There are people who always (well, almost always) write correctly, but at the same time do not remember any rules at all, do not look for test words for unstressed vowels or unpronounceable consonants, do not memorize lists of exceptions. Such a phenomenon in everyday life is often called "innate literacy" - as if these people were born with the ability to write correctly. Of course, this is not true: it is impossible to be born with the knowledge of the spelling and punctuation rules of a certain century (or even decade). What's the matter? Apparently, the point here is a good visual memory: an “innately” literate person remembers words like pictures. In principle, there is nothing impossible in this. This was shown by observations on people with separated hemispheres: normally (in right-handed people), only the left hemisphere can process language information. But it turned out that people can sometimes recognize some very common words without the help of the left hemisphere - which means they remember them like pictures. Generally speaking, not only people, but also monkeys can remember a word like a picture: among the Kanzi bonobos, who taught the Yerkish intermediary language, consisting of keys with abstract images (lexigrams), some keys were written as such images the words. And Kanzi remembered them.

Have you ever seen what an “innately” literate person does when he cannot remember exactly how a particular word is spelled? He writes both possible options on a piece of paper - and then one of them with disgust covers up, thickly, thickly, so that it becomes completely invisible. Keyword here - disgust: indeed, an incorrectly spelled word causes a lot of negative emotions in an "innately" literate person. He writes about this: "for many literate people, the very sight of an illiterate text is painful, like the creak of foam." But writing to such a person is very easy: while it’s pleasant, it means everything is correct, and if suddenly the hand mistakenly displays the wrong letter (or the finger misses the key), the subcortical structures of the brain responsible for emotions will immediately give a signal: “fu, what a disgusting !”, and it will be possible to quickly fix everything (the main thing, it’s clear what for: something that does not cause negative emotions).

It is generally believed that "innate" literacy can be acquired by reading a lot. In most cases, this really helps, but not always: if you read too quickly, guessing words according to a general, approximate contour, you won’t see “innate” literacy - the differences in the contours of a word written correctly and a word written with an error in one letter. What to do, especially now, when almost the main indicator of the success of reading in many cases is its speed? It seems to me that exercises aimed at detailing the picture could help here: take a list of “dictionary” words, with unchecked vowels and consonants, and write out from it, for example, all words that have vowels in alphabetical order. Or all words that have the letter "and" in the second syllable. Or all words in which all consonants are “voiced” (that is, those that usually denote ringing sounds). Or, whatever, as long as appearance words became as detailed as possible. It is impossible to write "dog" with "a" after "s" if you wrote it out as a word that has "o" in it. By the way, the habit of “detailing a picture” also helps in life: such a person will not buy a fake product, whose name differs from the real one by a whole letter.

And most importantly, what should never be done is to write phonetic transcription. Especially whole words. Especially in the line - because in this case the appearance of the word with "wrong" (from the point of view of spelling) letters becomes familiar, becomes familiar and ceases to cause unambiguous negative emotions. And then, having met with the word, every time you will have to painfully choose which of the two equally familiar pictures is correct. Remember all the rules and exceptions - and so on for almost every letter in a word. Terrible prospect, isn't it? So, if you don't want to suffer, learn by looking at the right words.

Some people write as easily as they breathe. Others make many mistakes in writing. The help of computer programs to some extent helps out those who are not very literate. But programs are not perfect and can make mistakes too. Perhaps because they were created by illiterate people?

Words with a lot of "o" sound, such as "milk", "good", "powder" will be spelled correctly by most northerners and "okay" regions of Russia. Why? It’s just that since childhood, people have heard and remembered the sound of words, so writing is given to them easily and without problems.

Hearing words is often displayed in their spelling. If in any locality it is customary to say, for example, “flyers”, instead of “flyed”, then the majority will write as they hear. The same is true for verb endings. There are regions where it is customary to pronounce words by cutting off their endings, for example, "he is talking" instead of "he is talking."

Becoming schoolchildren, children sincerely do not understand why it is necessary to write differently than everyone around says. After all, their parents taught them to speak that way, which means that they should write the same way. In each case, when people's everyday speech is very different from the literary language, difficulties arise in teaching children to write correctly.

The diligence and diligence of the student is of great importance.

If a child is restless and constantly distracted by any little thing, it is difficult for him to concentrate on one thing. The purposefulness of a person, the perseverance of his character also plays a role. In addition to the environment of people speaking literary language and daily reading works of art it is imperative that you yourself study the rules of grammar and do not forget about them when writing texts. This is a guarantee that human literacy will be high.

Any person who is well versed in his highly specific issue can be called a competent specialist. This applies to people of different professions - doctors and teachers, engineers and programmers. The fact that a person is a competent specialist in tailoring, for example, does not mean at all that he knows the spelling rules well. Just like knowing these rules does not make a person an excellent cook or astronaut. And a scientist who professionally studies linguistics may not understand proper nutrition at all.

The point is that every person genetic level the direction of activity is laid in which he can best reveal his talents, manifest himself as a person. Therefore, some people perceive certain information easier and faster, while others are interested in knowledge of a completely different kind.

To confirm the correctness of the genetic theory, scientists made a unique discovery. We are talking about a gene that is responsible for the literacy of a particular person. This gene is present in absolutely everyone, its influence extends to the level of literacy in any language, it manifests itself in each person in his own way.

The literacy gene is inherently unstable. As a rule, he is not all active. It happens that a person has activated that part of the gene that is responsible for literacy is not in his mother tongue. And no matter how much a person makes efforts to master the literacy of his native Chinese, for example, his successes are not great. And all because the human gene has the ability to have excellent literacy in the Italian language.

Not everyone is 100% literate, experts say. This is the same personality trait as absolute pitch or acting skills. Dyslexia and dysgraphia - a violation of reading and writing skills, according to scientists, is not a disease, but the individual properties of the brain.

I write with mistakes

Scientists identify several signs and dysgraphia:

Visual non-perception of alphabetic characters with normal vision;

Slow reading with elements of guessing with the replacement of similar-sounding sounds "z" and "s", "g" and "sh" or similar in style to "p" and "t", "b" and "c";

Specific errors: incorrect spelling of endings, repetition of words.

Margarita Rusetskaya, Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Director of the Research Institute “Capital Education” of Moscow State Pedagogical University, comments: “For example, in the word “house”, such a child can allow a replacement and write “vol”, replacing “d” with the letter “t”. Or in the word "pencil" may miss a vowel or consonant. Or insert an extra letter. Such violations are dysgraphia.

Why

Dyslexia has been studied for over a hundred years, but there is still debate about what it is, how to recognize it, and why it occurs. American scientists claim to have discovered two genes responsible for reading and writing disorders: DCDC2 and Robo1. The presence of these genes increases the risk of dyslexia by several times.

While reading and writing, different parts of the brain are activated. One remembers and recognizes alphabetic characters. The second summarizes all this into a coherent story and helps to understand the meaning. When departments interact with each other inconsistently, the text falls apart. Or vice versa - with a good understanding of what is read, difficulties may arise in its reproduction.

Among the causes of writing and reading disorders are left-handedness, heredity, bilingualism in the family, the consequences of injuries and illnesses, and a complicated mother's pregnancy. Comments by a psychoneurologist, Honored Doctor of Russia, Ph.D. Vladislav Braginsky: “The pathology of pregnancy and childbirth: maternal toxicosis, forceps, cord entanglement, protracted labor, illness of the child in the first months of life - all this leaves a mark for a long time, and, as a result, we observe dyslexia or dysgraphia in the child.”

In the case of a hereditary predisposition, literacy problems are observed in all family members. Even if someone writes a little better and someone worse, everyone has mistakes.

Bilingualism in the family is another possible reason spelling errors. Children from mixed marriages perceive one of the languages ​​as a foreign one. The same problem arises when learning a foreign language too early. Children learn spoken language more easily than adults, but a side effect is possible. “Very often, mothers are happy when a child learns English from the age of three. Of course, a child's memory is grasping, but in Armenian, Russian, English completely different grammatical forms. And the child gets confused while learning foreign language at preschool age,” explains Vladislav Braginsky.

Mothers of illiterate children may not understand the title of this article. It is clear to everyone: if a child is literate by nature, this is happiness for himself and for his parents. And for the school teacher, by the way, too. What problems can there be? Here, your will, the author is confusing something ...

Unfortunately no. These guys also have problems at school. Let's talk about these problems.

1. The first and most important, in my opinion, is that the school focuses on the average child. And not for a living child, but for some ideal average image, ethereal, problem-free and impersonal. Children, however, gifted with any talents or even just a bright personality, are not like that. And children from innate literacy too. Therefore, they learn from programs, textbooks, materials that are not intended for them. And the process itself schooling The Russian language is not focused on them at all: they are not included, as they say now, in the target audience. Because the most important task of the Russian language course at school is the formation and development of literate writing. And these guys write competently themselves: it's just how they are arranged. And they need to be taught, which is quite obvious, in a different way. But for this, at least, it is necessary to comprehend the problem, or at least recognize that it exists.

2. The second problem is related to the first, follows from it. But this is not a simple consequence. This is an independent problem, at least in its significance.

You know the saying "Time is money"?

In my opinion, this proverb is rather simple, I would rephrase it as follows: you can’t buy time for any money ... Yes, we are talking about time costs: loss of time in class at school and when doing homework. It's a pity, but most of the time is spent inefficiently. Because school teaches gifted children to do what they already know how to do. This time for the course of schooling accumulates a lot. From 1st to 4th grade in accordance with the program - 170 hours a year, from 5th to 9th - 204 hours a year, i.e. more than 1680 hours. And also lessons in 10-11 grades. And, besides, almost daily homework, some of which are absolutely useless for such children. Shouldn't they be exempted from Russian language classes? Of course, do not release! But to teach them in such a way that by the 9th-11th grade they do not become corrupted from idleness, which happens, and is by no means rare, so that they really work all school years, and not somehow drag out existence. Talent, as you know, can be buried in the ground ... Without proper development, abilities fade, level out. Any ability. And including language skills.

3. Tell me, how will you relate to work, the meaning of which you do not see? So are children who are literate from birth. Motivation is another of the problems of teaching literate children, which for some reason neither the school nor the teachers think about.

Why do I need all these rules and exceptions? Why theory? Why everything else? I already write competently: sometimes even more competent than the teacher himself, - a literate child argues, sometimes silently, to himself. And he gets fives for dictations and twos for ignorance of the rules and mistakes in parsing. By the way, not always literate guys are excellent students in the Russian language. After all, the course of the Russian language is not only the development of literate writing. It is also knowledge about the native language, its system, features and patterns of functioning of language units. Analysis, for example, develops thinking, logic, memory, the training of which is useful for everyone without exception. It is believed that such things do not need to be explained, but this is not so. It is necessary, and especially for those who write competently and see no other goals for teaching the Russian language.

4. It also happens. The child writes correctly until the school intervenes in the process. I faced this problem repeatedly, my son is one of them - it hurt. This phenomenon is interesting, so I would like to tell you more about such situations.

A person studies at school and writes competently and dictations, and presentations, and essays. But from time to time it starts to make some mistakes. Not any, namely the rule that is being studied now in accordance with school curriculum. That is, if a child is not specifically taught to write, for example, suffixes of nouns, adjectives or participles, he will write them correctly. And after he visits the lessons at school devoted to the study of these suffixes, he begins to make mistakes. It turns out that if the lessons at school somehow help other children, then they interfere with them: something goes astray in their heads, prevents the innate mechanisms from working properly. Faced with this effect, I initially panicked. And then she calmed down, because the rule was forgotten, and my son again began to write suffixes of nouns, adjectives or participles without errors. Other naturally literate children found themselves in similar situations.

More than once I heard from such guys that they write without thinking about how to write. If they focus on any rule, then they experience doubt, and sometimes confusion, because they become afraid of making a mistake. They theoretically learned that in some cases you need to write - nn- and in others - n- , but intuition and the mechanisms of reflection and decision-making conflict.

I would qualify this problem as a problem of inconsistency between presentation and organization educational material perceptions of children.

5. Competent children also have conflicts with teachers. Children are children. Sometimes they lack prudence, foresight, tact, just respect for teachers. Once a teacher made an incorrect correction in a notebook of a well-written student. And in the next lesson, this is what happened: the boy raised his hand, and when the teacher asked what was the matter, he answered: “You made the wrong correction in my notebook. I consulted with my grandmother: she worked as an editor all her life and knows Russian better than you.” There was a scandal. The parents were called to the school. The confrontation between the child and the teacher lasted five and a half years. And this struggle cost a lot of nerves: for the boy, and for the teacher, and for the parents.

Now imagine the conditions for the development of talent:

• lots of time is wasted
• textbooks do not take into account the peculiarities of the perception of gifted children,
• the efforts of the teacher are not directed to this particular addressee,
• no one imposes special requirements on such students,
• no one specifically motivates their learning activities.

And how we would like gifted children not to fall out of the sphere of attention of teachers, schools and the state. Every child needs attention, love and care.

And gifted - doubly. Someday society will realize that children with innate literacy are the same asset of the country as gifted musicians, athletes, mathematicians, physicists ... And there will probably be special educational programs for these kids. In the meantime, all hope is on the teacher. I am convinced that if teachers thought about these guys, there would be plenty of ways to optimize their learning.

What if the teacher is unlucky? You will not hope that you will be lucky later, later! Apparently, we will have to look for a way out of the situation ourselves.

All theory school course we had to start studying a little earlier than they started at school. And our approach was different.

My son wrote down words and phrases specially chosen by me from dictation. Then they reasoned together: I led him with questions to conclusions that conveyed the meaning of the rule. When the "rule" did not appear out of nowhere, but was born from one's own observations of the facts of the language, it no longer contradicted intuition and problems did not arise. But it was necessary to go from the child's speech experience, from examples. The element of language is not terrible for such children: it is native to them. Their mechanisms of synthesis are stronger than the mechanisms of analysis. It is better for them not to explain the rule, but to show with several examples how it works. These examples serve as samples, original standards, guidelines. You will be surprised how easy it is for a child to bring their own similar examples. It also easily identifies other words or word forms with the desired spelling. Writing by analogy is the mechanism that works without interruption in a literate child. The very wording of the rule in this approach is not so important, what is important is the fact of understanding the linguistic phenomenon. A pedantic teacher who stubbornly demands the formulation of rules according to the textbook will, of course, not be satisfied, but this, in the end, is not the main thing.

The main thing is that with this approach, the child does not have an internal conflict, and he can feel quite comfortable. The feeling of comfort arises also because each time such work takes only about 10 minutes, no more.

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