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Transforming Education through Literacy · Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh

• 0:03
  Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Chatting with the Experts
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  TV show where I, Paula Okonneh, I'm the host and I showcase women from Africa,
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  from the Caribbean and in the diaspora.
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  These women are professional women or they're successful business
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  women or they're both professional and successful business women.
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  And the mission of this show is to inspire, is to also empower
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  and educate women globally.
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  On a few occasions, I've had men join us, but for the most part, it's always women.
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  My guest today is Brittany Lee-Bey, and we'll be talking about The
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  Power of Language and Literacy.
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  When you join us, you'll learn about literacy and language because
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  she, that's Brittany, is a reading specialist and she's the author of
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  Etymology Rules, Back to Basics.
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  I'll tell you a little bit about her because my guests always have
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  such great bios that I tell them jokingly that if I have to read their
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  bios That would be the whole show.
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  So I'll tell you a little bit about her before I ask her to join us.
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  And so, Brittany Lee-Bey is the author of Etymology Rules Back to Basics, which
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  is a workbook teaching the fundamentals of language and literacy instruction.
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  She is a language enthusiast, and she aims to equip the world with
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  the power and knowledge of words while committing to this mission in
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  all and everything that she does.
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  Of course, I said I could say a lot more, but why don't I invite her
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  on so that we can talk more about how she got into this, why she does
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  this, and of course, who she is.
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  And with that, I want to welcome Brittany to Chatting With The Experts.
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  Hi, Brittany.
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  Hello.
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  Thank you so much.
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  Thank you.
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  Thank you.
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  I always say this, but thank you for joining us and thank you for saying
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  yes to being a guest on the show.
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  Ah, as I said, I only gave a snippet of your bio.
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  Tell us a bit more about you.
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  Why the book?
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  Why that interest in the power of language and literacy?
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  I'll start with the interest in language and literacies just from a child or
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  as a child, I always loved to read.
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  I loved language.
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  I loved writing.
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  I wrote little books and stories and speeches.
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  I was on the debate team in high school.
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  So I've always been interested in using language.
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  Even when I remember being in second grade we did reading, writing,
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  spelling, and I remember one day our teacher said, well, you know, it's
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  the end of the year and I'm going to let you all watch Reading Rainbow.
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  So that's my era, the Reading Rainbow era.
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  And you know, I loved Reading Rainbow and so did my classmates, but I
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  remember telling my teacher, well, I want to stay behind and do more
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  spelling because I just really loved playing with and manipulating words.
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  And so fast forward to when I became a teacher, I first started
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  teaching at Oak Hill Youth Detention Center which is for D.
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  C.
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  incarcerated youth.
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  And I wanted to teach history, but I found that a lot of the students
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  struggled to read the material.
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  And so it just switched my whole focus to where I wanted to help
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  students learn to read, because I just believe that is, a powerful tool.
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  It's an invaluable tool that you need in almost every facet of your life.
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  So I've been teaching for 17 years, and I've been teaching
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  children to read particularly older students who have difficulties.
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  But what I realized is that throughout a good amount of my
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  training and the training of other teachers, we never really learned
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  about language specifically.
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  And so all the learning I had done was on my own, and I just thought
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  it was, I thought it was crazy that we're being asked to teach children
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  to read, which is, in a sense, dealing with language, and yet we don't have
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  a strong sense of how language works.
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  So I really wrote the workbook for teachers in mind, as well as parents, but
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  then, you know, also language enthusiasts find it really enjoyable as well.
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  So that's how I got to writing Etymology Rules.
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  I just wanted to write something that would help teachers better help children.
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  Wow.
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  I like that.
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  You wanted to help teachers better help children.
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  And off camera, I was telling you how my daughter was.
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  I mean, when she was like five or six, I realized that she was
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  very good at memorizing stories.
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  And so if you gave her a book and you read it to her, she would
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  have memorized everything so she could read it back to you.
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  And it was later on, we realized that she didn't quite,
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  know how to read, but it was teachers, teachers like you who helped her
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  develop the, you know, the love of reading helped her read to the point
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  that she actually went on and had a degree in communication and marketing.
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  And every day she reminds me, mom, I love books.
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  So my hat goes off to people like you who see, The need and you either help
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  the children or in this case, you wrote your book to help teachers help children.
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  Thank you.
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  Thank you.
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  Yes.
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  Yeah.
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  So that means I noticed, I mean, when my daughter was being held, there is a
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  technique, there is a science to reading.
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  Can you talk about that?
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  Yes.
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  So, and some people may have heard this term as of late the term science of
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  reading, but it really isn't anything new.
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  There's been a reading wars that some people call it.
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  Where it kind of goes from people say we should teach phonics, teach children
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  how to sound out words, decode language to whole language, where the goal is to
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  foster a love and appreciation of reading.
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  And it's a big focus on sight words and comprehension.
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  And my belief is I think both are necessary, but the science of
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  reading says that the foundation is indeed phonics, fluency, word study.
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  So that is understanding that when I see the word cat, I know that
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  there are three letters and each of those letters represents a sound.
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  And as opposed to if I have the word chat, like I'm chatting with
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  my friends, Well, now that has four letters, but it still has three sounds.
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  That first sound we call it a digraph in reading.
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  I'm actually in school for linguistics, so I'm training to be
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  a linguist, and so we use a little bit of a different vernacular.
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  We call that an affricate, but in any event, when it comes to spelling,
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  we know that C H is two letters.
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  That makes one sound.
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  Being able to decode that, being able to understand orthographics and how
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  we build words in our language is a foundational skill that I'm glad more and
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  more schools are waking up to realize.
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  Absolutely.
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  And now the science of reading, when you're talking about you're
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  going to school for linguistics, I mean, and the science of reading in
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  general, this is for English, correct?
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  Does it apply to all other languages?
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  That's a good question.
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  You know, maybe that is like a dissertation topic.
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  It's something that I could dive deeper into, but, you know, the concepts of
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  language, it's across the board, right?
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  You have sounds, that's phonetics.
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  You have sounds and those sounds, you put them together and you make words.
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  You have parts of words.
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  That's morphology.
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  So in English, you know, we have prefixes, roots, suffixes .You have a semantics.
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  That's the meaning.
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  You have syntax.
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  That's how words are arranged, the order that words go in.
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  And so while in languages around the world, we do have different
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  sounds, there's different syntax.
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  There's different morphology, but all of those foundational
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  aspects are a part of a language.
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  So, you know, I think the science of reading and how we understand
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  it here in America and in English, I think there's aspects of it
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  that could apply across the board.
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  You know, our language is we have a sound, a symbol, correspondence.
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  So that means like I mentioned earlier, I have a letter or I have a group of
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  letters and that represents a sound where you have some languages like Mandarin.
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  They read their graphemes or their letters are more like pictures.
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  I believe they call those logograms as opposed to ours.
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  Ours are like actual alphabetic letters.
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  So there is some difference.
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  And how we go about teaching someone to read language to language.
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  But I think there's some general foundational principles that are the same.
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  The science of reading, they do say foundation is phonics, word study,
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  decoding, but that it's not that alone.
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  It's also fluency.
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  So that's being able to read a text smoothly, accurately at a proper rate.
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  I believe that's probably universal.
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  Comprehension that is okay, you've read this aloud.
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  You've read it beautifully.
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  No mistakes.
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  What is happening in the story?
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  What does this mean?
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  Vocabulary as well is another tenet of strong reading skills that
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  the science of reading advocates.
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  So I think those principles probably are universal.
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  But as I said, that is a wonderful research topic that, that I
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  would love to dive more into.
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  Yes.
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  I think, I mean, I'm happy that I kind of sparked that interest because,
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  you know, I have Nigerian parentage.
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  My dad was Nigerian.
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  And fortunately, he's been dead for a while, but then living in Nigeria, there's
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  some words that you would think would be pronounced a certain way because of
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  the English language, but they're not.
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  And I don't know enough of you know, of
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  words and etymology and so on, but you know, like a word like B O D
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  E, you may say in England or in America, bode, but in Nigeria, in a
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  particular language, that is body.
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  So it's very interesting, you know, and the more you spoke
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  is like, yeah, it'll be good.
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  Excuse me, to kind of hear how different languages, different cultures and how
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  languages came into being to get those particular sound, or whether we were
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  influenced by those who colonized us.
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  And just, you know, put words and we knew that, okay, in our
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  language, this is how it sounds.
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  So even though the words don't match the sound phonetically,
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  but we know this is what it is.
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  Mm-hmm
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  . If that makes sense.
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  Yes . Yeah.
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  My interest is Amharic.
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  I'm in DC and we have a large Ethiopian population.
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  I don't speak Amharic at all.
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  But I'm just very interested in how Amharic speakers and thus those who will
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  read the script of of that language.
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  I believe it's called Geʽez or Geʽez, but in any event, I'm curious, how
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  do those students learn to read because their alphabet is completely
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  different from our English alphabet.
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  So, that is something I'm interested in, like how reading
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  takes place in other languages.
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  Well, you may have to have another conversation with that, you know,
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  and that's you making me interested.
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  And as I, excuse me, you said off camera, I am not, my background
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  is mathematics and accounting.
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  So words had their place, but they did, they were not top of
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  my line for interest at all.
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  So, as you introduced yourself, you mentioned that you work with children
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  whose parents have been incarcerated?
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  So, well, I worked for a detention center where the students
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  themselves were detained.
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  The students were ages 12 to 21, and they were in there for various reasons.
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  It was an all male population and it was for students from kids from D.
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  C.
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  So, I found a lot of students had reading difficulties.
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  And I always am curious, is there a correlation?
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  A lot of people say there is that, you know, I think they say looking
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  at reading rates by the age of eight or by third grade can be a predictor
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  of future incarceration rates.
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  If that's the case, it's incredibly sad because it's our responsibility
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  as teachers in a society where, you know, education is not
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  only free, but it's required.
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  So how do we have so many people who are slipping through the cracks?
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  Yes, yes.
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  And that brings me to a question of the power of literacy, because, you know, as
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  I said, I lived in Nigeria, and of course I have, my mom was from the Caribbean, and
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  so very much conscious of how much lack of education could derail your future.
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  You know, you can have families that, you know, because one person was better
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  educated, they were able to educate their children better and you see, you know,
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  the different opportunities that are given to the children who are, who had
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  parents who recognized the importance of literacy and emphasized on that.
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  And those that didn't.
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  So can we talk a little bit about that?
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  Because as you mentioned that you worked in, you know, that institution,
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  it touches my heart.
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  Yes.
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  You know, I've been at quite a few schools in the area and
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  I see pretty similar trends.
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  I think maybe less so at this point in my career, but overall I see similar
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  trends and The number of students who have difficulty with reading
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  and who are disengaged from it, you know, there's good instruction, read
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  good literacy instruction matters, but it's just like a sport as well.
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  You have to practice.
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  So you can have the best coach in the world but if you aren't getting your
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  practicing in outside of your time with the coach or the team, then you won't
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  make as great progress as you could.
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  And I would say the same is for reading.
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  I tell my students that all the time.
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  And so a lot of it is, as you mentioned, just the emphasis of how important
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  reading is not equal across the board.
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  You know, my parents they both were the first to graduate from
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  college and their families.
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  And they come from very humble beginnings down south, but and then their parents
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  were not as educated as they are.
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  But I know both my mother and my father's parents just made sure it was a priority.
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  And I think that has been passed down to us, the grandchildren of our grandparents.
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  So, I have seen firsthand how that has had a big impact on me.
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  I have a lot of students who say, I don't like reading.
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  Reading is boring.
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  And then I also have students who say, I don't want to go to college.
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  And I think that's okay.
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  What I always tell them, I think it's okay if you don't want to go to college, but
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  I always tell them though, is it doesn't matter if you go to college, what you do,
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  you're going to have to learn how to read.
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  You're going to have to read it.
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  Let's say you want to go to trade school.
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  Okay.
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  Which I think is a wonderful route.
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  You want to be a plumber, electrician work in construction.
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  You're going to have to know you're going to have to read.
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  And you're going to have to know math actually.
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  And that's a whole nother conversation, but you know, I tried to speak to them
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  about the realities of what illiteracy looks like for an adult in this country.
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  And also I talked to them about contracts.
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  You know, you want to get your first apartment, you're getting
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  a credit card, you're trying to get a loan, all these things.
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  I hope you don't just write your name on something and sign it away.
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  You know?
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  So I try, if they're not like, You know, I love learning in schools.
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  I'm working on my fourth degree.
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  I love being in school.
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  Thank you.
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  But I recognize everybody doesn't, but that doesn't mean that you are off
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  the hook from learning how to read.
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  It's the fundamental to growth, I think.
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  I mean, as you said, no matter what you want to do, if you can't even It's
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  like when I travel and I travel to a foreign country and you can't read the
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  instructions, I feel so lost, you know?
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  You don't even know whether they're saying, you know, don't go down
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  this way because there's danger.
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  Or, you know, they're saying when, if you're driving, though I wouldn't drive
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  in a foreign country if I don't understand language, but you know, even walking,
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  like, Hmm, are they saying there's a pothole here or look out, you know,
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  it's the fundamental to almost anything.
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  Yes, it is.
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  So you want to order something from a menu.
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  You're going to have to be able to read that medication.
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  You know, when you get medication, they give you instructions and, you
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  know, God forbid you can't read that.
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  And you take the medication incorrectly and it doesn't cure you or even
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  worse, it makes you more sick.
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  So, I mean, we are in a day and age where literacy is fundamental.
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  There were times in the past where and far, far past where we weren't
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  as literate as a society, but today in the 21st century, we are.
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  And so if you want to be able to not just survive, but thrive, you're going to have
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  to pick up a book and get to practicing, is what I like to tell my students, so.
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  Yep, and I agree.
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  I agree.
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  Now, you mentioned that the book you wrote was really for teachers.
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  So how, I haven't read the book, of course.
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  So, do you give, like, instructions on how to teach literacy to children?
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  Tell me more about that.
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  So it really covers the foundations of language, right?
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  I mentioned earlier that all languages have sounds that would be the
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  study of phonetics and phonology.
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  And so I go over, well, here are the sounds in the English language.
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  Then I cover, well, here are the different letters that represent these sounds.
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  Here are the patterns.
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  How do you know that this A is going to say ah versus this A saying eh?
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  You know, children and even us, we don't encounter every single word in the world.
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  So we have to know that when we get to a word in English,
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  we have word-attack skills.
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  And like I said, I did a lot of research on my own time.
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  I learned to read so long ago that, you know, I don't
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  remember all the little rules.
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  So I had to do my own research and that was me going to different
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  workshops and trainings and reading different books and different articles.
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  All just to teach me about how language works.
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  So understanding about the sound and the symbol relationships, there
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  are exercises in the book that are like, how many sounds, how many
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  phonemes or sounds are in this word?
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  A word like vacation, vacation has V A C A T I O N, that's eight letters.
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  The sounds are [vacation pronounciations]
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  so that's seven.
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  So understanding, you know, if you looked at the word vacation, the ending is TION.
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  You would think, oh, it's TO, right?
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  But you know that suffix, TION, that pattern says shun.
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  So just covering those type of things.
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  That's the first and second chapter.
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  Then I go into prefixes, suffixes, and roots, because.= I teach at a
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  school where the students learn Latin.
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  They start learning in fifth grade and we're five through 12, so they
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  have to have like three years of Latin on their high school transcript
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  in order for them to graduate.
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  I asked the principal one day, like, why, why Latin?
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  You know, it's a dead language.
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  Nobody speaks it anymore.
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  And she said, Well, in theory, if they have a good grasp of Latin,
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  they'll have a good grasp of grammar, but also vocabulary, because and the
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  numbers vary depending on who you ask, but it's anywhere from 70 to 90
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  percent of the words in the English language are of Latin or Greek origin.
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  And so I noticed that the students weren't making that connection.
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  And I think what helps is when teachers are able to help
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  them make that connection.
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  So I've done professional development using my book.
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  And one of the things I always tell the teachers is that, you know, let's
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  lean into our students Latin knowledge.
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  When you introduce a vocabulary word break that word down into
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  its prefix, root, and suffix.
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  Find the, where the word came from in Latin.
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  Maybe the students know that Latin word, and now you are taking a derivation
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  from that Latin word and you're making that connection for them so that
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  they can see where these things come from and it'll help them to recognize
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  the meaning of words a lot faster.
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  So there are about four chapters on that and then the last chapter, it's just a
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  fun chapter, I find a lot of kids get...
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  they're fascinated when they learn about the etymology, the
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  actual origin of different words.
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  And so some of the ones I like to share that are kind of fun
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  are consider and disaster.
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  So, disaster, I believe is of Greek origin, but consider is Latin.
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  And both of those have, you know, a root word that mean the same thing.
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  So in consider the root word sitter comes from well, it comes
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  from the Latin, that means star.
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  And disaster also comes from the Greek meaning star.
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  And so then you say, well, what does consider and
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  disaster have to do with stars?
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  Well, in the ancient world, there was a heavy reliance on utilizing
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  the stars for predictions, planting and reaping and sowing, et cetera.
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  So, when you consider something that's like you're looking to the
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  star and it's a good omen, but a disaster, because this is bad.
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  When you look to the stars, it's something bad.
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  Of course, it's not what it means today, but you can see how that
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  word, like the history of that word.
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  And I think a lot of people are just kind of interested in that.
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  So that's why I included that as the last chapter.
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  Oh my gosh, I'm almost like maybe my major would have changed if I had
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  someone like you to make English and you know, the origins of the words
• 24:11
  and you know, bring in the Latin.
• 24:13
  I mean, just what you said, disaster, consider, stop.
• 24:19
  Never heard that before.
• 24:22
  That's amazing.
• 24:24
  Oh, my God.
• 24:25
  And that's what can make, you know, that can change a child's life, that can
• 24:30
  change their destiny, that can change so much about them, you know, because
• 24:36
  just hearing that story makes me like, okay, maybe I will order her book.
• 24:39
  I'm not a teacher, but it sounds interesting.
• 24:42
  And you said you made it fun so that I guess they in turn can teach it in a
• 24:47
  fun way so that children will learn it.
• 24:49
  You know, I, I became a mathematician because somebody made math fun for me.
• 24:55
  And so, I know that the same thing can apply to, you know, reading
• 24:59
  and understanding language and falling in love with it and say,
• 25:05
  Oh, no, you know, and we need it.
• 25:09
  As you said, they, everybody needs to know how to read and having
• 25:14
  someone like you, who is so embedded in it, who is interested in it.
• 25:20
  You said from a very young age, you were reading and trying to
• 25:23
  find out the origin of words.
• 25:25
  You love school.
• 25:26
  This is your fourth degree.
• 25:27
  Where were you when I needed you?
• 25:32
  Well, you know, of course we always have people join the show.
• 25:35
  And so they're going to be people who want to ask you questions.
• 25:38
  But before we go into the Q and A, how can people get in touch with you?
• 25:44
  So my book itself is on Amazon.
• 25:47
  So if you're interested, you can order a copy on Amazon.
• 25:50
  Again, it's called Etymology Rules Back to Basics.
• 25:54
  I can also be found on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube.
• 26:00
  And there's one more.
• 26:02
  I want to say Facebook as well.
• 26:04
  And there you can just find little bits of information about language on TikTok.
• 26:10
  I've done root word of the week, so, I have like a little root word tree.
• 26:14
  And different words that have the same root and I just
• 26:17
  share it throughout the week.
• 26:18
  So if you just want more information those are places where you can get that.
• 26:22
  And I can always be found via email at etymologyrules@gmail.com.
• 26:29
  Awesome.
• 26:30
  And for those of you who are watching this later on, if you'd like to be a
• 26:34
  guest on my show, like Brittany, you can reach out to me on my website,
• 26:38
  which is chattingwiththeexperts.com.
• 26:41
  I'm on LinkedIn.
• 26:42
  I love LinkedIn.
• 26:43
  Look up, just search for Paula Okonneh.
• 26:45
  You'll find me there.
• 26:47
  I'm also on Instagram.
• 26:49
  My handle there, I'll make sure I get it right.
• 26:52
  I always get it wrong, but most of the time my handle on
• 26:56
  IG is @chat_experts_podcast, and I am on Facebook.
• 27:04
  And Brittany and I actually connected through a past guest
• 27:07
  of mine, so that's another way.
• 27:09
  If you are friends or connected with a past guest of mine, if you look at some of
• 27:14
  my shows, reach out to one of those people to connect with me and you can be a guest.
• 27:20
  As I said, the mission of this show is to empower, to educate
• 27:26
  and inspire women globally.
• 27:28
  That started with me because now I'm going to go buy that book.
• 27:31
  I have been educated beyond words.
• 27:34
  Thank you so much, Brittany, for being a guest on the show.
• 27:37
  And of course we'll open up the floor to whoever else was joined,
• 27:41
  who wants to ask you questions.
• 27:44
  Thank you for having me.
• 27:45
  Thank you very much.
• 27:47
  Sure.