In this blog Caught in the Spell of Words Lyn Anderson and Ann Whiting collaborate to focus on their passion for studying words, books and their love of teaching.
For the past 19 years Lyn Anderson and Ann Whiting, have been studying orthography with students who range from preschool to high-school. We learn from our students, as well as from our word wayfaring colleagues around the world. With every word we study we know that other related words will be discovered, sense and meaning, and critical orthographic principles and conventions will be uncovered that apply to hundreds of words.
The header for our new blog is from the Eadwine Psalter, held in the Trinity College library, Cambridge. We love this textual evidence of the influences on English – a translation from Hebrew together with a translation into Anglo-Norman French, as well as a translation into Old English. The glosses in the margin are in Latin. This psalter was made in the mid-12th century (perhaps). Eadwine may refers to the name of Christ Church scribe and monk, “the prince of scribes’. We are indeed ‘caught in the spell’ of Eadwine’s beautiful script.
Words are the foundations of literacy. We invite you to reconsider your work with words and become caught in their spell. By shining a light on orthography, embedding it into reading and writing, we learn to read text deeply and to write purposefully. Investigating words impacts what it is to be literate. Words, if you dig beneath the surface, take you elsewhere – through other times, other places, other cultures. In a word we can hear the murmur of humanity. We hope you will become ‘caught in the spell’ and entwine word investigations with books.
Lyn Anderson, founder of Beyond theWord, has been an international and Australian educator and consultant for 35 years. Now residing in Tasmania, Lyn works globally with schools, educators and children to understand and implement meaningful orthographic study that encompasses all areas of literacy learning.
Ann Whiting, has been enthusiastic primary and secondary English teacher of 35 years and has taught in Australia and internationally. Ann has been obsessing about words for over 20 years and alongside Lyn continues to study orthographic linguistics with experts from around the world. Ann leads workshops in orthography in Australia, and has regularly blogged about her students’ deep understanding of words at Word Nerdery and Word Nerds.