What's up?

I found this interesting write-up from the Internet about the word "up". The write-up is replicated on several websites, the following being just two of them: 

	http://wordinfo.info/unit/3039?letter=P&spage=12
	http://www.digitaltermpapers.com/b2809.htm

I don't know the original source, so I'm unable to give due credit to the author. The write-up is reproduced verbatim below, warts and all:

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'up'. It's easy to understand up, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake up? At a meeting, why does a topic come up? Why do we speak up and why are the officers up for election and why is it up to the secretary to write up a report? We call up our friends. We brighten up a room, polish up the silver; we warm up the leftovers and clean up the kitchen. We lock up the house and some guys fix up the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning: People stir up trouble, line up for tickets, work up an appetite, and think up excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed up is special. A drain must be opened up because it is stopped up. We open up a store in the morning but we close it up at night. We seem to be pretty mixed up about up! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of up, look the word up  in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes up almost 1/4th of the page and can add up to about thirty definitions. If you are up to it, you might try building up a list of the many ways  up is used. It will take up a lot of your time, but if you don't give up , you may wind up with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding  up. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing up. When it rains, the wets the earth and often messes things  up. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry  up. I could go on and on, but I'll wrap it up, for now my time is up  so ... it is time to shut  up!

Can you think of other ways the word  up is used?

Pronunciation gone awry...

The other day, I heard a newsreader use the word "awry" while reading the news on television. She pronounced the word as "awe-ree": /ˈɔ:ri/. I believe that's also how the majority of Malaysians pronounce the word.

Be honest, now - how do you pronounce it?

The correct pronunciation is "a-rye":  /əˈraɪ/.

The Reading Brain

For this topic, we have made a short video so that readers can easily understand the 'reading brain' and how does our brain acquire reading skill.



Click here for a Chinese version of this video. 

What is segmenting?

Segmenting is an essential skill in learning to spell. 'Segment' means 'break' or 'separate'. When we segment a word, we break the word up into its individual sounds.  This video shows how segmenting is taught in Unik’s Phonics Fun programme.

Click here or Chinese version of this video.

What is blending?

Blending is an essential skill in learning to read. 'Blend' means 'join together'. Blending letter sounds means joining the sounds of letters together. We blend sounds to make a word.

For your better understanding, we have made this video to show how blending teaches reading.



Click here for Chinese version of this video.

When is a bungalow not a bungalow?

In Malaysia, a 'bungalow' is a large detached house, often with more than one storey. The operative word here is 'large'. Sure, we have mansions in Malaysia, but we hardly call them that - they are all huge bungalows. We of modest means often look at bungalow-dwellers with some envy, and bungalow-dwellers are understandably proud that they live in such grand houses.

An Englishman, however, would probably speak with more than some humility when he admits to living in a bungalow. That's because to an Englishman, a bungalow is not the abode of the rich. A bungalow is a low detached house having only one storey (Oxford Dictionary definiton). 

It's perhaps unfortunate that Malaysians associate bungalows with the rich. This opens up many opportunities for the word to be misused, mangled and corrupted. The property development fraternity is especially guilty of this: pamphlets abound that unabashedly advertise double-storey bungalows, 3-storey bungalows, semi-detached bungalows, linked bungalows, cluster bungalows, zero-lot bungalows - the list goes on. There are even 'sky bungalows' reported to be under development in Penang. I can only hazard a guess that these are 'bungalows' built on top of high-rise buildings.

So, when is a bungalow not a bungalow? Actually, we should rephrase it thus: When is [a house that is] not a bungalow a bungalow? When it is in Malaysia.

Note

Origin of the word: late 17th century, from Hindi baṅglā, meaning 'belonging to Bengal', referring to a type of cottage (in the style of a Bengal house) built for early European settlers in Bengal. 

Why is reading especially difficult?

For this topic, we have made a 11-minute video so that audiences can get a clearer picture why reading is difficult: reading is not a skill acquired naturally, and it must be taught correctly!

This video links neuroscience to the teaching of reading with the systematic synthetic phonics approach.