watching films are usually passive activities, reading is an active, self-paced activity that provides exposure to a greater variety of vocabulary and provides repeated demonstrations of grammatical rules and sentence structures in use.
Bloom’s (2000) research demonstrates that topics of immediate interest to children are key to successful language acquisition. Therefore, allowing children to select reading material in their native languages according to their interests can be an extremely effective strategy for fostering native language retention and development. When we think of reading, most of us immediately think of books, but there are many other types of reading materials—many of which are available online—that can help children develop their reading skills, such as magazines, newspapers, travel brochures, sports blogs, recipes, and my favorite, comic books. And now I will explain why comic books are my favorite. When my family and I fled Cuba in 1961, we left with little more than the clothes on our backs. Since we had family in Costa Rica, we were able to obtain tourist visas to leave the country, but that meant our luggage was limited to 21 kilos per person. My parents were both avid readers, especially my father, but their books were left behind.
Once we arrived in the US and my sister and I began attending school, our parents were worried that we would not retain our mother tongue, as everything we were exposed to at school was in English. English became the center of our world. Our classmates spoke English, TV programs were in English, books from the library… everything was in English. As a result, our parents decided that Spanish was the only language we would be allowed to speak at home.
Despite our parents’ efforts to encourage Spanish at home by reading and writing letters to our grandparents and aunts in Cuba, our father reading to us every night before bed, and the dreaded Spanish professor who would come to teach us grammar every Saturday, my sister and I began to speak less and less Spanish and only used it to communicate with our mom and dad.
By 1966, our dad, who had been a pharmacist in Cuba, had saved enough money to buy a building and open his own pharmacy. He set up a place in the storage room with a desk, a small TV, and a couch. Once we ended our day at school, we would head to the pharmacy… to our “office”… and do our homework.
One day, I noticed a new rack in the pharmacy with lots of magazines, paperback books, and, to my delight, comic books. I had inherited a passion for reading from my parents and I was so excited to see all these comic books. I grabbed five of them and headed back to the room and then realized… they were all in Spanish. At the time I couldn’t read Spanish, or so I thought. I did a great deal of complaining, but to no avail, because those comic books came every week. In Spanish.My dad gave me the dictionary that he used when he went to night school to learn English, but it was so slow to read and find the words and translate, and I almost gave up. But then… one week they brought comic books that featured Archie, Jughead, Betty, Veronica, and the gang.
I was around eleven or twelve years old, and these were fascinating. They were all about the life of teens, friendship, crushes, mischief, humor, and I was so enthralled with the stories that I couldn’t wait until the next comic books would arrive.
For years to come, comic books fueled my passion for the Spanish language. And even though I never attended school in Spanish, I considered myself proficient enough to take AP Spanish exams and get college credit for Spanish while still in high school. I am not going to attribute this to reading comic books alone.I know my parents’ insistence on speaking proper Spanish at home, the exposure to culture and history, the tertulias at the dinner table, and the abundance of Spanish literature books at home also influenced me greatly.
However, during those difficult years of not fitting in, between the Spanish literature books and Mr. Jordan the Saturday grammar teacher, the Archie comic books allowed me to escape to a world where I enjoyed reading in Spanish. It was entertaining, amusing, and fit perfectly with my teenage world.
Now thinking back, and knowing my dad like I do, I have a feeling the comic books were not a coincidence. After being here for several years, our parents knew that going back to Cuba was not an option, but they wanted to create a legacy for my sister and me, and their stories of home, family, and traditions would mean nothing if we lost the language of our family. Our parents were wise. Forcing us to learn the language would only be a temporary fix, but instilling a love for our heritage with meaningful ways of acquiring our Spanish would last a lifetime. So, those comic books that were sold at Aguirre Pharmacy in the 1960s were there purely by design.
To this day, I am still a fan of comic books and comic strips from the newspaper. And my repertoire has expanded to include Mafalda from Spain, all the superheroes, and one of my favorites… Garfield. Comics span all cultures, eras, ages, and interests, not to mention all the different types of humor. A topic in and of itself!
References
Bloom, P. (2000). How Children Learn the Meanings of Words. MIT Press. Collier, V. (1995). “Acquiring a Second Language for School,” Directions in Language and Education, 1(4). Garcia-Vazquez, E., Vazquez, L. A., Lopez, I. C., and Ward, W. (1997). “Language Proficiency and Academic Success: Relationships between proficiency in two languages and achievement among Mexican American students.” Bilingual Research Journal, 21(4), 395.
Nilda M. Aguirre, EdS, is executive director of the National Association for Bilingual Education. She also serves as the project director for NABE’s Project Para Todos program, a federally funded National Professional Development Program.
Project Para Todos is designed to better prepare and support K–8 in-service educators to implement evidence-based practices for teaching English learners (ELs) and dual language learners (DLs). Nilda has served as a classroom teacher, administrator, and professional development consultant, developing innovative curriculum embedded with best practices for ELs and strategies for gifted and talented ELs. She has designed and implemented professional development programs for school systems in the US, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and Europe. Nilda has also authored numerous publications, including curriculum guides for various state education agencies, newspaper and magazine articles, and several book chapters.
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