By Jill Mitchell, ex primary school teacher, author of the ‘Frog Book' series of Early Readers and the owner of the Frog Pond Reading and Writing Tuition Base in Pukekohe, and Geoff Austin, Professor of Geophysics at the University of Auckland who does research on the meteorology of floods and the physics of clouds, as well as the climate of Mars and the Earth.
We live in an age where new methods of communication seem to appear at an ever-increasing rate. Email, skype and text messaging, to name a few, have certainly introduced a whole range of new vocabulary into our language.
A recent fashion has been for text message abbreviations, such as U for ‘you’ and R for ‘are’, appearing in emails and even in written letters. This shows that English is a living language, and most would regard it as an amusing development.
What is becoming an increasingly worrying trend is finding that some New Zealand educated university students cannot read normal science texts, and as a result I am often asked the meaning of reasonably common words whilst walking down the corridor. Looking in a dictionary or searching the web does not seem to occur to these students. These same students submit reports and essays that are difficult to read because basic errors in English make the meaning of many of the sentences hard to disentangle. Discussion with some of these bright students makes it clear that they have no idea about the need to have a verb in a sentence or about ways to join subordinate clauses together. They are also surprised to learn that they are required to edit their text and that for a polished result it is to be expected that more time should be spent on the editing than on the writing. As for apostrophes - and I have even seen them put on the wrong word – these students feel that the sooner they go away the better!
It is alarming to note that these difficulties are not primarily a problem for students who come to New Zealand from overseas. These are students educated in our schools. There is a feeling amongst these students that since they have come to university to study mathematics or the physical sciences, they do not have to be able to write or even read a text containing a few unusual words. The bad news is that they are wrong. Students will find that if they want to make a significant discovery or write an important report they first have to be able to read earlier work published in the field, and then if they cannot express their findings in a clear and concise way their efforts will not be published nor have any significant impact. Moreover, exam papers and experimental field notebooks have to be hand written and a script that is nearly impossible to read is a serious problem as examiners will not give students the benefit of the doubt for illegible manuscripts.
Why are some of our students so poor at writing, grammar and punctuation? Do our curricula regard them as completely unimportant or are our young teachers unwilling or unable to teach them because they themselves lack the appropriate knowledge? Over the last 12 years that we have been tutoring one to one reading and writing skills at the Frog Pond we have noticed a steady decline in the ability of young school age children to write letters using correct formation techniques. This not only slows down writing and makes linking letters together impossible but also creates problems, including the infamous b and d confusion, that can often be avoided. The majority of pupils in remedial situations have basic gaps in both sides of their early literacy - that is in both reading and writing. Learning to read and write works so much better if it is a simultaneous situation where the child sees a natural progression from reading to writing and back again.
How wonderful it would be if Year 1 and 2 teachers were unburdened from a plethora of subject areas presently required in our curricula and instead they were encouraged to return to a situation where they have generous time allowances to dedicate to hand writing, reading and numeracy. Getting a solid, unhurried base in the first two years at school will be well worth the time spent and the pupils will be better prepared to absorb instruction in a wide variety of subjects throughout the rest of their lives.
As we often hear, reading to tiny children builds a love of books and stimulates an understanding of how a narrative should be communicated as well as building vocabulary and presenting sound examples of the structure of grammar. Encouraging children to keep on reading, once they know how, should be a major priority for parents - and there is a lot to be said for leading by example. Pukekohe has a great free library! At this stage it probably does not matter much what they read - comics, fishing magazines, endless horse stories or the adventures of steam engines, as long as they hold their attention. There are also the old classics that now are also available in revised forms using less arcane vocabulary. And there are now some wonderful New Zealand book series available, specifically focusing on keeping this particular age group reading. Parents should be trying to encourage their child to have a little bookshelf containing their favourite books.
As for apostrophes - whilst the rest of the world perversely continues to use them, we believe we need to keep teaching students how to use them properly!