Word Hoards

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 Dear Kay,

Introduction

This is our third set of notes. Don’t forget, if you are doing well, in the eyes of your student and your Supervising Tutor, then that is what counts. However, a reminder or two can’t hurt and this one is about word-collections or word-hoards as the Anglo-Saxons called them.

Alphabetic Classifications

First, we are accustomed to the alphabetical classification of a dictionary. Indeed, the alphabetical order is so universal that we need to work on it with the student. There are several tunes to which you can sing the alphabet - your Supervising Tutor will lead a singsong at coffee break if you ask her. You need the alphabet not only for dictionaries but also for telephone directories, encyclopaedias, address-books and so on. But that is not the only way to classify collections of words.

The first way is simply for your student to have, either a box for cards with new words on, or an indexed notebook. The new words should be written initially in pencil, used for practice and only when they are known should they be inked over. In the notebook the classification is set up for you but the box of word-cards can be used for games (drill) in various ways, the simplest of which is arranging them in alphabetical order, and tracing over them or tracing them on the tabletop.

The old order to "Write it three times" in order to learn a word was not a bad one. Repeating the spelling aloud to learn a word is not a good idea: apparently what goes in, as in packing a box, is likely to come out first. Hence reversals, a typical symptom of dyslexia.

Topic Classifications

Other forms of classification are by topic. If you look in your local library (the Carnegie, if you are working there) then you will find, among the reference books, various Duden, or Picture Dictionaries. These are cross-indexed alphabetically at the end of the book but they consist of drawings, sometimes very detailed and technical of all manner of things - people, tools, machinery, garments, houses, ships and other things - all found in the real world.

Your student can build his own topic book, starting of with photographs or drawings of his family and home, his work and friends and interests. Assemble these in a scrapbook with a brief sentence under each and with arrows pointing to various parts of the photograph with words attached. You can introduce more abstract words such as kind, happy, worried, and begin to form definitions. This is a bit like turning a pound note into change with smaller coinage. You can introduce Social Sight words we all need to recognise, such as "Ladies," "Gents," "Stop," "Walk," and so on.

Other Classifications

Yet other dictionaries can contain synonyms (words meaning the same, or much the same), antonyms (opposites) rhymes, or, as in a thesaurus (treasury), lists of words with a range of meanings around a topic. The most famous Thesaurus is Roget’s.

It is as well to remember that you need to know the alphabetical order to use an index. If you go to a library (and of course at Carnegie you are in a library) you will find that the books and their catalogue are arranged in another order, devised by a man called Dewey. Within that classification the books are arranged alphabetically by author.

Conclusions

I think I’ve exhausted the various kinds of classification but if you can think of any others, or of any that have been used at any other time or in any other place, please let me know.

These collections, or the student’s own, can form the basis of revision (drill) by suggesting the student find a word he has already met. If he can, then he has stored an image in his memory. Don’t forget the need to link writing, or tracing on the table-top, with meaning, to reinforce new or forgotten words.

Am I telling you too much at once? Please let me know if these notes are useful or if you know their content already and would like to hear on some other topic.

Good luck, best wishes and success with your work.

Gladys Glascoe