Hi Steve
I think that Shavian is a fun way to write.
40% OF THE KIDS JUST DOODLE WHEN THEY SHOULD BE TAKING NOTES.
Why not let them doodle in Shavian?
I think we need to reach them before they get beaten down by having
to learn all the ins and outs of regular English Spelling.
That's what destroys their interest in learning how to use a logical
alphabet.
Penmanship and Spelling are right down there with memorizing
Multiplication tables.
Rather than teaching them the English Script (most people print now
in any case), why not give them a choice of learning a Shorthand,
Machine Stenography, ITA or the Shavian Alphabet. Any of these
systems will give them a handle on English Phonetics. Then teach
them regular English spelling with the Roman Alphabet.
Also, why don't we teach the children the Shavian Alphabet first and
then let them advance into Regular English spelling with the Roman
Alphabet when they are literate.
Children need storybooks written in Shavian, that's all.
Regards, Paul V.
P.S. UNIFON is neither fish nor fowl. It doesn't have a sign
for "wh" or the Schwa sound. I guess it would be easier to learn if
already have been exposed to the Roman Alphabet. But you don't get
the advantages of either Shavian or the Pitman's I.T.A.
Also I don't like the lack of redundancy in the Letters.
Everything looks square, like Hebrew printing.
Just my personal opinion.
P.P.S. A number of Shaw Letters do match up with the Roman Letters.
I'd bump that up to 10% or 15% overlap with the Roman letters.
As for overlap with the spelling, that would be just crazy.
I.T.A does that a little, I guess.
_______________________attached__________________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:
> Paul and others,
>
> How do we make Shavian fun?
> How do we make learning any phonemic notation fun?
>
> SB: The reason that Unifon was successful in preschool, I think,
was that it
> was fun.
>
> The kids liked to send "secret" messages to each other and the
Unifon code
> made this possible. Unifon did not have to be taught in any
traditional way.
> You just distributed the key and explained how it worked.
> THE KEY: http://www.foolswisdom.com/users/sbett/40unifon-c.gif
> Tengwar and Shavian could be taught the same way with the same
level of
> initial success.
>
> The difference is that in learning Unifon, the kids learned about
85% of the
> traditional code.
>
> Unifon has an 85% overlap with conventional spelling. Tengwar and
Shavian
> something close to zero overlap.
>
> Unifon adds 17 new letters to the 23 non-redundant Roman letters.
Half of
> the upper case letters simply denote either an alternate associate
for the
> letter [e.g., long vowels] or the first letter of a traditional
digraph [S=sh,
> N=ng].
>
> When you transition to tradspel, you just have to learn a few new
things such
> as the lazy-U is not part of the traditonal code (c=schwa,
C=obscure vowel in hook). In other words, you have to re-learn the
redundant Roman letters to
> which Unifon expropriated: K = /k/ not <ch>, X = /ks-gz/ not
<awe>, Q = /k/
> not /oi/.
>
> For chart see
> www.foolswisdom.com/users/sbett/14-unifon-ipa-shavian16.gif
>
>
> I think that it still makes sense to teach Tengwar or Shavian to
kids first
> but I think this would be a hard sell. Teachers would see it as a
detour and
> not related to the main task of teaching reading and writing.
>
> The utility of teaching a phonemic script that has little in
common with the
> traditional script has not been studied.
>
> Regards,
>
> Steve
P.S. Fun is a better motivator than idealism.
>
> AB: Someone who can make reformed spelling fun can
> probably accomplish more . . .