Controlled vocabulary

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Home : 2002 : January : 10

Controlled vocabulary
By Debbie

Hi Vicky,
The intent of 'controlled vocabulary' is to supposedly make the book easier by changing words the author originally intended. Or to write books with stilted, or limiting vocabulary opportunities. What you would
need to do is to compare the literature anthology version word for word with the actual author's text to see if words and sentence structures were changed. Also, see that all the pictures are intact. Although a second grade reader should not be relying on the picture cues, they should all be there to support overall meaning. If you've seen the book, Night Noises by Mem Fox with the

illustrator's foreshadowing pictures, you'll know what I mean. I guess you'd need to see if the leveling system for the anthology book is by syllable, which would not be as accurate as the F & P leveling criteria.
The original message to Anne was about phonemically controlled texts, in which the sound elements are carefully controlled. (And you probably know that neither of these types of books support the use of balanced cues-Meaning, Structure and Visual information. Which gives readers the wrong message about what reading actually is.) Hope this helps. ;-D