GRAMMAR FOR READING

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GRAMMAR FOR READING

• Geoff Barton
• Saturday, April 20, 2013

www.geoffbarton.co.uk
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• Grammar for reading is
• About reading, not grammar
• Based on a rich variety of texts
• Rooted in reading for pleasure
• Not about analysis
• Always linked to writing

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• Grammar for reading is
• About reading, not grammar
• Based on a rich variety of texts
• Rooted in reading for pleasure
• Not about analysis
• Always linked to writing

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England won the first corner straight off in the
first minute, and from the clearance coming out,
Gazza fired in a rocket of a volley that looked
to be just curving wide but Illgner lunged to
push it away anyhow, and we had a second corner.
And then we had a third our football was
surging and relentless we were playing like the
Germans did, and the Germans didnt like it.
Bruises and knocks, sore joints and worn limbs,
forget it theres no end to the magic hope can
work. Wright had Klinsmann under wraps Waddle
released Parker, Beardsley went through once, and
then again Hassler took the Germans first
serious strike, and it deflected away from Pearce
for their first corner but Butcher towered up,
and headed away. Then Wright picked a through
ball off Klinsmanns feet the German looked
angry and rattled. You could feel their pace,
their threat but still we had them, and the
first phase was all England. No question
England could win this. The press box was
buzzing. Gazza tangled with Brehme he got
another shot in, then broke to the left corner,
won a free-kick Lets all have a disco Lets
all have a disco. It was more than a disco, it
was history.
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England won the first corner straight off in the
first minute, and from the clearance coming out,
Gazza fired in a rocket of a volley that looked
to be just curving wide but Illgner lunged to
push it away anyhow, and we had a second corner.
And then we had a third our football was
surging and relentless we were playing like the
Germans did, and the Germans didnt like it.
Bruises and knocks, sore joints and worn limbs,
forget it theres no end to the magic hope can
work. Wright had Klinsmann under wraps Waddle
released Parker, Beardsley went through once, and
then again Hassler took the Germans first
serious strike, and it deflected away from Pearce
for their first corner but Butcher towered up,
and headed away. Then Wright picked a through
ball off Klinsmanns feet the German looked
angry and rattled. You could feel their pace,
their threat but still we had them, and the
first phase was all England. No question
England could win this. The press box was
buzzing. Gazza tangled with Brehme he got
another shot in, then broke to the left corner,
won a free-kick Lets all have a disco Lets
all have a disco. It was more than a disco, it
was history.
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The Life of Charles Dickens Chapter 1 CHARLES
DICKENS, the most popular novelist of the
century, and one of the greatest humorists that
England has produced, was born at Lanport, in
Portsea, on Friday, the seventh of February,
1812. His father, John Dickens, a clerk in the
navy pay-office, was at this time stationed in
the Portsmouth Dockyard. He had made
acquaintance with the lady, Elizabeth Barrow, who
became afterwards his wife, through her elder
brother, Thomas Barrow, also engaged on the
establishment at Somerset House, and she bore him
in all a family of eight children, of whom two
died in infancy. The eldest, Fanny (born 1810),
was followed by Charles (entered in the baptismal
register of Portsea as Charles John Huffham,
though on the very rare occasions when he
subscribed that name he wrote Huffam) by another
son, named Alfred, who died in childhood by
Letitia (born 1816) by another daughter,
Harriet, who died also in childhood by Frederick
(born 1820) by Alfred Lamert (born 1822) and by
Augustus (born 1827).
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DICKENS CHARLES DICKENS was dead. He lay on a
narrow green sofa but there was room enough for
him, so spare had he become in the dining room
of Gads Hill Place. He had died in the house
which he had first seen as a small boy and which
his father had pointed out to him as a suitable
object of his ambitions so great was his
fathers hold upon his life that, forty years
later, he had bought it. Now he had gone. It
was customary to close the blinds and curtains,
thus enshrouding the corpse in darkness before
its last journey to the tomb but in the dining
room of Gads Hill the curtains were pulled apart
and on this June day the bright sunshine streamed
in, glittering on the large mirrors around the
room. The family beside him knew how he enjoyed
the light, how he needed the light and they
understood, too, that none of the conventional
sombreness of the late Victorian period the
year was 1870 had ever touched him. All the
lines and wrinkles which marked the passage of
his life were new erased in the stillness of
death. He was not old he died in his
fifty-eighth year but there had been signs of
premature ageing on a visage so marked and worn
he had acquired, it was said, a sarcastic look.
But now all that was gone and his daughter,
Katey, who watched him as he lay dead, noticed
how there once more emerged upon his face beauty
and pathos.
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Goosey Goosey Gander By William Shakespeare LADY
MACBETH It is the goose that honks, the fatal
bellman That roams the castle stairs. Hast
done the deed? MACBETH I was afeared to look
ont, for the bird Screamed so, and seized me
by my nether limb, Hurling me down upon the
cruel flags And yet I could not pray, nor say
Amen. See how I halt and ever in my
ears The ganders fury rings. LADY
MACBETH And so it shall! I ll wring its
neck that it may ring withal! (Exit) MACBETH She
murders creatures as she murders words. Lets
hope her cunning does not match the bird's.
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Reading Non-Fiction
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LITERACY FOR LEARNING
Why do students find it harder to understand
non-fiction than fiction?
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LITERACY FOR LEARNING

• Fiction is more personal. Non-fiction has fewer
  agents
• Holidays were taken at resorts
• During the 17th century roads became straighter

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LITERACY FOR LEARNING
Childrens fiction tends to be chronological.
Fiction becomes easier to read non-fiction
presents difficulties all the way through
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LITERACY FOR LEARNING
Non-fiction texts rely on linguistic signposts -
moreover, therefore, on the other hand. Children
who are unfamiliar with these will not read with
the same predictive power as they can with fiction
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LITERACY FOR LEARNING
Non-fiction tends to have more interrupting
constructions The agouti, a nervous 20-inch
rodent from South America, can leap twenty feet
from a sitting position Asteroids are lumps of
rock and metal whose paths round the sun lie
mainly between Jupiter and Mars
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LITERACY FOR LEARNING
Fiction uses more active verbs. Non-fiction
relies more on the copula (Oxygen is a gas) and
use of the passive Some plastics are made by
rather than We make plastics by
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LITERACY FOR LEARNING
Non-fiction texts have more complex noun
phrases The remains and shapes of animals and
plants are lost in the myriad caves of the region
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LITERACY FOR LEARNING
So

• Make non-fiction conventions explicit .. actively
• Get English teachers to use more non-fiction
• Read non-fiction texts aloud
• Teach students about interrupting and long
  subjects, connectives, agent-avoidance!
• Replace comprehension with DARTS (Glombots)

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LITERACY FOR LEARNING
So

• Oh yes and enjoy!

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Reading Fiction
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Multiple Narrative Fun
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In thirty-five feet of water, the great fish swam
slowly, its tail waving just enough to maintain
motion. It saw nothing, for the water was murky
with motes of vegetation. The fish had been
moving parallel to the shoreline. Now it turned,
banking slightly, and followed the bottom
gradually upward. The fish perceived more light
in the water, but still it saw nothing.
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The boy was resting, his arms dangling down, his
feet and ankles dipping in and out of the water
with each small swell. His head was turned
towards shore, and he noticed that he had been
carried out beyond what his mother would consider
safe. He could see her lying on her towel, and
the man and child playing in the wavewash. He was
not afraid, for the water was calm and he wasnt
really very far from shore only forty yards or
so. But he wanted to get closer otherwise his
mother might sit up, spy him, and order him out
of the water. He eased himself back a little bit
so he could use his feet to help propel himself.
He began to kick and paddle towards shore. His
arms displaced water almost silently, but his
kicking feet made erratic splashes and left
swirls of bubbles in his wake.
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The fish did not hear the sound, but rather
registered the sharp and jerky impulses emitted
by the kicks. They were signals, faint but true,
and the fish locked on them, homing. It rose,
slowly at first, then gaining speed as the
signals grew stronger.
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The boy stopped for a moment to rest. The signals
ceased. The fish slowed, turning its head from
side to side, trying to recover them. The boy lay
perfectly still, and the fish passed beneath him,
skimming the sandy bottom. Again it turned.
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The boy resumed paddling. He kicked only every
third or fourth stroke kicking was more exertion
than steady paddling. But the occasional kicks
sent new signals to the fish. This time it needed
to lock on them only an instant, for it was
almost directly below the boy. The fish rose.
Nearly vertical, it now saw the commotion on the
surface. There was no conviction that what
thrashed above was food, but food was not a
concept of significance. The fish was impelled to
attack if what it swallowed was digestible, that
was food if not, it would later be regurgitated.
The mouth opened, and with a final sweep of the
sickle tail the fish struck.
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The boys last only thought was that he had
been punched in the stomach. The breath was
driven from him in a sudden rush. He had no time
to cry out, nor, had he had the time, would he
have known what to cry, for he could not see the
fish. The fishs head drove the raft out of the
water. The jaws smashed together, engulfing head,
arms, shoulders, trunk, pelvis and most of the
raft. Nearly half the fish had come clear of the
water, and it slid forward and down in a belly
flopping motion, grinding the mass of flesh and
bone and rubber. The boys legs were severed at
the hip, and they sank, spinning slowly to the
bottom.
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Peter Benchley,
Just when you thought it was safe to go back
into the classroom
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• Grammar for reading is
• Active, not passive
• Varied, not a grind
• Unexpected
• Experimental
• Fun