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This week I had a
request from a teacher for a clue to help students read, spell and
define the words unanimous and anonymous.
Many children and adults who have learning
differences find these two words confusing.
Remembering that there are varying degrees of ability,
disability, background and skill, I have observed a number of
problems with these words.
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1)
I use the word unanimous in the vocabulary
section of the Cooper Screening of Information Processing.
Individuals whose vocabulary is underdeveloped will not be
able to define this word. Others who have some idea about unanimous will
say that, “it has something to do with voting”.
And those who have difficulty distinguishing between unanimous
and anonymous will define either of these
words as “no one agrees”.
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2)
Some mispronounce these words using variations of anaimous
and unonymous.
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3)
Some students do not understand that these words are
adjectives and some think that anonymous is a noun,
as in “You can be anonymous.”
Thinking that anonymous is a person.
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4)
Those children and adults who have poor decoding skills or
have difficulty identifying the sounds in words find these two
words difficult to read. Since
both words contain nine letters, both begin with a vowel and the
second letters in an n, both words end with mous,
they are easily confused.
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5)
Individuals who have poor spelling skills will spell both
of these words in unusual ways from being far off to coming close.
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