INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 THEORETICAL PART
1.1 Different theories on syllabication process
1.2 The history and nature of syllable
1.3 Boundaries of the Syllable are Difficult to Measure
1.4 Conflicting Theories of the Syllable
CHAPTER 2 PRACTICAL PART
2.1 The research on teaching dictionary syllabication
2.2 Contributing Factors to Lack of Teaching Success
2.3 Pedagogical alternatives to dictionary syllabication
CONCLUSION
RECOMMEDATIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
The monograph “The Syllable: its Nature and Pedagogical Usefulness” of the researcher Patrick Groff, professor of Education San Diego State College, was written in 1971. The total amount of work is 171 pages. It consists of a small abstract, a table of contents, the main part consisting of 5 chapters and a list of literature. It is worth noting that chapter 5 is a summary The author uses the works of famous linguists and phoneticians such as Jones, Dolch, Gray, Anderson, Groff, Durrell, Schell, Hughes, Eliason, Hall, Tambre, Joos, Jacobson, Halle, Sapir and other recearchers.
In the abstract, the author gives us to know the main idea of the monograph.
This monograph reviews discussions of the nature of syllables, in order to determine the usefulness of the syllable as a tool in teaching children to read and spell. The author emphasizes that the teaching of dictionary syllabication does not result in consistently greater gains in reading and spelling.
In the first chapter, we can get acquainted with the main comments of advocates and adversaries of the syllabication process. In this chapter we will get acquainted with the opinions of many researchers.
In the second chapter, the author tells us about the history and nature of the syllable. From this we learn when the first syllables began to appear, as well as combinations of vowels and consonants. The author also defines the important steps in the development of written and spoken language. We can understand that the nature of the syllable is a recent discovery. In this chapter the author introduces us to the main statements that relate to the nature of the syllable. Here we learn about the different positions of vowel sounds, about their quantity in words, about the different opinions of linguists and phoneticians on this question. In the monograph the author also considers various theories that explain how to measure the boundaries of syllables.
CHAPTER 1 THEORETICAL PART
1.1 Different theories on syllabication process
In the first chapter, we can see the opinions of many teachers and teacher educators about the syllable and its role in the educational process. Many educationists feel that the way the dictionary syllabicates words is not only proper but should be taught to children as a means of speeding up their processes of learning to read and spell.
In the first chapter we also see the idea that the child should be taught that dividing words into syllables is helpful in learning the spellings of the words. The author gives us the example that the dictionary syllabication makes a student more pronunciation conscious and develops his or her analytical ability.
The author, citing other eminent educationists, notes that syllabication is a mandatory part of any thought process.
Further the author speaks about a sequential program, which was proposed be one of the researchers. According to this program, a child should follow this order:
• to vowel letters;
• to count the number of syllables in a word;
• to note which syllables were accented;
• to decide on which vowel rule would help him or her know this.
Many scientists agreed that any phonetic analysis of a word begins with the division of that word into syllables. The author says that once the word is correctly divided, phonetic generalizations can be applied to each syllable.
But the author notes that there are many researchers who didn’t support the idea of syllabication. They concluded that in reading a child seldom needed to divide a word into all of its syllables.
CHAPTER 2 PRACTICAL PART
2.1 The research on teaching dictionary syllabication
The author says that the role of teaching dictionary syllabication to help children learn to read and spell appears impressive. It seems quite logical in teaching reading and spelling to stress first, the basic components of these learning tasks, and then to teach the child to fit these pieces together to make up a whole.
The researcher notes that the force of psychological elements in the teaching of syllabication, and their transfer into how the child learns to read and spell, doubtless can be determined best through research on the matter.
The actual attempts to gain scientific evidence on the teaching of syllabication were begun over fifty years ago. Many scientists conducted various experiments. The author tells that the researchers used syllabication to teach spelling to twenty-six matched pairs of children in grades four through seven. They applied a test for statistical significance to the mean spelling scores of the intermediate grade pupils who they instructed using syllabic or nonsyllabic teaching of spelling. And the author notes that the linguists found no significant differences in the scores between the groups. Many researchers deny the hypothesis that a dictionary syllabic presentation of words yields greater gains in spelling than other teaching methods.
Also the author tells about many similar experiments. But according to the author, some research supporting the teaching of dictionary syllabication seems too faulty to be viewed with much confidence.
There have been many comments and opinions that purport to show the value of syllabication in teaching spelling and reading, but these, unfortunately, have not been documented with statistical data.
But the author explains that if the attention of children is given to certain spellings of words that these spellings will clue them as to which syllabic of which syllable in polysyllabic words is accented.
CONCLUSION
The monograph «The Syllable: Its Nature and Pedagogical Usefulness» deals with the description the true nature of the syllable as a means for determining its usefulness as a tool in teaching children to read and spell.
The author aims at studying the nature of syllables, their role in our life and also the advantages and disadvantages of the dictionary syllabication. It is important to understand that historical conceptions of the syllable and modern ones differ too much.
The author notes that the nature of the syllable is a highly controversial aspect of phonetics. There are many different descriptions and definitions of the syllable.
The author explains that the syllable can be described on the basis of its characteristics of stress or prominence. These features of the syllable involve pitch, duration, loudness, sonority, juncture, contour tones.
We also should understand that that some phoneticians believe that sonority, stress, and prominence can be converted into an acoustically meaningful statement only by means of mechanical recordings by the spectrograph.
The author explains that the syllable has a physiological nature rather than linguistic or acoustical.
Also the researchers think that it is very difficult to define the syllabic boundaries.
The next point is that many linguists and phoneticians don’t support dictionary syllabication which is based on true or defensible descriptions of the boundaries of the syllable. These writers have contended that dictionary syllabication rules are proper and should be taught to children as a means of teaching them to read and spell. Linguists see the rules of dictionary syllabication as irrelevant to an accurate description of the syllable.
Many researchers believe that the syllable is the irreducible unit of speech. Speech sounds only come to life as they are spoken in syllables.
The author also describes the arguments of the linguists and phoneticians over the statement that English is a stressed-time language. They think that a syllable is given a certain stress in English because of its position in the sequence of syllables in a given utterance.
RECOMMEDATIONS
On the base of above mentioned information the author tries to promote new ways that teachers should view the syllable; and what they should do with these perceptions in their instruction to children. The author proves that we need to find some better and additional ways and to help children learn to read and spell the words.
The author says that teaching rules that correspond to some selected dictionary syllabication of words is not worth the effort.
The author thinks that bringing to children's attention an important element of our language, the phenomena of the syllable, cannot but helps them in spelling and reading. The author proposes to use free-wheeling syllabication which might also prove to be useful in reading instruction, that is, going from spelling to sound.
The author thinks that there are no apparent reasons why the advocates of the language experience approach to reading and spelling teaching should not encourage the use of the recurrent spelling, phonogram, or graphoneme systems of word analysis.
The author draws our attention to one advantage of the graphoneme approach which is its concern with the utility of words. It seems more likely to use critical, high-frequency words even though they may be irregularly spelled or not follow graphoneme patterns.
The author states that the evidence gathered in this monograph reveals to us the immediate need for further research into the syllable pertaining to its usefulness in teaching children to read and spell.
The author notes that this topic is very important and relevant. He believes that it is necessary to consider this problem deeper and deeper, and also it is necessary to find new approaches to the concept of syllabication.
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