Paragraph

So I work with young learners quite often right now (see also: snotty commentary and explosive questions), and I was recently reminded by one of them that when the brain is assimilating new information, it does so by trying to integrate the new information with already-known/understood things.

To wit:

We have been learning digraphs (ph sounds like /f/ for example) in writing. Digraphs.

So on a mid-year reading assessment (we’re halfway through the school year — huzzah!), the following exchange took place:

Kid (pointing to his screen): Mrs F, I don’t understand what this is telling me to do.

Me: Okay, read the sentence out loud to me.

Kid: It says, “Read the paragraph.”

Me: Right. So that’s what you do.

Kid: But I don’t know what a paragraph is! I know what a digraph is, but I don’t know what a paragraph is! How do I know which part to read?

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Me: How about if you just read the whole thing and then do your best to answer the questions?

Kid: But that’s so much WORK. It says to read the paragraph. I just want to read the paragraph.

The whole thing is just one paragraph.

Which he could have read in the time it took for this exchange to take place.

BUT

These are the hangups we encounter when we are trying to understand new things.

We say, “I know what __________ is, so therefore because __________ sounds/seems/looks similar, it must be related.”

And that is how we end up thinking that negligee and negligence are somehow intertwine-able. Or that – as my friend Wild once believed as a child – erotic and exotic are synonyms. 🙂

And y’know… It was a good reminder to me.

Learning is a process.

And sometimes our understanding (especially of words and their impact), even though it follows a certain sensible logic, is bound to be flawed.

Is it any wonder communication is so complicated?