Episode 35-Why and when do we teach grammar?

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Maggie. [00:00:01] Speaker B: And I'm Nicole. Welcome to the DAC Dyslexia and Coffee Podcast. We're so happy you could join us. We're both moms and dyslexia interventionists who want to talk about our students and children. What dyslexia is, how it affects our kids, strategies to help and topics related to other learning disabilities will also be covered in this podcast. Parents are not alone, and we want to give voice to the concerns and struggles we are all having. This is a safe place to learn more about how to help our children grow and succeed in the school and the world. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the conversation. [00:00:36] Speaker A: Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 35 of Dyslexia and Coffee Podcast. We're so excited. This just feels really fun to say. Like, 35. That seems like a lot of episodes. We like to start all of our episodes with the concept of. Of the week. So the concept of the week is our opportunity as practitioners to kind of peel back the curtain a little bit and let everybody into an intervention session. Today's concept of the week is grammar. So grammar is the system of a language. It includes syntax, morphology, semantics, which is meaningful, and even phonology. Grammar is the rules that govern how we put words together to form phrases and sentences, you know, even paragraphs and longer. Discourse. There is spoken grammar as well as written grammar. [00:01:41] Speaker B: Yes. So today's topic is why and when do we teach grammar? [00:01:46] Speaker A: Yes. [00:01:47] Speaker B: Which is very important. [00:01:49] Speaker A: Very important. I was just actually having a conversation with a mom who I have been seeing this student for quite a while, over a year, actually. And the mom asked me, so when do you talk about grammar? Like, is that something you guys address here or not? I was kind of taken aback a little. Well, we absolutely do teach grammar, and we teach it exactly like we teach everything else, very explicitly and systematically. It is absolutely part of what is necessary in terms of structured literacy. And so, yes, we absolutely teach it. [00:02:44] Speaker B: So, like Maggie said, we explicitly teach grammar. And why do we do that? Well, it's one of the building blocks of writing. Right. Students need to be able to complete their written expression in order to progress through academia. Academia and life. Oh, goodness. [00:03:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, think about how many wants and needs are delivered via written expression. Like we said earlier, grammar does not necessarily have to be written. We do very much teach written grammar rules here, but either write email, text messages, letter of recommendations, or recognition, job descriptions, resumes, possibilities really are endless here. [00:03:44] Speaker B: Correct. [00:03:45] Speaker A: Anytime we're engaging in any kind of written expression or discourse, grammar is Necessary. [00:03:54] Speaker B: Right. And we live in a world where communication in written form is important for everyday life. Right. [00:04:01] Speaker A: Students. [00:04:02] Speaker B: Students need to be able to write in a structured and understandable way. And teaching grammar starts just like reading and just basic writing. We start with the foundational concepts and then build upon them. [00:04:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. So kind of like I said earlier, we teach grammar in the exact same way we teach anything else in structured literacy. We explicitly teach something using very simple definitions that are age appropriate. The teaching is systematic. We start with the most simple and we move to the more complex and we make it multi sensory. We incorporate visual and auditory and kinesthetic inputs. So the same way we're teaching phonics concepts, we're teaching grammar concepts as well. [00:04:54] Speaker B: Correct. We also apply it after we teach it, just like we do with our reading interventions. So why do students need to learn grammar? [00:05:09] Speaker A: Yeah, so so many reasons. Thinking and understanding. So assembling thoughts into logical sentences. It requires knowledge of syntax, which is kind of word usage. Gaining meaning from complex sentences requires knowledge of clause structure. What is a subordinating clause versus write? Our coordinating conjunctions. There are rules to the way we put words together for speaking and for writing. And also different rules about formal or not formal. There are different rules if you're just texting your mom versus communicating with a boss. [00:06:05] Speaker B: Correct. Yeah. [00:06:07] Speaker A: All of that is encompassed. [00:06:10] Speaker B: Right. Writing a letter to your friend and throwing it across the room is different than writing a paragraph for your teacher that you're going to get graded on. [00:06:18] Speaker A: Mostly because of the folding. [00:06:19] Speaker B: Yes. [00:06:19] Speaker A: Right. Wow. That dates us. Right? [00:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:26] Speaker A: That's not happening in classrooms anymore. What a tragedy. [00:06:31] Speaker B: And also, understanding syntax really helps enhance reading comprehension. So it's also going back to that reading comprehension, which is what we want students to be able to do automatically. [00:06:47] Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean, one of the things that Nicole and I have both kind of harped on, I think in this podcast, and here I am about to beat the drum one more time. We have talked about how it is so important that what we teach for decoding, we turn right around and we teach for encoding. So whatever. Teaching for reading, we're teaching for spelling. Spelling immediately. The same thing is going when we're teaching something for reading comprehension, we should be teaching it for composition, the writing piece. Those two things are very reciprocal processes. So working on one feeds the other. And working on the writing. The composition piece feeds that reading comprehension piece. [00:07:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So talking more about the writing. So more sophisticated writing is dependent on students ability to use grammar structure to form compound, complex. Compound and complex sentences, which Enhances their writing. [00:08:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And just from a. Listening and speaking, knowing grammatical structures enhances oral language, not only their production, but also their comprehension. So being able to listen to a speaker who uses complex grammatical structures. [00:08:19] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:20] Speaker A: That's incredibly important. It's one of the reasons that we want people to be listening to people read out loud, being aware of regional dialects. Right. That all kind of speaks to grammar. [00:08:35] Speaker B: Well. And apparently there's so many words I do not understand that my teenager is using that apparently are now very common. [00:08:46] Speaker A: Yes. [00:08:46] Speaker B: And I was like, and if you. [00:08:49] Speaker A: Don'T understand, you are in the dust. [00:08:54] Speaker B: Yes. [00:08:55] Speaker A: Yes. It's quite a problem. [00:09:00] Speaker B: It is. Yes. I kind of look at her and be like, apparently awesome isn't awesome anymore. Who knew? Yeah. I'm dating myself again, but I am. [00:09:14] Speaker A: Not equipped for the current. I. I am officially an old person when it comes to the lexicon of the teenagers that I just. I felt like, because I worked with teenagers, I felt like I kind of tread water for quite some time. And here is where the road ends for me. And I no longer have a robust understanding of what my students are saying. It does give me a little grace for what that, like, child who struggles with this kind of stuff is feeling truly. When they're still sharing and going, I don't. I really don't understand. Not only do I not understand the words you're saying, I don't understand how you are putting them together. [00:10:06] Speaker B: Correct. [00:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:09] Speaker B: Yes. So some examples of grammar things that we would teach would be what a noun is, what a pronoun is, a verb, an adverb, adjective, preposition, conjunction, interjunction. Does anybody remember what those all are? Because that's the thing, too, for some of us who. [00:10:31] Speaker A: Of those parts of speech. Yep. Right. That's. That's where we generally would start when we're introducing grammatical concepts, those kind of. That. The big eight. Right. The big eight parts of speech. You know, I am absolutely not above pulling in the good old Schoolhouse Rock. Teach those conjunctions, Right. Conjunction functions, Right. [00:10:56] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:10:57] Speaker A: Yes. Those are really important. And that's. We can start especially with those nouns and verbs. Right. We're going to start really at the beginning. This is kind of where and when to teach grammar. We're going to teach it right alongside everything else that we're teaching. [00:11:19] Speaker B: Correct and direct instruction really requires a lot of practice, and we should not move on until it's automatic, just like decoding and encoding. We don't move on if they don't understand what a noun is. You don't just jump to the pronoun and something else then. [00:11:38] Speaker A: And we don't take for granted that they might know what a noun. [00:11:43] Speaker B: Right. Not all of our students don't. Yeah. [00:11:47] Speaker A: And even if they can tell you a noun is a person, place, or thing, that doesn't automatically mean they can apply that knowledge. [00:11:54] Speaker B: Correct. [00:11:55] Speaker A: I have been surprised more than once when a student really. They can name it, they can define it, but they really can't identify a noun or a verb in an actual sentence. In an actual sentence. Yeah, yeah. You know, and those are our students who then can't really turn around and write a complete sentence either. [00:12:18] Speaker B: Correct. [00:12:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is why we practice. Practice, Practice. [00:12:24] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and we're, we're linking it immediately to that application. So as soon as we introduce or define a part of speech, we incorporate it at the sentence level. We can do this. Right. With our dictated sentences, which are part of every single lesson. We can turn around and say, what's the noun in that sentence? What's the verb? Can we choose a different verb? You know, it's one of those ways that we can write in the lesson exactly what we're doing. It's not extra. I think sometimes I'm getting questions from parents that are like, can you incorporate these, like, extra things? And I, I, my answer is always, well, it's, it's part of it. Right. I don't consider it extra. Do I want them to get even more practice? Yeah. Yeah. And that way, I guess it's extra, but it's not. [00:13:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:26] Speaker A: It's not something outside of our structured literacy lessons. It's inside of them. It's part of it. [00:13:36] Speaker B: Right. And really, the goal of grammar is effective writing and enhanced reading comprehension. Because, I mean, thinking about if you miss a comma in a sentence, it changes what the meaning of that sentence would be. [00:13:49] Speaker A: Yes. [00:13:50] Speaker B: And that can really confuse somebody. [00:13:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:53] Speaker B: Or have them completely misunderstand the entire passage that they're reading. [00:13:59] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. You know, understanding how each word fits in a sentence should be automatic for students. That's what we want to get to. One of the early ways that we introduce parts of speech is when we're talking about derivational suffix. So derivational suffix are those suffix that we add to end of words. And their job is actually to change the part of speech or the tense of a verb. So isn't that there's something additional happening, it's that they're kind of changing the base word itself, how we're going to use it in a sentence. So an Example, very early on, we're going to teach suffix s. So when we introduce suffix s, we introduce the idea of a noun and plural nouns. [00:15:02] Speaker B: Right. [00:15:02] Speaker A: Because that is the job of that suffix most often is to bake something more than one. And we're going to talk about that. That's a thing, right? So that's a noun. Yes, we're linking that right away. For students, there's no need to wait to introduce the idea of parts of speech. I think that is a mistake that some signs of reading programs do. They are like, no, no, no, no, no. We have to do all of the phonics concepts first before we turn around and teach the grammar piece. And I think that's a real mistake and not founded in research also, just by the way, everybody, that's not what research tells us we should be doing. [00:15:53] Speaker B: Yeah. So for many students with dyslexia, understanding sentence structure by diagramming can be extremely beneficial. What is diagramming? You're using, like a visual to show the different parts of speech. It can be colorful, it can be organized, it can. It can go different ways. It's a nice picture. [00:16:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it, you know, picture. Most of us can kind of close our eyes and picture like maybe a sixth or seventh grade English class. Right. Where we were kind of diving deep in. In grammar, you know, we would have like a line, right. With kind of a slash. And on the left side of the line is kind of the subject of the sentence. And on the right side of the line is kind of that. That predicate, the action part of the sentence. Sentence. And then all the rest of the words are arranged. Does it relate to the subject? Does it relate to the predicate? We can do that with cards. I've done it with sticky notes. There's a lot of different cool ways to do this. Just having students circle different parts of speech or identify them in the sentence that either they have read or have written is a really good multi sensory way to get at this. It was kind of cool. My mother and father in law were cleaning out some things that belonged to my father in law's grandparents. Yeah. And they had found some old school books that were from the 1920s. They were, I believe, my father in law's aunt's books. [00:17:44] Speaker B: Okay. [00:17:45] Speaker A: And they were from the 1920s. And one of them was a grammar book. [00:17:50] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:17:51] Speaker A: And they just were like, I wonder if you, you know, I wonder if Maggie would be interested in this because it's, you know, and I was, I was very interested in it. And it was really cool. I Opened it up and there were diagramming sentences the exact same way I teach it still. Right. It has. It has not. It has not changed. And the recommendation in the book was exactly that, was to kind of cut out some paper and to like paste these words onto a tablet. [00:18:30] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:18:31] Speaker A: Which I thought was. [00:18:32] Speaker B: That's really cool. [00:18:33] Speaker A: Really cool. Yeah, that was pretty cool. [00:18:38] Speaker B: So I don't. This might be also making me show my age, but Mad Libs, I don't know if you've ever played with Mad Libs when you were younger, but that was really popular when I was younger. And it was actually us learning how to use all these things in a sentence. Right. Because you would have to go under input. Oh, in the sentence, put it down. And then this one you put a verb and over here you put a adjective. And then it was really funny because you would just pick things that were random and then you would read those sentences and you'd be like, that doesn't make any sense. [00:19:19] Speaker A: Yes, but they were always so much fun. [00:19:23] Speaker B: And that is a great way to practice too, right? To show these different parts of speech. [00:19:30] Speaker A: Yes, they are really fun. I've even kind of created my own for students. That's a really good way. Once. Once you kind of. Once you have introduced a certain part of speech, you know, I've made ones where the only fill in the blanks are a noun or a verb. [00:19:47] Speaker B: Oh, cool. [00:19:48] Speaker A: You know, so if you don't have that adjective adverb yet, then you can. Then you can do it that way. And I mean, it is. It is really fun and really funny. We can talk about all the kind of crazy. Like that sentence made absolutely no sense. [00:20:09] Speaker B: But what word would have made sense? And then you're having them really problem solve those words and trying to figure out what would fit in that sentence, which is kind of a. A neat way also to get them to think a little bit deeper. [00:20:23] Speaker A: I really loved. I had a conversation with a student this week that she's in sixth grade and she. She doesn't always love coming. [00:20:35] Speaker B: Isn't that the weirdest thing? [00:20:37] Speaker A: Strange. Yeah. She doesn't always love being here. It's the weirdest thing. I don't. I just can't imagine why. But she was saying that they are doing a unit in grammar in class. And she was like, I felt really, really good about myself because we have already worked on a lot of the parts of speech here in the office that they were reinforcing at school. [00:21:06] Speaker B: Okay. [00:21:07] Speaker A: And she said she was the only one in class who didn't have to use Grammarly to check her work. [00:21:14] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:21:15] Speaker A: She had it correct. You know, and then we had a really good conversation about how I think Grammarly is a great tool. [00:21:24] Speaker B: Right? [00:21:24] Speaker A: Just like I think spellcheck is a great tool. Just like I think all of that technology is an awesome tool, but it is not a replacement for the underlying knowledge. [00:21:39] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:40] Speaker A: And I. I use Grammarly all the time. I think it's great. It has. It has made my writing stronger, but it is not a replacement for basically understanding the rules that govern how we use our language. [00:21:56] Speaker B: So I thought that was because they're not foolproof. [00:22:00] Speaker A: They're not foolproof. And if you don't understand the rules is. It's no different than if you. If you are not well versed in using spellcheck, and it's giving you two words that really kind of look the same to you because you don't understand either one of them. It's not a good tool then, because you don't have enough of the basic understanding. It's not a do it for you tool. [00:22:27] Speaker B: Right. [00:22:28] Speaker A: And it's not going to replace your fundamental knowledge. But I thought it was a really cool reflection of my student that, yeah, she felt like, yeah, she didn't need the Grammarly, which really, she was like, everybody else basically was cheating the teacher. That was not endorsed by the teacher as a strategy. But she was like, no, I was the only one in the class who really didn't have to cheat. I knew it. I could do it. And I was correct. And I was like, that's pretty awesome. [00:23:06] Speaker B: That is awesome. [00:23:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:09] Speaker B: So interjections, maybe we should define that because I don't think a lot of people actually know what those are. [00:23:17] Speaker A: Yes. So an interjection, one of the parts of speech, Right. Is any kind of word that interrupts a sentence. So in dialogue, right. If somebody says, oh, Johnny, that oh, is. Is an interjection. And wow. Yes. All of those. Or anytime. We're going to use an onomatopoeia, one of my absolute favorites. That is also going to be an introduction, something that interrupts the normal flow of either speech or paragraph structure. [00:23:58] Speaker B: Nice. [00:23:58] Speaker A: Yeah, they do struggle with that one. And conjunctions are very hard. [00:24:04] Speaker B: That one's a very hard one, too. [00:24:05] Speaker A: Yeah. The idea of a conjunction, just even the fanboys, right. Just even those coordinating conjunctions. That can be incredibly tricky for our students. That is. That one's hard. [00:24:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it is hard. Yeah. [00:24:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, a lot of times when I'm teaching parts of speech, I Absolutely want them to know the names, like noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun. I want them to know those. But the more important part is what is the function of that word? [00:24:44] Speaker B: Right. [00:24:45] Speaker A: So if I really have a student who's just not grasping. Right. Noun, verb, adjective, adverb. Okay, how is that functioning in the sentence? Is this a who, what? Or is this an action or is this a description? Sometimes it's getting them to identify a word by its function is a easier way to access the parts of speech and access the grammar rules. It is sometimes easier to attack it that way. Okay, what is this word's function? And then we can tie it back to parts of speech. [00:25:30] Speaker B: That's a great idea. [00:25:32] Speaker A: And something you can be doing at home, if that is. If you come across a word in a sentence right when you're reading to your kid and they don't understand the word, you could ask them, what do you think that word's job is? Is it a who or what? Is it an action or is it a description? [00:25:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think the other thing that we explicitly teach you is the difference between formal and informal writing. Yes. If you're writing to a friend or something that's a little bit. Or a text message or even an email to a friend, that might be a little bit more informal. But if you're writing a paper or if you're doing a job description or if you're writing something to, like a grant proposal, you need to be writing in a way that is not. That is formal and not informal. And you don't use certain words. Like, you can't use contractions in a formal. Well, you shouldn't. [00:26:35] Speaker A: And also, cuz. [00:26:36] Speaker B: Cuz instead of. [00:26:41] Speaker A: It's not a word, guys. Yeah, it's not a word. [00:26:44] Speaker B: So just being aware that some of those things that we say. [00:26:49] Speaker A: Yes. [00:26:50] Speaker B: Are not as formal as what you have to sometimes write too. That's explicitly taught too, because honestly, not everybody understands that. [00:27:01] Speaker A: Yes, very much. Very much. I was pleased. A different student story. One of my young young men, he is over 18, so officially an adult. But he came in. I've been seeing him for a little while now, and I wouldn't say he was all the way bought in. Right. In the. In the beginning, he kind of was begrudgingly here. But I asked him the other day, you know, what have you noticed? First of all, I've seen a big change in his demeanor. When he comes in, he's really ready to walk. There's definitely a. Okay. Something has clicked in this young guy lately that he's just more engaged, more apt to practice all those things. And he said, well, when I get text messages from my friends now, I actually know what they're talking about and I feel like I can actually write them back because I actually get what they're saying. [00:28:11] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:28:12] Speaker A: And I can engage in just everyday conversation. So sometimes what we're working on, yeah, we're working on academic things. Don't get me wrong at all, please nobody hear me say I don't work on academics here. But sometimes just those very, very functional things are overlooked. And that's what actually changes this kid's life. He's, he's done with high school. He is not intending to do at the moment, any other kind of formal school. Maybe someday, you know, I'm hoping he's leaving the door open to that. But what is changing his life is. No, I can answer my friend back and I can understand what my friend is talking about when he's texting me. And now I feel more comfortable applying for a job because I never really felt comfortable actually even doing that before, but now I do. [00:29:08] Speaker B: That's amazing. [00:29:09] Speaker A: So it's like, yeah, that it really, it blew me away. I mean often I'm blown away by my students insights. I really, I can't predict what's going to change their world. Right. I really, I can't because it's going to be different for every kid and every person that I work with. But it was kind of astounding to me that like, yeah, actually I can, I can read texts from my friends and I understand what they're talking about. I get we want to meet here at this time and do this, which is really all we're talking about. But I didn't get it before. I didn't have enough skills. [00:29:49] Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah, it's amazing when the light bulb goes off. [00:29:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. It really is. [00:29:55] Speaker B: So what is happening beyond dyslexia? [00:29:58] Speaker A: Yeah, so lots of stuff as we've kind of talked about before, DAC has some very, very big news. We have a partnership with a non profit organization. We have formed what we are calling the Read and Succeed Project. And the Read and Succeed Project, basically a scholarship fund. So what we are aiming to do is pay for structured literacy instruction for students who cannot afford our services but really, really need them. So as part of this project, I have been flexing my writing skills lately and dusting off some very formal writing that it, it's been a little while since I've really had to do this kind of writing. And I've been doing a lot of it lately, so it has kind of put me in a humbled position. You know, it gives me a lot of compassion for when my students are really not actually understanding what I'm trying to teach them and what we're trying to work on. You know, it also is. It's a really good reminder that this stuff is complex and it requires a lot of brain work. Even if you are automatic. [00:31:24] Speaker B: Right. [00:31:25] Speaker A: It still is. It still is an awful lot of work and totally worth doing, but a lot of work nonetheless. [00:31:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point. [00:31:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:37] Speaker A: What about you, Nicole? [00:31:39] Speaker B: Um, we've recently gone to a Brewers game. We're a very big brewers fan. Obviously, we're in Wisconsin. We went with our children's school, so it was really a lot of fun, but it was really too long for our son. Our son's 9, and he has some pretty. Pretty intense ADHD. He does not sit for that long. And because we were with a group, we weren't able to pick where we sat, so we were in the middle of a row, and that was not good for him because we could not get up as many times as he needed. So, you know, usually when we get to pick the seats, we pre plan and we get the aisle seats because we know we're going to be up. And this just really reminded me of that need to pre plan with some of our students because they have to be able to get up and move and not have to disturb everybody else around them. And being in a public place like that, it's a lot more difficult if you don't have that area that you need to be in. Yeah, so I hear you. [00:32:52] Speaker A: I have been there many times. Yeah. [00:32:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Those middle rules, those are hard. [00:32:58] Speaker A: They are hard. Well, thank you, everybody, for listening. Please follow us on social media and reach out if you have any questions or would like us to discuss a topic. We are always looking for your input. Starting to get a little. Which is awesome. Please do reach out. If you do like our show, be sure to follow and give our show a rating on your favorite podcast player. That is how we reach more listeners and get to help more families. Thank you, everybody. [00:33:29] Speaker B: And if you want to donate to the Read and Succeed project, you can go to the Dyslexia Achievement center website and there's. All you have to do is put your information in and you automatically get an email for your taxes. So, thank you for listening. [00:33:43] Speaker A: Thank you.