My 7 Year Old Reads Dickens While College Students Need Remedial English
Is the reason the most underappreciated subject in school?
If My 7 Year Old Can Read and Understand Dickens, Why Do College Students Need Remedial English?
Much has been written about the ever declining capacity of college students to read literature. This article in the Atlantic details one professor’s experience (excerpt below).
Why are college students struggling like this? The reason is wrapped up in perhaps the most underappreciated subject in school….
Grammar.
Most think of grammar as where to put the commas in all those clauses. You are not wrong, but you’re also not right.
Grammar has many components, but they can generally be placed into two categories: linguistic grammar and punctuation grammar. Linguistic grammar is sentence construction and deconstruction, i.e., making and understanding language. Punctuation grammar is taking language and putting it into written form - including things like commas.
Critically, kids need a clear understanding of linguistic grammar prior to learning punctuation grammar.
This is where the story gets interesting.
Grammar has two distinct categories, but school STOPPED training one of them!
Let me explain.
For typically developing children, learning to speak their native language requires no specific instruction. As long as they are around language, they will learn how to speak with appropriate and in many cases quite sophisticated grammar. The reason my 7 year old can understand Dickens is because she’s grown up listening (and reading) classic literature with not just high level vocabulary but also complex, and in some cases, antiquated sentence construction.
Want them to be able to read people who wrote in the 1700s? They have to read people who wrote in the 1700s - shocking, I know…
The human brain is incredibly talented at picking up speech patterns. Children who are exposed to proper and appropriate grammatical construction of their language will innately begin to speak with the appropriate grammatical rules.
So what’s the conclusion?
Kids don’t need more grammar lessons, they need more great books!
🚨Ah… but the story isn’t over!
Reading great books alone won’t teach your children to be able to WRITE like Dickens or Hemingway.
For that, they need Punctuation Grammar!
Unlike linguistic grammar, punctuation grammar is NOT an innate skill and must be explicitly taught. Just like reading and writing, it is true that a small percentage of children will pick up these skills on their own, but the vast majority of kids require explicit instruction.
The good news is if linguistic grammar has been extensively trained through reading of complexly constructed and beautiful literature, punctuation grammar is much easier to teach.
The reason schools have to work so hard at teaching grammar is because they stopped training linguistic grammar when they stopped reading children great literature.
In conclusion, 2 Steps to Exceptional Readers & Writers
Read your children great books from every era and watch their linguistic grammar improve - almost like magic.
Find a short, sweet punctuation grammar course. My favorite is listed below for paid members.
If you follow this path, your children won’t just be able to read better than a lot of college students, they’ll LOVE and REVEL in the beauty of language.
ClarifiEd is 100% supported by you - not ads, not grants - just you. If you’d like to support me, please consider becoming a paid member.
If you liked this post, you might also like👉 The PhD Preschooler: Teaching Advanced Cognitive Skills to Kids
My Favorite Grammar Program…👇
This program can be done in 10 mins a day, 4 days a week. My oldest often stacks them onto a single day. Great for homeschoolers and for parents who want to supplement at home.