Jason from De Pere, Wisconsin, was surprised to see that among the spelling words his twin second-graders were studying was the contraction this’ll. Is a term like this’ll really appropriate for a second-grade spelling test? This is part of a...
Claire from San Antonio, Texas, has a story about misunderstanding a word when she was young. When she saw a book with thesaurus on the cover, she grabbed it and started reading, thinking she was about to learn about a new type of dinosaur. This is...
On our Facebook group, listeners share the first big words they remember learning, including concentrate and physician. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “More First Big Words Learned as Kids” A couple more examples from our Facebook...
In A Velocity of Being, a collection of letters to young readers, writer Alexander Chee offers reasons as to why he became a reader himself. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Why He Became a Reader” Alexander Chee has written about...
Our discussion about cursive handwriting and whether it should be taught in schools brought a tremendous response from listeners. Most agreed that there are so many benefits to learning to write this way that it’s well worth the time and effort to...
Joe Moran’s essay on writing well suggests that his forthcoming book is a great read. It’s called First You Write a Sentence: The Elements of Reading, Writing … and Life. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Joe Moran on Writing Well”...