Humans couldn't be satisfied with spelling out only things they say. They also needed to spell out the sounds around them. Giving a name to a sound is called "onomatopoeia." The word is difficult to ...

There have been many appeals for the reform of English spelling over the past couple centuries, and not all of these have come from schoolchildren. Benjamin Franklin, Charles Darwin, Mark Twain and ...

How to Watch Teaching in Room 9 Teaching in Room 9 is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire ...

Psychologist Greg Simpson was studying Korean with the help of a graduate student, a Korean native, when a thought struck him. “You don’t have spelling bees, do you?” he asked her. He had to explain ...

Johnny in Topeka can’t read, but Janne in Helsinki is effortlessly finishing his storybooks. Such a disparity may be expected by now, but the reason might come as a surprise: It probably has much less ...