Let's start with the fact that innate literacy does not exist in principle, it is a myth. It's all about the wrong terminology. It would be more correct to say "linguistic flair". It perfectly helps to write everyday texts without mistakes. It can be developed in a child from childhood, specific requirements have been developed for this. Adults are taught too, and they call it "innate literacy courses." But this is a different service sector, these are charlatans.
Language sense
Sometimes this phenomenon is called even more beautifully: the linguistic type of intelligence. There are many people who have it. They often say about themselves that they never learned any rules of the Russian language, because they do not need it. They read a lot and thus remember what words look like. Often, in order to decide which spelling of the word is correct, it is enough for them to write both options. They will immediately see which one is correct. Visual memory works - a great helper if you are dealing with simple and routine texts.
But ifthere is a complex text, then no linguistic instinct will save. Without knowledge of the rules and subtleties of the language, nothing will work, miracles do not happen. There is only labor.
On the peculiarities of Russian spelling
Russian is one of the most difficult languages from a grammatical point of view. The reason for this is three completely different spelling principles:
- The main morphological principle is the same spelling of the main part of the word (morpheme). It is thanks to this principle that we were forced from school to check the correctness of an unstressed vowel with a single-root word, where this vowel is stressed. For example, a naughty is a prank, a young one is youth, a pig is pigs, etc.
- The phonetic principle is the most confusing for modern man. On the one hand, he says that you need to write as you hear. Then, according to the logic of things, instead of “city”, you need to write “gorat”, or “beautiful” instead of “beautiful”. But no, this was only in ancient Russian texts. Only remnants have survived in our language. For example, semolina with one "n" from semolina with a double "n". Or a crystal with one “l” and crystallization with two “l” from a crystal with again a double “l” … Regarding the rules and exceptions according to the phonetic principle, the best answer to the question “why” will be only one: “because”. No system, in a word.
- Historical principle with a group of words and expressions written historically. There are "single words" like sand or master without any related historical words. Or a rule from the category of "do not believe our ears," according to which"zhi" and "shi" must be written through "and". The rule came from the Old Slavonic soft pronunciation of words with these letters. Again, no system.
- Everyone who writes in Russian needs to know more than just a huge number of rules and exceptions. We must remember when and which of them is applied, and which of the three existing principles should be followed in each case. Unfortunately, the instinct of innate literacy is no help to us here.
When "linguistic intelligence" can hurt
If visual memory is silent, intuition can easily suggest the wrong decision. This situation often occurs if a person with a linguistic instinct comes across an unusual word. He doesn't know the rules, it's easier for him to trust his "inner voice".
Inborn literacy is in many ways similar to innate knowledge of the rules of the road. There are drivers who are well versed on the roads, understanding prohibitions, permissions and the best ways to maneuver. But there are difficult road forks or situations that can only be resolved with strict rules.
Shock at total dictation
People with "innate literacy" often fall into a state of shock after writing a total dictation.
Total dictation is a great project dedicated to literate writing in Russian. This is an annual writing test in which volunteers take dictation.
Total dictation is never easy. Therefore, manyparticipants are immensely surprised when their visual habits do not help them master a modern literary text in Russian. The usual "I always wrote without errors" does not work in this case.
What to do with commas: punctuation literacy
Punctuation is even more difficult, commas and other punctuation marks in Russian do not always coincide with pauses and intonations of oral speech. It is simply impossible to "feel" a comma, you need to know its semantic role and rules of use.
Punctuation literacy can only be learned by analyzing and developing strong punctuation skills in the process of writing. One direct speech in Russian is worth something with the rules for its design. So with quotes, commas and other signs, there is no other way.
Quackery and magic courses
If you are invited to courses in innate literacy for schoolchildren or adults, you are looking at pure charlatans.
Firstly, we agreed that there is an intuitive literacy acquired in childhood. Innate literacy does not exist in fact, this is a consequence of incorrect terminology.
Secondly, even if we admit the possibility of the existence of an innate phenomenon, then nothing innate can be taught. Like, for example, you can't teach to sing a great soprano, because it's an innate property of the voice.
Charlatans don't care about this. “Ultra-modern top-class mega-course” is the only way their wonderful courses are called.“Neurolinguistics, the unconscious level and the launch of a program in the brain” are the favorite expressions and arguments of the organizers of this kind of service. Unfortunately, they find their customers, the demand for "innate literacy courses for schoolchildren" still exists.
What really works
The phenomenon of innate literacy has been well studied, so the factors of its formation have long been identified:
- Ethnicity of the family in which the child grows up. This refers to the dialect spoken by the parents. Among southerners, for example, intuitive literacy is less common: their phonetics differs from classical spelling.
- The famous Russian teacher Ushinsky always objected to learning a foreign language in early childhood. The argument was that when using a second (non-Russian) language in everyday conversations, innate literacy was less common. "Bilingualism" in the family also interfered.
- Language environment for a child: the more varied and literate the parents' speech, the more connections and patterns are formed in the child's brain. This also includes reading aloud to a child - a great and affordable tool for educating a language instinct.
- Of course, independent reading. It is important that books and texts in them are of high quality.
- Letter, letter and more letter. Even simple rewriting of the text. In this case, the most powerful kinetic one is added to the visual memorization mechanisms.
Advice to parents
From scratch language flairwon't grow. Imaginative thinking, tenacious children's memory and the ability to visual perception will be useful here. In a word, the child needs to be taken seriously. From a very early age, we observe the following rules, which can be generally referred to as the “method of innate literacy”:
- We are not too lazy to talk with the child, we follow the speech.
- Read aloud to the child as much as he asks (and even more).
- Filtering books, choosing only valuable sources from an artistic and stylistic point of view.
- Don't stop reading aloud, even if the child has learned to read on his own (the most important rule).
- Learn and speak poetry, ask to retell the books read.
- Initiating independent writing by hand: holiday cards, wall newspapers, thick beautiful notebooks in the form of diaries, etc. - if only the child wrote.
We work separately with children who already have a sense of language. They usually don't want to learn the rules and see no benefit in them. These children usually have problems with punctuation. The best method for students with innate literacy is from example to rule (they teach the other way around in school). You need to parse several similar phrases with conclusions and a rule that will appear by itself, according to logic.
And we do not stop ourselves, the Russian language needs to be studied all our lives. Such is the language…
