Frindle

When I first looked at the grammar scope and sequence, even I had to look up the term "neologism". For those of you who have never heard the term, or are teaching Stage 2 for the first time, neologism is the name for a newly coined term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event.

The book Frindle is the perfect book to illustrate this term. It is an easy light read. I can't wait to read this book to my class. It is about a boy called Nick who has a Grade 5 teacher who has high expectations about grammar, vocabulary and spelling. She loves the dictionary. Nick tries to waste time in class one day asks who decides what words are important enough to go in the dictionary. Cleverly the teacher asks Nick to find the answer and present a report to the class. After presenting his findings, he continues to question and on the way home makes up the word "frindle". I won't reveal what this word means, you will have to read the book to find out.

A highly engaging read.