Monthly Archives: July 2022

Term of Art: Syllabication

Posted on July 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

“syllabication: The process of dividing words into syllables. Syllabication is a popular word attack strategy taught to individuals with reading problems. Many phonics and structured reading programs teach syllabication.

In English, there are six types of syllables and five principles of syllabication that describe how and where to break a word apart. The six types of syllables include

  1. closed: short vowel followed by a consonant (con, pan, dis)
  2. open: ends in a single long vowel (de, o, fi)
  3. silent ‘e’: long vowel/consonant/silent ‘e’ (hive, ete, ode)
  4. R-controlled: vowel followed by an ‘r’ (ur, fir, cer)
  5. double vowel: any two vowels that make one sound (poor, ear, ay)
  6. consonant ‘le’: found at the end of a word with a consonant (kle, dle, ple)”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

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Cultural Literacy: Air Quality Index

Posted on July 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the air quality index that reminds us every day that we have chosen to use the atmosphere of this planet, as I believe Kurt Vonnegut once put it, as a toilet; This his a half-page worksheet with a reading of three simple sentences and two comprehension questions.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Write It Right: Critically for Seriously

Posted on July 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Critically for Seriously. ‘He has long been critically ill.’ A patient is critically ill only at the crisis of his disease.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Disillusion (vt)

Posted on July 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb disillusion; it’s used only transitively, so don’t forget your direct object: you must disillusion someone. This word means, simply, “to free from illusion” or “to cause to lose naive faith and trust,” which is the meaning the context in the sentences in these worksheets implies–so students should infer that.

Incidentally, I don’t know about you, but I have always been circumspect about disillusioning students. It seems like a big responsibility that should be accepted carefully.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Blasphemy

Posted on July 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Blasphemy (noun): Language or an expression that flouts the name of god or religious sensibilities; irreverence or cursing; an offensively impious expression. Adj. blasphemous; adv. blasphemously; n. blasphemer; v. blaspheme.

‘He was quite aware that a number of the men saying their prayers were also watching him closely with murder in their eyes, and it seemed to stimulate him to fresh feats of imaginative blasphemy.’

Katherine Anne Porter, Ship of Fools”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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Common English Verbs Followed by Gerunds: Explain

Posted on July 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the verb explain as it is used with a gerund. I’ve explained my doubting the value of these documents.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Taxonomy

Posted on July 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

“taxonomy: In biology, the classification of organisms into a hierarchy of groupings, from the general to the particular, that reflect evolutionary and usually morphological relationships: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. The black-capped chickadee, for example, is an animal (kingdom Animalia) with a dorsal nerve cord (phylum Cordata) and feathers (class Aves: birds) that perches (order Passeriformes: perching birds) and is small with a short bill (family Paridae). a song that sounds like ‘chik-a-dee’ (genus Parus) and a black-capped head (species atricapillus). Most authorities recognize five kingdoms: monerans (prokaryotes), protists, fungi (see fungus), plants, and animals. Carl Linnaeus established the scheme of using Latin generic and specific names in the mid-18th century; his work was extensively revised by later biologists.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Blood

Posted on July 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on blood along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet if you health or life sciences teachers can use them.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Thomas Henry Huxley to Samuel Wilberforce on Charles Darwin

Posted on July 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

[Replying to Bishop Samuel Wilberforce in their debate on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, Oxford, England, 30 June 1860:] “A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a man—a man of restless and versatile intellect—who, not content with an equivocal success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them with an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious prejudice.”

Quoted in Leonard Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (1900)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Word Root Exercise: Tax/o

Posted on July 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word root tax/o. It means, simply, arrangement. So of course you’ll find this root at the base of words like taxonomy and syntax–both included on this document. However, you’ll also find on this document some scientific words, e.g. geotaxis, phyllotaxis, and thermotaxis, that are not exactly part of the vernacular.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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