Throughout my years of teaching reading, I have told my students, "If you are reading a story and come across a name you can't pronounce, just make one up that is close to it." This helps them to move past that sticky part and focus on the events in the story.
I even use this strategy myself. One of my classes has been reading the book, Grenade by Alan Gratz. It is a war story and is set in Okinawa. There are many Japanese names in it that I can't pronounce, so I make them up. The students see me struggle but move on.
I learned tonight that I do the same strategy but in a different situation.
Medicines!
I fill weekly pills for a relative, and he takes 10 different medicines. As I lined them up on the counter to begin dropping into morning, noon, evening, and bedtime spaces, I realized there was a new medicine that wasn't on his list.
I called my cousin, his sister, and asked her if she knew what this medicine was for.
"Can you tell me the name of it?'
"Sure...dragonfly."
"What?"
"Well, I can't pronounce it, but it kind of looks like dragonfly, so let's go that!"
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Hi Leigh Anne. I still use and have encouraged students to use this same strategy. When I was a kid, I could never figure out how to pronounce Penelope, so I said Penny Lope. I use that example to this day, although I've learned the proper pronunciation. The "dragonfly" named medicine made me chuckle.
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ReplyDeleteDiane (newtreemom)
ReplyDeleteI’ve said that, done that with character names. Never thought of it with medicine names! Could simplify things!