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Mnemonic Weekly Tip: # 31
April 27,
2003 |
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Just a
short clue from the road: coming to you from the The Mountain
Plains Adult Education Conference in Reno, Nevada and the COABE
(Commission On Adult Basic Education) Conference in Portland,
Oregon.
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| The Problem |
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Last week I received
a request from a teacher for a clue to help one of her students.
This adult has difficulty differentiating between the words
mist and missed. Either this student has difficulty with
right/left discrimination, making it hard for him to distinguish
between words that are similar, or he is not able to distinguish
between the subtle sounds in these words.
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| The Mnemonic: |
Individuals who have what I call blurred
hearing (an auditory perception problem) can use the structure of
language to distinguish between mist and missed.
Lining up these two words and using them in sentences will
help some individuals to distinguish between these words when
reading or writing.
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to miss
missed
missing
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I missed the bus.
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to mist
misted
misting
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I misted the plants with water.
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To help individuals with blurred hearing to distinguish between the
two words when listening, pronounce them slowly and distinctly,
emphasizing the t in mist and the ed
in missed, using each one in a sentence to ensure the
understanding of their meanings.
Have the person repeat the words with the same pronunciation.
Additionally, repeat each word in a moderate and a fast speed
so that the individual hears the words the way he or she will
normally hear those words in conversations.
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For those students who have a right/left problem, you can weight the
word mist. Since
one definition of mist means water droplets, you can
use the shape of the letter t in mist
making it look like a sprinkler.
If it is not the word with t, the sprinkler; it
is the other word, missed.
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Richard
Cooper, Ph.D.
4/29/03
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A number of
teachers and students have asked to have the Mnemonic Clue of the Week
sent to them each week. If you would like to receive this service, send
your e-mail address to
rcooper@learningdifferences.com |
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