I've been picking up the boys from daycare again

[conuly]

The younger one is 5 and a half now and going into kindy in September. One of the best things about that age is it provides such fodder for amateur armchair linguistics! (Linguistics is probably the only scientific field that sees more progress rather than less when its professionals become parents.) Today I caught him using a double modal: "We might can't walk fast, we should take a bus." (Nice try, kiddo, but your little legs can manage a ten minute walk.)

Are double modals common at his school/daycare? Or is he neologizing them because he's five? I haven't heard his mother use them, but maybe she does when she's at home? I have no idea, but now my ears are perked up and listening closely!

Also, I rather ambitiously offered to pick him up early and teach him how to read (or at least get him started with proper phonics) this summer. Wish me luck.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

double modal

Is that what the "might could" construction is called? I need to learn me more linguistics, clearly XD

[conuly]

It is.

[alexseanchai]

shiny

[nodrog]

Jeff Foxworthy, in his standup skits about Speaking Southern, points to “Yoosta coud” as vernacular usage.  Bench-press x pounds?  “Well, I used-to-could.  Let me train a bit, and I might-could again.”

[alexseanchai]

yeah I probs got that bit of personal linguistic oddity from growing up on the Gulf Coast

[cosmolinguist]

Linguistics is probably the only scientific field that sees more progress rather than less when its professionals become parents.

This made me laugh. It's a good point!

[nodrog]

It's true, too!

[The famous commercial for Maypo cereal (“I want my Maypo!”) was worked up from the ad man actually talking to his six-year-old son with a tape recorder running.  The suits at his agency, Fletcher Richards, Calkins & Holden, Inc were unimpressed by his avant-garde approach; commercials were supposed to be this, and must always include that (i e  voice-over narration and jingle-type music, both absent from the sixty-second spot)…  Until

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Want_My_Maypo

the result exploded.]

[conuly]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXnSe7MYPGM

[cissa]

Phonics don't necessarily work well for all kids. I know I couldn't "get" reading that way. (I'm dyslexic, which is relevant.)

Once I got the concept of seeing word shapes rather than letters, I became a reading fiend!

[dawnebeth]

Totally agree, also dyslexic. Phonics did not work for me at all, and to this day, I have a hard time sounding out a word I do not recognize.

On the could-might subject, my grown daughter is developmentally delayed but extremely verbal and social. She gets a phrase in her head and uses it to death, even when incorrect, so she always says "I might go there" or "We might do this or that..." when she means "I will do this" or "We will go there..." Makes all her comments sound as if there's doubt involved!

[conuly]

I gotta say, I'm quite interested in knowing exactly which curriculum(s) your various teachers tried, both of you. Mostly because I know from experience that a lot of people call this or that phonics when really it's mostly whole word, and before I jump on the no-phonics train I want to confirm that's not what happened to you two.

But odds of you having that information at the tip of your fingers seem slim to none.

[dawnebeth]

Admittedly, I went to first grade in the dark ages, where I suspect there was no phonics. I grasped reading in second grade because by then, I had some foundation in simple words and learned to memorize any word I saw as a full unit, without breaking it into parts. When my sister was learning swa and other phonics, my mother was sure this was what I should have had, and tried to push it on me. I lacked the ability to figure out the parts of a word--could only read a word after I had heard it said for another year or so, then I was the best reader in the school.

[conuly]

If it doesn't work then we'll cool it. Not the end of the world.

[gwydion]

Best of luck! Also, that's fascinating.

[magnetic_pole]

(Linguistics is probably the only scientific field that sees more progress rather than less when its professionals become parents.)

Hee!

I love that age when kids are so creative using language--grasping most of the rules and exceptions, but not quite. Good luck with the reading lessons! M.

[conuly]

It's such a great age for so many reasons. Five is the absolute best.