Jennie Sjursen 00:00
My child might go round and round about learning and using punctuation in their writing. It's exhausting. How important is it really that I get them to do this? I'm Jennie Sjursen. X special educator turned dyslexia interventionist. It wasn't so long ago, that I too, was overwhelmed by balanced literacy versus structured literacy, education speak, and everything in between. Fast forward after many, many hours of self driven education. And you'll see I've built a thriving dyslexia practice helping students from ages six to 18. My specialties, working with a quote unquote difficult almost always to the student, and breaking down the complexities of dyslexic to everyday language strategies and action steps.
Jennie Sjursen 00:50
I can hear you already groaning to yourself, Jennie, are we really got to talk about grammar and punctuation? And why is this important to my child, it just want them to learn how to read. As we've already talked about a few times all languages interwoven with each other. This means at its core, we can't pull apart speaking, reading and writing. They have a symbiotic and circular relationship. I recently read a book that referred to punctuation as the road signs to language. Punctuation provides us with directions and a path for understanding. In other words, grammar and punctuation provide clarity and understanding. Without them sentences can be ambiguous and hard to understand, leading to confusion or misunderstanding.
Jennie Sjursen 01:37
Take the well known example of let's eat grandma. A comma here is key. Let's eat comma. Grandma means something completely different than when there is no comma. Let's see grandma. Poor Grandma. That little comma is also vitally important when dealing with legal documents and contracts. Missing commas in a contract can lead to expensive litigation, damages for breach of contract and loss of business and profits.
Jennie Sjursen 02:11
Take for example, Lockheed Martin, in 1999, Lockheed Martin signed a contract to build Hercules aircraft for foreign Air Force. Since it takes years to build aircraft the contract included a formula for increasing the price of the aircraft to keep pace with inflation. But there was a common mistake. The formula used to calculate the future price for these aircraft contain a typo that misplaced the comma by one decimal point that missed place comma cost Lockheed Martin $70 million
Jennie Sjursen 02:48
so what are some ways you can help a dyslexic with their grammar and punctuation first to some parts of speech and parts of a sentence. You can incorporate colour and manipulatives by using Legos or sticky notes. So you put all the nouns on yellow, all the verbs on green and all the adjectives on purple, and so on. Once they have a grasp of the different parts, have them start putting sentences together using those Legos or sticky notes. This way, they can see how sentences are put together. Sentences are literally built, and the building materials are the different kinds of words and sentence parts.
Jennie Sjursen 03:26
I also love finding examples online of poor grammar and punctuation. The quirkier the funnier, the better. It's not too hard to find an image of a sign posted in a workplace or store. That does not mean what the writer originally intended. Purely because the sentences used wonky structure and poor punctuation. Then talk about it. What does it mean based on how it's actually written? How can we fix it so that it says what the writer originally intended?
Jennie Sjursen 03:58
And finally, talk about it. Talk about it talk about it. Dyslexics verbal comprehension is often miles ahead of their reading comprehension. So talking through the problem, while visually showing them is key. It also provides built in repetition. It's a natural way to weave that repetition Dyslexics need for learning written language.
Jennie Sjursen 04:20
If you have any further questions about dyslexia or grammar and punctuation, please feel free to sneak into my inbox. I'd also love your input. What would you like to hear from me in the future? Is there a topic I haven't covered yet? You really want to learn more about or do you have a pressing need and you're not really sure how to handle it or move forward? Send me a DM on Instagram or drop me an email at Jennie at literacy untangle.com That's je and n i e at literacy untangle.com I can't wait to hear from you. Until the next time. Bye bye. I hope you enjoyed this episode of literacy untangled if you love this episode as much as I did head on have earned rate and subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you want to continue the conversation or share your takeaways head on over to our Instagram at literacy untangled, and comment on your favourite part. I can't wait to hang out with you again soon. Bye
