Essential Linguistics: What You Need to Know to Teach Reading, ESL, Spelling, Phonics, and Grammar

by David E. Freeman, Yvonne Freeman

Linguistics is much more than a study reserved for academicians. Linguistics has real-life applications to effective teaching–now more than ever. With the increased emphasis on phonemic awareness and phonics in the teaching of reading, teachers need to understand how language works. When teachers are familiar with basic linguistic concepts, they are better prepared to make decisions about how to teach reading, spelling, phonics, and grammar to all students, including English language learners.

Genres: Education, Language, Teaching, Nonfiction, Linguistics, Textbooks, Own

263 pages, Paperback

First published January 14, 2003

Reviews

[Rachel Polacek]

I read this for a linguistics graduate class I’m taking to get my TESOL license. There is a lot of good information about the basics of linguistic theory that can be applied to teaching, and a lot of it was new(ish) info for me since my background is 7-12 ELA.

[Lena]

It can be pretty boring at times but at the same time gives a ton of great information.

[Jeimy]

I read this book for a college course on Linguistics for future English teachers. Though I enjoyed the side-by-side comparisons of the word recognition view and the sociopsycholinguistics view in each chapter, the fact that it was heavily in favor of the second was apparent. I would have enjoyed a less biased viewpoint for, in my opinion, both have merits.

I also have difficulty visualizing the application of the sociopsycholinguistic methodology in the lower grades like Kindergarten or first grade. An appendix or electronic companion featuring lesson plan ideas or, better yet, videos of teachers who are implementing these techniques may be helpful for teachers who are unfamiliar with them and hesitant to try them. The authors and/or editors should consider this for future editions.

[Nicole]

Some parts of this book were outstanding, but the orthography section was completely one-sided and didn’t reflect the breadth of research that exists supporting the learning view. I would appreciate a more balanced view of this chapter with more research (and it existed prior to the 2014 publishing of this edition) adding opposing views since this is a textbook. I am a critical thinker in graduate school and appreciate a mix of research to deduce what I think is the best approach for my students. Other chapters could use this also, but the orthography chapter needs it the most.

[Rachel]

Well, I finally finished this book, which I read for one of my summer classes.

Sometimes I found myself slogging through it a bit, but only because I was in a hurry sometimes and knew I would be quizzed on the topics in each chapter, so I made sure to read everything really closely. Plus, the 40-page chapter on spelling in this book really tested my focus as a reader--but then again, any 40-page academic chapter would!

But for the most part, this book does have a lot of interesting tidbits about language in general and English in particular that I did find fascinating. It is pretty easy to read if you focus, and there are some excellent activities I think I could try in the future. Plus, I do feel I understand the processes of reading, writing, and learning another language better than I did before. I also think I understand the parts of speech and how to make sentence trees better now, which I always felt shaky on previously, especially when students would ask me more about why specific words were categorized a certain way. I think I can explain them better now, which will hopefully help me help my students more.

However, I did have some critiques. One is that there were several errors in the book--incorrect subject-verb agreements in the text, a couple mistakes in phonemic transcription of the /I/ vowel sound, and two mislabeled words in a sentence tree diagram. While these errors were pretty few and far between, I just thought they were odd to see in a book on language and how to teach it more effectively. But I haven't written a book myself, so I won't pick on this too much. Anyone can make mistakes (we're all human!), and they can always come out with a third edition.

Another critique I had was of the summary section of each chapter. Maybe I read too many chapters too close together, but the summary sections all seemed kind of--not sing-songy, exactly, but repetitive and clipped. The sentences all tended to be like, "This is this, and this is the process of this, which can be used to help this." Reading too many sentences like that in a row kind of makes my mind lose interest. However, once again, I have never written a book, let alone a textbook, so I can't judge too much.

Except the authors did sometimes cite Wikipedia? Those sections kind of made me question them a bit. Like, couldn't they find a better source for their textbook? I kind of judged that. Sorry!

Overall, this book was useful, and not too bad considering that I had to read it for a class. I will probably be spouting odd language trivia to my family and students for a while afterward because of it.

[Cari Conley]

Read this book for a grad class in linguistics for future ESOL teachers. I really enjoyed the explanations of different linguistics concepts and their application in ESOL classrooms. My major criticism of this book stems from its presentation of the two views of reading, which was biased toward balanced literacy over the learning view. I can appreciate the pros & cons of both views, but it was tough to read this take. It didn't fairly account for the research supporting explicit phonics instruction, which isn't the end-all, be-all, but is a very necessary piece of learning to read.

[David Burns]

3.5 Stars ** Essential Linguistics: What You Need to Know to Teach Reading, ESL, Spelling, Phonics, and Grammar ** Read in Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia and Juffair, Bahrain (Nov-Dec 2022)

[Sarah]

This book is absolutely not friendly to the beginner or to the teacher practitioner. It was also hard to stomach the amount of bias towards certain viewpoints when there is a great deal of research out there that could help provide a more balanced discussion (i.e. the use of feedback in instruction).

[Kelsey]

Less helpful than I hoped it would be, but it was required reading for my degree, so I got through it. I wish they'd spent less time bantering about language learning/acquisition theories and more about how to effectively teach language.

[Cassie]

This linguistics course is probably my least favorite class ever so I tried to evaluate the book without bias. It has some interesting information but compared to other texts I have read while working towards my ESL endorsement, it provides the least amount of use for me.

[Jon]

This is a very digestible intro text with lots of good knowledge. My major complaint is that the authors are all in on the theories they deem best and give short shrift to others. Still it seems very useful.

[Cordellya Smith]

This is a wonderful resource for reading teachers, ESL teachers, and anyone with an interest in linguistics.

[Maria]

I found the book very useful in designing a new professional development programmes. It can provide very useful examples and training for pre-service teachers.

[Lara]

I read this for a class for my ESOL teaching certification. This book is informative, but very much a textbook style. It is not engaging or what I would call readable. It does the job, though.

[Diana Valdivia-Rodriguez]

This book is about linguistics in first and second language acquisition.

[Adam]

The chapter on syntax is very helpful, and the book is organized in a way that makes it a perfect reference.

[Michelle Zeigert]

Great deep dive into linguistics, but I’d like to see a new edition based on the Science of Reading research since this 2nd edition was published in 2014.

[Sam Spero]

Informative, but not an easy read at all

[Erin Field]

Thinking Day Finland 2025

[lilly!!]

😴

[Vicki]

Class, Linguistics and Education, started June 30. This is our textbook. Will update later. 9/3: finished the book, got an "A" in the class, but it was a difficult class. As I told my husband, linguistics is grammar on steroids. It's so intense. I do like grammar a lot but I don't agree with everything about linguistics. I'm more prescriptive than descriptive. But I do like learning the descriptive aspects of grammar. Opens up another dimension for me. Overall, though, I thought is was a pretty decent book. What I thought was interesting is another review indicated they skipped chapter 9 and read an article instead. We skipped chapter 9, as well. So something must be lacking in chapter 9 for it to be left out.

[Belena]

Unfortunately, I felt a considerable amount of information in this book was presented as fact but in reality was extremely biased. Even information that I agreed with was not represented in a way that I believe should be done in a textbook. I did learn some valuable things (mostly about the most common morphemic and phonemic mistakes my ELL students may make and why), but I could not rank the book higher due to its obvious use of propaganda in relation to multiple topics.

[Danielle Haig]

A useful, up-to-date text that is packed with information about the history and applications of linguistics. The Freemans have a clear bias towards more "modern" and progressive methods of teaching reading and writing, but they spend equal time covering both views. This is a must read for teachers, especially of elementary or English students.

[Catherine]

Want to go back and read this in more depth...maybe this summer. Skimmed it for class and studied some parts of it in depth when preparing for the Praxis. (Very helpful for Praxis prep.). Seemed like it had good practical info for teachers, but I'd have to reread more deeply to confirm.

[Jaimie Foster]

It's for class. But it's good.

[Kimberly]

Winter 2009

[Carly]

This book is seriously exciting. Unfortunately I never finished it because our professor stopped assigning it, so it's going to have to be placed on the back burner for a long, long, time.... :(

[Tiffany Malcom]

Like anyone cares about this review. I just want credit for reading a textbook. :)

[Whitney]

The text was rather biased, but there was a lot of good information.

[Connie D]

Interesting for teachers, but a little preachy. I'd prefer more usable suggestions for teachers and fewer reminders of what won't work.