Is it a shame to write illiterately today? Probably not. To be convinced of this, it is enough to open almost any blog or forum - the evidence is there. Having lost the culture of reverent attitude towards the word, we are not afraid to write as it seems true, not just without bothering to re-read what was written, looking in the dictionary once again, although, double-checking yourself in the dictionary is never superfluous. We make mistakes in the most in simple words, we violate the most basic school rules: “not” with verbs, -tsya and -tsya, and so on endlessly.
Below is an article by one of the most famous linguists of the twentieth century - professors Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba.
Written 80 years ago, in a time almost as transitional as today, and today, alas, it has not lost its relevance
To prove that the literacy of our schoolchildren has greatly decreased would mean breaking into open door. This is revealed in the entrance exams to higher education. educational establishments and technical schools; at the literacy level of typists and copyists who have recently graduated from school; during surveys of schools, and in general wherever one has to observe people learning to write Lately. One should not, of course, think that in the past everything was fine in this regard; The issue of raising literacy has always been on the priority list. But we must frankly admit that now this issue has acquired a completely unusual urgency and that the cries about the unacceptable illiteracy of the students of our school are by no means exaggerated. We must frankly admit that this gap in our school affairs has reached. To prove that the literacy of our schoolchildren has greatly decreased would mean breaking into an open door. This is revealed in entrance exams to higher educational institutions and technical schools; at the literacy level of typists and copyists who have recently graduated from school; during surveys of schools, and in general wherever one has to observe people who have recently been learning to write. One should not, of course, think that in the past everything was fine in this regard; The issue of raising literacy has always been on the priority list. But we must frankly admit that now this issue has acquired a completely unusual urgency and that the cries about the unacceptable illiteracy of the students of our school are by no means exaggerated. We must frankly admit that this gap in our school affairs has reached the proportions of a social disaster, that we must shout about it and seek measures to eliminate it.
It may seem strange that after the implementation of spelling reform, which was conceived to a large extent to facilitate the achievement of full literacy, the results turned out to be exactly the opposite of those expected. Meanwhile, there is nothing more natural, and this could even be foreseen. In fact, the reform facilitated spelling, but did not make it easy, because the spelling of a language used by one and a half hundred million people, by the very essence of things, cannot be absolutely easy - why, it would take a very long time to explain here; I will only say that one hundred and fifty million, settled over a colossal territory, cannot speak the same, but they must write the same. So, the reform did not make spelling unconditionally easier, but it radically undermined its prestige.
It was, of course, always clear to us philologists that spelling is a conditional thing and changes over time; but wide circles of literate people considered it to rest on some unshakable foundations. For the lower strata of literate people, this very literacy was generally the limit of science; to be able to place yati correctly meant to be “ learned man" For the upper strata of literate people, the requirements of spelling were justified by science, and to violate these requirements meant to destroy science, meant to destroy native language, disavowing his story. In order to clearly imagine these previous attitudes, it is enough to recall those heated debates that were held on the topic of how to write: l e textbook or hospital, more or more, ham or venison, etc.
The spelling reform clearly, and therefore irrevocably, destroyed all these illusions. It turned out that you can write bread, snow, causeless etc., etc., for which they previously received a bad grade, were deprived of a diploma, or were not hired as a scribe. Practical conclusion, which was made from here by the broad masses, and not only by them, but also by the teachers, and not only by the grassroots, but also by the middle, in general by almost the entire society, was that spelling is an unimportant thing, write, they say, as you want, that’s not the point force. I state this not as my own conjecture, but as a constantly confirmed observation of life and school. This new assessment spelling was supported by the characteristic of all revolutionary eras contempt for “form” and pursuit of “being”. The result is an underestimation of the importance of spelling, which, in my deep conviction, is the root cause of modern illiteracy.
What to do? First of all, we need to return spelling to its prestige, but, of course, not the traditional one, which forced us to hold on to every letter of the past, and not the pseudoscientific one with which spelling was surrounded and which in fact it did not have, but the real one, which makes it a wonderful tool for communication between millions of people.
In fact, it is absolutely clear that if everyone writes differently, then we will cease to understand each other. This means that the meaning and value of spelling lies in its unity. The more ideal this unity, the easier the mutual understanding. These general considerations are fully confirmed by research into the reading process. For this process to be completely successful, it is necessary that we recognize as easily as possible graphic symbols, so that associated associations arise as easily as possible. Everything unusual - unusual shapes of letters, unusual spelling of words, unusual abbreviations, etc. - all this slows down perception, stopping our attention. Everyone knows how difficult it is to read without competent writing: with every mistake you stumble, and sometimes you simply don’t immediately understand what is written. A competent, stylistically and compositionally correctly constructed statement on four large pages can be read in a few minutes. It will take the same amount of time, if not more, to sort out a small, but illiterate and stylistically helpless receipt.
To write illiterately means to encroach on the time of the people to whom we are addressing, and therefore is completely unacceptable in a properly organized society. You cannot tolerate illiterate officials, secretaries, typists, copyists, etc., etc. And, of course, as life improves, raising literacy will be carried out in the most ruthless way by this very life: those who are poorly literate will be removed from service, otherwise and simply not accept for service; other than that equal conditions preference in all circumstances will be given to the more literate, etc., etc. If we do not instill literacy in children, then we will not create socially useful workers and will not fulfill what life and society expect from us.
Let me add to this that we must teach our children to write not only competently, but also clearly, which is no less important. But this remark does not directly relate to my topic, and, on the other hand, would deserve more detailed development. Therefore, I move on to the second reason for modern illiteracy.
It seems to me that it lies in the methods of teaching spelling. The fact is that 20–25 years ago the writings of the German teacher Lai had a great influence on the minds of teachers. They were translated into Russian, served as the topic of reports at various congresses, and became completely integrated into current methods. I have no desire - and it would be inappropriate here - to shake up old books and restore the entire history of the issue; I’ll tell you briefly what the essence of the matter was. The ability to write correctly began to be considered as a well-known acquired mechanism based on motor and visual memory. Therefore, the main method for achieving this skill began to be recognized as copying from correct models, and a severe war was declared on dictation, which had reigned until that time.
That literacy is a mechanism or, to put it more simply, what more literate person, the less he thinks about the process of writing itself - this is an undoubted truth. However, this formula is too simple for reality. If, for example, I don’t think about what I’m writing now, then, of course, I’ll lie and use it b in verbs to -xia, and in the use of prefixes and some unstressed endings, and in many other cases, not to mention punctuation marks, the mechanical use of which sometimes leads, as we know from practice, to complete illiteracy. This means that although the ideal is to mechanize the writing process, it is only up to a certain limit, beyond which the writing process must still be conscious. Attention must linger on certain forms of language, quickly analyze them and, accordingly, solve one or another spelling problem. It already follows from this that mechanization of the writing process will in no way give absolute literacy, and even more, it will certainly lead to semi-literacy, since it will not create the habit of quickly analyzing linguistic forms when writing.
From this point of view, dictation with marks is not such a bad tool at all, because it teaches you to quickly solve spelling problems with intense (spurred) attention. But the mechanization of writing, the importance of which I, of course, do not deny at all, is hardly correctly achieved by mechanical means, while referring to old clerks who, in 15–20 years, learned to write quite competently. 1
After all, our task in all areas of knowledge is to facilitate and speed up this mechanical training through its rationalization. The ideal, in my opinion, is to achieve the necessary limit of mechanization through consciousness, so that this latter is present in all necessary cases and is ready when the mechanism for some reason refuses to serve, even for a minute.
But if anyone disagrees with this, then everyone must certainly admit that essential condition Acquiring the writing mechanism is the absolute correctness of copying, which is possible only with maximum attention. Well, it is known, of course, that cheating is a deadly boring thing, that children copy extremely inattentively and make a merciless number of mistakes. It irrefutably follows from this that cheating should be made as conscious as possible, focusing children’s attention on language forms and their analysis. Our spelling, being almost consistently etymological (word production), provides the richest food for this. It forces you to decompose words into their component parts and look for related forms ( water-a\water-n-y; stl-a-t= in pronunciation “to send” \ stele; good\evil; earth-yang-oh \ earth-yang-k-a), find the relationship between words, groups of words (for punctuation marks), etc. In other words, in order to acquire the mechanism of writing, it is necessary to study language and its grammar - a conclusion that may seem rather banal. However, it should be insisted on, since there was a time when many of us thought that spelling could be learned in addition to language lessons, that these latter were necessary only in themselves, and not for literacy. Many thought, and maybe still think, that in order to learn to write correctly, one should only banish dictation and force them to copy from handwritten or cursive printed text. In reality, the situation is far from being as simple as V. Chernyshev perfectly showed in his little book “In Defense of the Living Word” (St. Petersburg, 1912). 
Meanwhile, having separated language classes from literacy teaching, many teachers who had no inclination for language classes or were poorly prepared for this began to gradually neglect them more and more in practice. Thus, teaching spelling hung in the air, based only on copying. I believe that the results that are now evident were obtained to a large extent due to the dismantling of methodological errors, or, rather, due to hasty and one-sided conclusions from some data from experimental pedagogy.
So, in order for children to write competently, they need to engage in language as such. But here comes the third reason for modern illiteracy, which is that teachers for the most part do not like and do not know how to teach the language. One would think that Russian teachers do not like the Russian language. I believe this is not the case; I believe that they love the Russian language, but they love it instinctively, not consciously, without realizing what and why they should love about it. Meanwhile, in order for children to successfully study a language, they need to love it; and in order for children to love a language, it is necessary for teachers to infect them with their love; but instinctive love, if it exists, cannot be transmitted to children; it must somehow be realistically expressed and have its own points of application.
Why don’t teachers like and know how to teach language? Yes, because he was not taught this. After all, in the end, school science is always, to one degree or another, a function of university science. And now it must be stated that university science is the second half of the 19th century V. in the field of language did not provide anything for school science.
Due to a number of circumstances that it would be inappropriate to dwell on here, the linguistics of this era became entirely historical, focusing almost exclusively on phonetics and morphology. A lot has been done in this area, and linguistics as a whole has moved forward dead center, on which it was located in the 18th century; but all this was not for school. Meanwhile, the language expressive means in its modern context - the main thing that is necessary and important in school - they almost did not study science at all. There was a gap between university and school science, and even more - between university science in the field of linguistics and society (for more information on this, see the preface to the first issue of Russian Speech [Petrograd, 1923]). 
The teaching was left to its own devices and supplemented with old scholastic material. Only in the 20th century. a turn towards language as an expresser of our thoughts and feelings begins to be noticed; The close connection between language and literature is beginning to be emphasized more and more. But very little has been done on this path so far. “On the relationship of Russian writing to the Russian language” by I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay, “Collection of problems on introduction to linguistics” by him, “Essay on Russian literary language"A. A. Shakhmatov, “Syntaxes” by D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky and A. M. Peshkovsky, books by V. A. Bogoroditsky, V. I. Chernyshev and E. F. Budde, and recently M. N. Peterson, N. N. Durnovo and L. A. Bulakhovsky in scientific literature and books by Peshkovsky, Ushakov and Rybnikova in school - that’s almost all that is available on this topic. Suffice it to say that we do not have a dictionary of the Russian literary language at all; no good one complete grammar(there are parts of it, and even then on Serbian language); no good etymological dictionary(Preobrazhensky, as you know, remained unfinished); synonymy has not been developed at all; no style. And there is nothing to say that there are almost no good linguistic analyzes literary works; there are no good problem books and different collections exercises on stylistics and other departments of language, etc.
What to do? Promote the appearance of relevant works, support their authors in every possible way, work to improve the qualifications in the field of language among university students and pedagogical universities; radically reform pedagogical technical schools, bearing in mind that all students of pedagogical technical schools will be, first of all, teachers of the Russian language, and therefore must love 2
and know it well, understand its mechanism. Now, as I am partially convinced personal experience, students of pedagogical technical schools are engaged and interested in anything but the Russian language, and cannot consciously relate to the most elementary fact of language or spelling.
Here are the three main reasons for modern illiteracy, in my opinion. But there are, of course, many other side effects. I will point out some of them in conclusion: 
1) S. A. Zolotarev, analyzing errors modern schoolchildren, concludes that many of them are the result of promiscuity. And we must definitely agree with this. A good notebook, competent writing, and clear handwriting are possible only with great internal discipline and smartness.
2) Paradoxical as it may sound, it must be said that one of the reasons for the decline in literacy, one of the serious reasons, is “new methods”. Of course, not new methods in themselves - they can only be welcomed, since the absence of new methods would mean stagnation of pedagogical thought - but the “zeal beyond reason” that some administrators show. Many of them are decidedly obsessed with various new methods and evaluate schools and individual teachers not by the results they achieve, but by the extent to which they apply new methods. It's time to remember wise saying that the Sabbath is for man, and not man for the Sabbath. The state and society are not important school methods, and the degree of suitability for life of the citizens graduating from the school. The first requirement presented by life is literacy and the ability to read a book (both, of course, in both narrow and in a broad sense). The methods must be left to specialists, scientific councils, research institutes, laboratory schools, pedagogical societies, congresses, etc. The question of methods is a complex one. Universal methods No. Every new method has something valuable to take advantage of; but it is hardly possible to find cases in history when new methods wholly could be usefully applied in life. Meanwhile, our teachers often, in pursuit of new methods, forget about their responsibilities to children and society and do not teach their students what, undoubtedly, should remain with any methods.
3) The question of books is also important. At various colloquiums one has to be amazed at the low level of reading of our schoolchildren. Meanwhile, the mechanism of literacy is undoubtedly acquired by reading (I won’t go into detail here). complex issue about the role of reading in the process of creating literacy; but what does it have great importance in this case, there is no doubt). It is quite obvious that children who must master a literary language must read our classics (I hope to return to this issue in a special article), and read them in large quantities. Partly, this may be the fault of the school, which does not know how to organize this reading; but the main role - for this reading should be independent and free - here, apparently, plays big drawback books, especially in the provinces. 
NOTES
1
There is no doubt that these clerks themselves developed systems of spelling rules, each with their own, more or less successful.
2
Let the reader not be embarrassed by this sentimental word: you can still do with success only what you love.
Shcherba L.V. Selected works In Russian. M.: Uchpedgiz, 1957. pp. 56–62.
SHCHERBA, LEV VLADIMIROVICH <>(1880–1944), Russian linguist, specialist in general linguistics, Russian, Slavic and French languages. Born February 20 (March 3), 1880 in St. Petersburg. Graduated in 1903 St. Petersburg University, student of I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay. In 1916–1941 he was a professor at Petrograd (Leningrad) University. Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1943. last years During his life he worked in Moscow, where he died on December 26, 1944.
Shcherba went down in the history of linguistics primarily as an outstanding specialist in phonetics and phonology. He developed the concept of phoneme, which he adopted from Baudouin, and developed the original “Leningrad” phonological concept, the adherents of which (M.I. Matusevich, L.R. Zinder, etc.) together with Shcherba formed the Leningrad phonological school. Author of the books Russian vowels in qualitative and quantitative terms (1912), East Lusatian dialect (1915), Phonetics French(7th edition, 1963).
Shcherba's contribution to general linguistics, lexicology and lexicography, and the theory of writing is also significant. Important ideas contained in his articles On parts of speech in the Russian language (1928), On the threefold aspect linguistic phenomena and about an experiment in linguistics (1931), Experience general theory lexicography (1940), Current problems of linguistics (1946, posthumously). Shcherba proposed an original concept of language and speech, different from the concept of F. de Saussure, introducing a distinction between not two, but three sides of the object of linguistics: speech activity, language system and language material.
Shcherba posed the problem of constructing an active grammar that goes from meanings to forms expressing these meanings (in contrast to the more traditional passive grammar that goes from forms to meanings). Being engaged in lexicology and lexicography, he clearly formulated the importance of distinguishing between the scientific and “naive” meaning of a word, and proposed the first scientific typology of dictionaries in Russian linguistics. As a practicing lexicographer, he (together with M.I. Matusevich) was the author of a large Russian-French dictionary.
IN medical practice The following phenomenon is known: with paralysis, with complete loss of speech, when a person cannot pronounce either “yes” or “no,” he can, nevertheless, completely freely utter entire expressions consisting exclusively of obscenities. The phenomenon is very strange at first glance, but it says a lot.
It turns out that the so-called checkmate passes through completely different nerve chains than the rest normal speech. What kind of chains are these? What (or who) is behind them? Who demonstrates their power over a paralyzed body in this way?
Lesson using CSR. The class is divided into two groups. Each of them must fulfill certain creative work. A presentation was created in advance for the lesson, which had to be converted. The final result of the lesson is a presentation creative assignment and presentations with modified text.
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Basic principles of Russian spelling
Lesson type : lesson on consolidating students’ knowledge, skills and abilities using project technology
Lesson objectives:
1. Identify the basic principles of Russian spelling and trace their functioning in the Russian language.
2. Develop monologue speech
3. Work on instilling patriotism, respect for the native language, culture and history of your country.
Lesson objectives:
- Conduct vocabulary and spelling work aimed at improving student literacy.
- Strengthen the skill of working with test tasks to the Unified State Exam.
- Foster the need to acquire new knowledge and improve communication culture.
Lesson equipment: multimedia installation, laptops, presentation on the lesson topic.
During the classes.
I. Organizational moment.
II. Conversation with the class.
- Define spelling. (Answer:spelling (from the Greek orthos - correct, grapho - writing) - a system of rules about the spelling of words and their significant parts; about merged and separate spellings words; about the use of lowercase and capital letters, about word wrapping).
- Work with text.
Read an excerpt from the article by L.V. Shcherba “Illiteracy and its causes.” Do you agree with the linguist? What?
In fact, it is absolutely clear that if everyone writes differently then we'll stop understand each other. So, the meaning and value spelling in unity. The more ideal this unity, the easier the mutual understanding. These general considerations are quite are confirmed study of the reading process. For this process to be completely successful, it is necessary that graphic symbols be recognized as quickly as possible, so that associated associations . Everything unusual - unusual shapes of letters, unusual spelling of words, unusual abbreviations, etc. - all this slows down perception, stopping our attention. Everyone knows how difficult it is to read an illiterate letter: you stumble at every mistake, and sometimes you don’t even immediately understand what is written. A competent, stylistically and compositionally correctly constructed statement on four large pages can be read in a few minutes. It will take the same amount of time, if not more. disassemble and small, but illiterate and stylistically helpless receipt.
To write illiterately means to encroach on the time of the people to whom we are addressing, and therefore is completely unacceptable in a properly organized society.
Determine the main idea of the text.
Explain the spelling of the highlighted words, what principles of Russian spelling were we guided by?
III. Work on the project “Basic principles of Russian spelling.”
- Presentation of a presentation on a topic.
- Student work on making changes (Using additional literature)
IV. Practical work.
- Vocabulary (orthoepic) work.
Took, listened, took, drove, got, waited, took, asked, borrowed, took away, tore, accepted, removed, fought, locked, tore, sent; will call, take, busy, busy, busy (person), busy (with someone), taken, start, started, started, began, started, understand, understood, understood, understood, understood, arrive, arrived, arrived, arrived, deepen, deepen.
- Fill in the missing letters. Check it yourself spelling dictionary, rate yourself.
M...zdit, zak...cheleny, l...sq...dirovat, m...sol, Av...kado, alg...rhythm, b...kalavr, gl... diator, d...ndrary, k...n...paty, m...rinist, procl...mation, v...n...gret, g...relief, zab... tint, k...l...ncha, k...rogaz, k...mp...novate, lum...n...scene, f...sol, b...cl. ..zhan, g...rpun, coffin...green, p...rl...mutr, forv...rd, aquar...rel, b...athlon, v...trushka, in...rn...soot.
- Write by inserting the missing letters. In the highlighted words, indicate the roots.
The floating bridge, freeze; out of fear, look around the tops of the trees, get ready for the road, lock the door, brilliant answer, green... drain, dress for your...st, stagnation. ..to make the bed, to bow to talent, evening sunshine, to drop by for an hour, to rush around the room, to swell...to the side, to find fault with everything , jumping gait, unacceptable intercourse, difficult exercise, equivalent values, appraise opponents, present facts, imported light...daw, constant breakdown, abundant evaporation, admirers of talent, terrible disgust.. .suffering, getting...washed out in the rain, an unthinkable delay...building, inciting hostility...disposition of the army, level...of rights, sitting locked up.
- Fill in the missing spellings. Explain your choice.
1. The kitten is only a few hours old, it still cannot swim, it sticks out in the water upright, like a float, but this newborn is seven meters long and weighs five tons. And the miracle baby will begin to grow by leaps and bounds (Above). 2. The Koshevoy and the elders took off their hats and bowed in all directions (G.). 3. Quickly and deftly she spread out the hay, ripped it apart, turned over the wounded man (Close). 4. About ten years ago, several thousand dessiatines were warmed up in Polesie and still haven’t been covered (T.). 5. 3... the rye burst into flames and engulfed half the sky (T.). 6. A high cylinder shines in the hand (Bl.). 7. All the officers were killed by seventeen people (L. T.). 8. Two minutes later we broke up with the man (P.). 9. The doctor made a point, blotted out what was written in blue paper and raised his eyes (Ast.). 10. At first, Mumu was very weak, frail and ugly, but little by little she managed and got better... (T.). 11. The birches stood all white, without shine, white, like freshly fallen snow, which had not yet been touched by the coldly playing ray winter sun(T.).
5. Rewrite by inserting the missing letters. Explain the spelling of words with missing letters.
1. The fogs died quietly over the river (Ast.). 2. From dawn to dusk, the fire did not go out behind Iggress (Alex.). 3. With the first sounds, with the awakening of people, the fogs disappeared into the ravines, gorges... (Ast). 4. In its swaying reflections, the bent figure of a worker appeared every now and then (Alex.). 5. In some places we crouched down to crawl under a leaning pine tree, saxifrages intertwined through the bushes... (Ast.). 6. He stood, listened and looked down... at the sea of... deprived tops of the forest spread out in front of him under the mountain... (L. T.). 7. The birds ran louder and busier in the thicket (L. T.). 8. I shuddered, shivered, licked the bitter drops from my lips, and my grandmother wiped my shorn head with her palm... assuring that people grow big and big from the rain and the rain (Ast .). 9. The fog pressed more and more tightly to the ground... (Ast.). 10. Anises lined up in two rows on both sides... (Alex.). 11. Created a long time ago, the world lived its own unique, complex and eternal life(Alex.). 12. Small meadows immediately began in front of the windows, extending to the Saltykovskaya Mountain, blue in the distance (Alex.). 13. They rose from the coastal thickets wild ducks(Alex.). 14. The forest responded to him with the submissive rustle of yellowing leaves, the growing noise of falling trees (Alex.). 15. Mikhail stretched out his lips and tried to imitate the nightingale (Alex.). 16. ...And in the end, freezing...for a moment, it crumbled into large hail... (Alex.). 17. The music that I heard in childhood broke in me, turned to stone, and those of its flights to the sky, to the star, from which I once cried, dissolved in my heart (Ast). 18. In the intervals of perfect silence, the rustling of last year’s leaves was heard (L.T.). 9....Weasel, shuddering, carefully took a few steps and, bowing his head to the side, began to listen (L. T.). 20. Before Ulka had time to think to the end, the guy broke up with her and blocked the way (Alex.). 21. His cheeks turned red, his eyes heated up and angrily, almost viciously, stared at her (Bob.). 22. My face was touched by the tenacious, always icy leaves of hops (Ast.). 23. I freeze in delight (Lesk.). 24. There the fire of the car goes out and another one is lit, the fire of the hearth or fireplace (Gonch.). 25. All victories begin with victories over oneself (Leon.).
VII. Lesson summary. Reflection.
VIII. Homework.
1. Theoretical material lesson to learn.
It was, of course, always clear to us philologists that spelling is a conditional thing and changes over time; but wide circles of literate people considered it to rest on some unshakable foundations. For the lower strata of literate people, this very literacy was generally the limit of science; to be able to place yati correctly meant to be a “learned person.” For the upper strata of literate people, the requirements of spelling were justified by science, and to violate these requirements meant to destroy science, it meant to destroy the native language, renouncing its history. In order to clearly imagine these previous attitudes, it is enough to recall those heated debates that were held on the topic of how to write: hospital or hospital, bole or bole, ham or vyadchina, etc.
The spelling reform clearly, and therefore irrevocably, destroyed all these illusions. It turned out that you can write bread, snow, causeless, etc., etc., for which previously they were given a bad mark, deprived of a diploma, or not hired as a scribe. The practical conclusion that was drawn from here by the broad masses, and not only by them, but also by the teachers, and not only by the grassroots, but also by the middle, in general by almost the entire society, was that spelling is an unimportant thing, write, they say, as you want, not That's the strength. I state this not as my own conjecture, but as a constantly confirmed observation of life and school. This new assessment of spelling was reinforced by the contempt for “form” and the pursuit of “substance” characteristic of all revolutionary eras. The result is an underestimation of the importance of spelling, which, in my deep conviction, is the root cause of modern illiteracy.
What to do? First of all, we need to return spelling to its prestige, but, of course, not the traditional one, which forced us to hold on to every letter of the past, and not the pseudoscientific one with which spelling was surrounded and which in fact it did not have, but the real one, which makes it a wonderful tool for communication between millions of people.
In fact, it is absolutely clear that if everyone writes differently, then we will cease to understand each other. This means that the meaning and value of spelling lies in its unity. The more ideal this unity, the easier the mutual understanding. These general considerations are fully confirmed by research into the reading process. For this process to be completely successful, it is necessary that we recognize graphic symbols as easily as possible, so that associations associated with them arise as easily as possible. Everything unusual - unusual shapes of letters, unusual spelling of words, unusual abbreviations, etc. - all this slows down perception, stopping our attention. Everyone knows how difficult it is to read an illiterate letter: you stumble at every mistake, and sometimes you simply do not immediately understand what is written. A competent, stylistically and compositionally correctly constructed statement on four large pages can be read in a few minutes. It will take the same amount of time, if not more, to sort out a small, but illiterate and stylistically helpless receipt.
To write illiterately means to encroach on the time of the people to whom we are addressing, and therefore is completely unacceptable in a properly organized society. Illiterate officials, secretaries, typists, copyists, etc., etc. cannot be tolerated.
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
You can only do what you love with success.
Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba (1880–1944)
Illiteracy and its causes
http://www.ruthenia.ru/apr/textes/sherba/sherba20.htm
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In fact, it is absolutely clear that if everyone writes differently, then we will cease to understand each other. This means that the meaning and value of spelling is in unity. The more ideal this unity, the easier the mutual understanding. These general considerations are fully confirmed by research into the reading process. For this process to be completely successful, it is necessary that graphic symbols be recognized as quickly as possible so that associations associated with them arise as easily as possible. Everything unusual - unusual shapes of letters, unusual spelling of words, unusual abbreviations, etc. - all this slows down perception, stopping our attention. Everyone knows how difficult it is to read an illiterate letter: you stumble at every mistake, and sometimes you don’t even immediately understand what is written. A competent, stylistically and compositionally correctly constructed statement on four large pages can be read in a few minutes. It will take the same amount of time, if not more, to sort out a small, but illiterate and stylistically helpless receipt. To write illiterately means to encroach on the time of the people to whom we are addressing, and therefore is completely unacceptable in a properly organized society. L.V. Shcherba Do you agree with the linguist? What? Illiteracy and its causes
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human who knows spelling A person who does not make mistakes when writing is called literate. However, it is not the one who knows how to write all the words existing in the language that is considered literate, but the one who knows how to use rules, dictionaries and reference books and is able to explain the spelling of a word. Who do you think can be called a literate person?
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Spelling principles are ideas, patterns that underlie spelling rules specific language. The social function of spelling is manifested in the fact that the uniform spelling of words, regardless of individual and dialect features pronunciation, ensures understanding of written speech.
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Principles of Russian spelling Morphological / morphemic / Phonetic Traditional Differentiating / each principle of spelling unites certain group rules/
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The leading orthographic principle of our writing. Its essence: it is necessary to maintain a uniform spelling of all significant parts words (morphemes, that is, prefixes, roots, suffixes and endings), despite differences in their pronunciation. This is extremely important for this reason: a word is made up of morphemes, like a house made of individual bricks, and each of these parts contains certain information about its meaning and grammatical properties. It is estimated that in texts in Russian, 96% of spellings meet this principle.
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Let's give a few examples. The simplest ones: water, water, water (the root -vod- is pronounced differently, but is written the same way, since in all words it is the bearer of their real meaning); train, went, go (the prefix po- in these words is written the same way, regardless of pronunciation, since it has a meaning indicating the time or method of action); oak, birch (the suffix -ov-, producing adjectives with the meaning of belonging, is written the same, despite the difference in pronunciation); table, chair (the ending -om is written the same, despite the difference in pronunciation, because it indicates the same form of the noun male, namely instrumental case singular).
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Writing unstressed checked vowels in the root; Writing consonants in the root /voiced, voiceless, unpronounceable/; Writing consonant prefixes, prefixes s-, prefixes pre- and pre-; Vowels o and e after sibilants, vowels after ts-; Case endings nouns, adjectives; Suffixes of nouns, adjectives, participles; Spelling of verbs, numerals, pronouns, etc. Rules based on morphological principle
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The basic rule of the phonetic principle (the dream of every schoolchild!): “As we hear, so we write.” Guided by this rule, today one should write horat instead of city or piti instead of five.. The spelling of orthograms corresponds to the sound in this word
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Writing only two consonants where morphologically there should be three, and (in some cases) only one consonant where morphologically there should be two: Odessa = Odess-a + sk; lend = s + loan-a; semolina = mann-a + k; operetta = operetta-a + k and Writing -s- instead of -z- at the end of some prefixes (without-(nebez-, bez-), voz-(vz-), iz-(syz-), niz-, raz- (ros-), through- (through-)) before the subsequent voiceless consonant. Availability of four written versions at the prefix roz- (ros-) - raz- (ras-), which reflects not only the alternation of the voiced \з\ with the unvoiced \с\, but also the stressed \о\ with the unstressed \а\: search - but to search, painting - but to paint, etc. Writing the initial Y instead of I in roots after Russian-language prefixes ending in a hard consonant (except for prefixes inter- and super-): artless, predyyulskiy, siznova. Writing O - E in suffixes and endings of nouns and adjectives / shred-knife, candle-cloud / etc. Rules based on phonetic principle
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Involves a large gap, a discrepancy between the spelling and pronunciation of a word. Spellings of words and morphemes that follow this principle must be memorized / the choice of letter cannot be checked strong position, since there is no such thing in modern language, and the word is written in accordance with tradition, its spelling is determined by the dictionary/. The following rules are based on it: spelling of unverified and alternating vowels and consonants in the root, use of ь after sibilants in nouns, combined and separate spelling of adverbs, adverbial combinations and some prepositions, spelling of the endings of masculine adjectives r.p. units ch.-th, etc.
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The differentiating principle of writing is implemented in situations where it is necessary to differentiate equally by means of spelling. sounding words: score (score) and ball (dance evening), burn (verb) and burn (noun), cry (verb) and cry (noun), tush (masculine noun) and mascara (noun female), eagle (bird), and eagle (city) - that is, to distinguish homophone words.
Everything unusual - unusual shapes of letters, unusual spelling of words, unusual abbreviations, etc. - all this slows down perception, stopping our attention. Everyone knows how difficult it is to read an illiterate letter: you stumble at every mistake, and sometimes you simply do not immediately understand what is written. A competent, stylistically and compositionally correctly constructed statement on four big pages can be read in a few minutes. It will take the same amount of time, if not more, to sort out a small, but illiterate and stylistically helpless receipt.
To write illiterately means to encroach on the time of the people to whom we are addressing, and therefore is completely unacceptable in a properly organized society.
Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba. Illiteracy and its causes. (Selected works on the Russian language, 1957)
Illiteracy and its causes
To prove that the literacy of our schoolchildren has greatly decreased would mean breaking down an open door. This is revealed in entrance exams to higher educational institutions and technical schools; at the literacy level of typists and copyists who have recently graduated from school; during surveys of schools, and in general wherever one has to observe people who have recently been learning to write. One should not, of course, think that in the past everything was fine in this regard; The issue of raising literacy has always been on the priority list. But we must frankly admit that now this issue has acquired a completely unusual urgency and that the cries about the unacceptable illiteracy of the students of our school are by no means exaggerated. We must frankly admit that this gap in our school affairs has reached the proportions of a social disaster, that we must shout about it and seek measures to eliminate it.
It may seem strange that after the implementation of spelling reform, which was conceived to a large extent to facilitate the achievement of full literacy, the results turned out to be exactly the opposite of those expected. Meanwhile, there is nothing more natural, and this could even be foreseen. In fact, the reform facilitated spelling, but did not make it easy, because the spelling of a language used by one and a half hundred million people, by the very essence of things, cannot be absolutely easy - why, it would take a very long time to explain here; I will only say that one hundred and fifty million, settled over a colossal territory, cannot speak the same, but they must write the same. So, the reform did not make spelling unconditionally easier, but it radically undermined its prestige.
It was, of course, always clear to us philologists that spelling is a conditional thing and changes over time; but wide circles of literate people considered it to rest on some unshakable foundations. For the lower strata of literate people, this very literacy was generally the limit of science; to be able to place yati correctly meant to be a “learned person.” For the upper strata of literate people, the requirements of spelling were justified by science, and to violate these requirements meant to destroy science, it meant to destroy the native language, renouncing its history. In order to clearly imagine these previous attitudes, it is enough to recall those heated debates that were held on the topic of how to write: hospital or hospital, bole or bole, ham or vyadchina, etc.
The spelling reform clearly, and therefore irrevocably, destroyed all these illusions. It turned out that you can write bread, snow, causeless, etc., etc., for which previously they were given a bad mark, deprived of a diploma, or not hired as a scribe. The practical conclusion that was drawn from here by the broad masses, and not only by them, but also by the teachers, and not only by the grassroots, but also by the middle, in general by almost the entire society, was that spelling is an unimportant thing, write, they say, as you want, not That's the strength. I state this not as my own conjecture, but as a constantly confirmed observation of life and school. This new assessment of spelling was reinforced by the contempt for “form” and the pursuit of “substance” characteristic of all revolutionary eras. The result is an underestimation of the importance of spelling, which, in my deep conviction, is the root cause of modern illiteracy.
What to do? First of all, we need to return spelling to its prestige, but, of course, not the traditional one, which forced us to hold on to every letter of the past, and not the pseudoscientific one with which spelling was surrounded and which in fact it did not have, but the real one, which makes it a wonderful tool for communication between millions of people.
In fact, it is absolutely clear that if everyone writes differently, then we will cease to understand each other. This means that the meaning and value of spelling lies in its unity. The more ideal this unity, the easier the mutual understanding. These general considerations are fully confirmed by research into the reading process. For this process to be completely successful, it is necessary that we recognize graphic symbols as easily as possible, so that associations associated with them arise as easily as possible. Everything unusual - unusual shapes of letters, unusual spelling of words, unusual abbreviations, etc. - all this slows down perception, stopping our attention. Everyone knows how difficult it is to read an illiterate letter: you stumble at every mistake, and sometimes you simply do not immediately understand what is written. A competent, stylistically and compositionally correctly constructed statement on four large pages can be read in a few minutes. It will take the same amount of time, if not more, to sort out a small, but illiterate and stylistically helpless receipt.
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To write illiterately means to encroach on the time of the people to whom we are addressing, and therefore is completely unacceptable in a properly organized society. You cannot tolerate illiterate officials, secretaries, typists, copyists, etc., etc. And, of course, as life improves, raising literacy will be carried out in the most ruthless way by this very life: those who are poorly literate will be removed from service, otherwise and simply not accept for service; other things being equal, preference in all circumstances will be given to the more literate, etc., etc. If we do not instill literacy in children, then we will not create socially useful workers and will not fulfill what life and society expect from us.
Let me add to this that we must teach our children to write not only competently, but also clearly, which is no less important. But this remark does not directly relate to my topic, and, on the other hand, would deserve more detailed development. Therefore, I move on to the second reason for modern illiteracy.
It seems to me that it lies in the methods of teaching spelling. The fact is that 20–25 years ago the writings of the German teacher Lai had a great influence on the minds of teachers. They were translated into Russian, served as the topic of reports at various congresses, and became completely integrated into current methods. I have no desire - and it would be inappropriate here - to shake up old books and restore the entire history of the issue; I’ll tell you briefly what the essence of the matter was. The ability to write correctly began to be considered as a well-known acquired mechanism based on motor and visual memory. Therefore, the main method for achieving this skill began to be recognized as copying from correct models, and a severe war was declared on dictation, which had reigned until that time.
That literacy is a mechanism or, to put it more simply, that the more literate a person is, the less he thinks about the process of writing itself - this is an undoubted truth. However, this formula is too simple for reality. If, for example, I don’t think about what I’m writing now, then, of course, I’ll lie both in the use of ь in verbs in -sya, and in the use of prefixes and some unstressed endings, and in many other cases, not to mention the signs punctuation, the mechanical use of which sometimes leads, as we know from practice, to complete illiteracy. This means that although the ideal is to mechanize the writing process, it is only up to a certain limit, beyond which the writing process must still be conscious. Attention must linger on certain forms of language, quickly analyze them and, accordingly, solve one or another spelling problem. It already follows from this that mechanization of the writing process will in no way give absolute literacy, and even more, it will certainly lead to semi-literacy, since it will not create the habit of quickly analyzing linguistic forms when writing.
From this point of view, dictation with marks is not such a bad tool at all, because it teaches you to quickly solve spelling problems with intense (spurred) attention. But the mechanization of writing, the importance of which I, of course, do not deny at all, is hardly right to achieve by mechanical means, while referring to old clerks who, in 15–20 years, learned to write quite competently.1 After all, our task in all areas of knowledge is to facilitate , accelerate this rote learning through its rationalization. The ideal, in my opinion, is to achieve the necessary limit of mechanization through consciousness, so that this latter is present in all necessary cases and is ready when the mechanism for some reason refuses to serve, even for a minute.
But if anyone disagrees with this, then everyone must certainly admit that the most necessary condition for acquiring the writing mechanism is the absolute correctness of copying, which is possible only with maximum attention. Well, it is known, of course, that cheating is a deadly boring thing, that children copy extremely inattentively and make a merciless number of mistakes. It follows irrefutably from this that cheating should be made as conscious as possible, focusing children's attention on linguistic forms and their analysis. Our spelling, being almost consistently etymological (word production), provides the richest food for this. It forces us to decompose words into their component parts, to look for related forms for them (vod-a\vod-n-y; stl-a-t = in the pronunciation of “send”\ stel-yu; good\evil; earth-yan -oy \ earth-yan-k-a), find the relationship between words, groups of words (for punctuation marks), etc. In other words, in order to acquire the mechanism of writing, it is necessary to study the language and its grammar - a conclusion that can seems pretty banal. However, it should be insisted on, since there was a time when many of us thought that spelling could be learned in addition to language lessons, that these latter were necessary only in themselves, and not for literacy. Many thought, and maybe still think, that in order to learn to write correctly, one should only banish dictation and force them to copy from handwritten or cursive printed text. In reality, the situation is far from being as simple as V. Chernyshev perfectly showed in his little book “In Defense of the Living Word” (St. Petersburg, 1912).
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Meanwhile, having separated language classes from literacy teaching, many teachers who had no inclination for language classes or were poorly prepared for this began to gradually neglect them more and more in practice. Thus, teaching spelling hung in the air, based only on copying. I believe that the results that are now evident were obtained to a large extent due to the dismantling of methodological errors, or, rather, due to hasty and one-sided conclusions from some data from experimental pedagogy.
So, in order for children to write competently, they need to engage in language as such. But here comes the third reason for modern illiteracy, which is that teachers for the most part do not like and do not know how to teach the language. One would think that Russian teachers do not like the Russian language. I believe this is not the case; I believe that they love the Russian language, but they love it instinctively, not consciously, without realizing what and why they should love about it. Meanwhile, in order for children to successfully study a language, they need to love it; and in order for children to love a language, it is necessary for teachers to infect them with their love; but instinctive love, if it exists, cannot be transmitted to children; it must somehow be realistically expressed and have its own points of application.
Why don’t teachers like and know how to teach language? Yes, because he was not taught this. After all, in the end, school science is always, to one degree or another, a function of university science. And now it must be stated that university science in the second half of the 19th century. in the field of language did not provide anything for school science.
Due to a number of circumstances that it would be inappropriate to dwell on here, the linguistics of this era became entirely historical, focusing almost exclusively on phonetics and morphology. A lot has been done in this area, and linguistics as a whole has moved from the dead point at which it was in the 18th century; but all this was not for school. Meanwhile, language as a means of expression in its modern context - the main thing that is necessary and important in school - was almost not studied at all in science. There was a gap between university and school science, and even more - between university science in the field of linguistics and society (for more information on this, see the preface to the first issue of Russian Speech [Petrograd, 1923]).
The teaching was left to its own devices and supplemented with old scholastic material. Only in the 20th century. a turn towards language as an expresser of our thoughts and feelings begins to be noticed; The close connection between language and literature is beginning to be emphasized more and more. But very little has been done on this path so far. “On the relationship of Russian writing to the Russian language” by I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay, “Collection of problems on introduction to linguistics” by him, “Essay on the Russian literary language” by A. A. Shakhmatov, “Syntaxes” by D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky and A. M. Peshkovsky, books by V. A. Bogoroditsky, V. I. Chernyshev and E. F. Budde, and recently M. N. Peterson, N. N. Durnovo and L. A. Bulakhovsky in the scientific literature and books by Peshkovsky, Ushakov and Rybnikova in school - that’s almost all that is available on this topic. Suffice it to say that we do not have a dictionary of the Russian literary language at all; there is no good complete grammar (there are parts of it, and even then in Serbian); there is no good etymological dictionary (Preobrazhensky, as is known, remained unfinished); synonymy has not been developed at all; no style. And it goes without saying that there are almost no good linguistic analyzes of literary works; there are no good problem books and various collections of exercises in stylistics and other departments of language, etc.