A Sample Lesson

Here is a sample lesson I have prepared for Lesson 23 of the theory book that deals with words beginning with COL-, COM-, CON-, and COR-. Though you may or may not understand what is explained, my sample lesson gives you an idea of how I work through the lessons with my students.

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LESSON 23

Words Beginning with COL-, COM-, CON, and COR-

Objective

After you have mastered the principles and the practice material in this lesson, you will be able to stenotype words that begin with COL-, COM-, CON-, and COR- and be able to summarize the rules set out for their use. Your written evaluation quiz will require that you give at least three examples for each of the specific rules, including accented and unaccented vowels.

This lesson on more advanced writing principles is easy enough to grasp, and if you were to check in any dictionary, you would notice how many words start with these word beginnings. All your efforts this week will definitely help you get one more step closer to that goal of yours to become an excellent court reporter. You may even complete the lesson in just a few days. But, first things first. Here’s your schedule for the week.

SCHEDULE FOR THE WEEK

  1. Rapid Note Reading:

    2. This week your goal is to be able to read at 120-150 words per minute your stenotype notes of Exercise 18-4 on page 100. Stenocopy the exercise with good, clean, and accurate notes. Check any outlines in your dictionary so that what you have stenocopied is theoretically correct.

    Tape the notes in columns on blank sheets of paper as explained previously to you, and put them in your binder for daily reading. Each day this week you should spend about 15 or 20 minutes timing yourself and keeping a record of how many minutes and seconds it took you to read the 203 words in the text. For easy calculation, let’s round out the number of words to 200. So, at 120 wpm, you would have to read this exercise in 1 minute and 40 seconds; at 150 wpm, you would have to read this exercise in 1 minute and 20 seconds. Remember to read out loud with confidence and minimize your hesitation each time you practice this rapid reading.

  2. Fingering Exercise:

    3. 10 minutes per day (check assignment you’ve received for the specific exercise).

  3. Audio Dictation:

    4. After reviewing Lessons 11, 16, and 20, write audio dictation exercises T11-1, T11-2, T11-3, T16-1, T16-2, T20-1, T20-2, T20-3, and T20-4. Clean, accurate writing is essential. You also MUST read back each exercise after you have written it from dictation. Circle your errors, if any, on your notes and keep a separate list of them to practice and review every day this week. You should plan on one hour per day for this dictation.

Lesson 23 – THEORY

(1 hour per day)

Rule 1: Use K- for COL- and COM- when the consonant is doubled.

Look through the list of words in the columns on page 139 for this rule. Words like “collate,” “collide,” and “collect” are examples of this rule as the L is doubled.

Words like “command,” “commission,” and “communicate” are also examples of this rule as the M is doubled.

When you have a word like “college,” “colleague,” or “common,” the first syllable is accented (it’s really noticeable when you pronounce it). You have the option not to follow this rule and write the syllables separately as KOL/LEJ and KOM/MON. Note that, if using this option, you must write both consonants in the outlines (KOL/LEJ). However, I strongly recommend that you try to write such words using the rule, so KLEJ, KLAOEG, and KMON would be preferable.

Before you start stenotyping the words in the list for this rule (top half of page), cover the longhand and read quickly out loud down the list. Do the same for the second column. Do this a few times so you can read the outlines really quickly. They’re not difficult in the least. Now go ahead and stenotype the words of both columns. Pull up your paper notes and read them back. If you find yourself hesitating in your reading, analyze your notes and see if you made any fingering errors. You may even want to test your transcription skills and type the notes in a Word document to compare with the list in the two columns. You should practice these two columns at least 5 times. You may even need to do them 20 times or more. Just make sure your fingering errors are at a minimum, and each time you work the list make every effort to improve your accurate stroking ability.

Optional outlines: Using the reversing principle I’ve already given you, if you like you can include the final -R in “commander” and “commuter” in the previous stroke, so these words would be written KMARND and KMAOURT respectively.

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Okay. We’re ready to deal with words where the consonant is not doubled, such as “column,” “comic,” and “complete.”

Rule 2: Write the word out if COL- and COM- is followed by a vowel or another consonant other than the L or the M.

Many of the words in the two columns have optional outlines in brackets. Stenotype both options, but it would be worthwhile to use the optional ones as you will reduce your number of strokes per outline, which is always helpful. Be careful, however, with the words KOM/PAKT (compact), KOM/PEL (compel), and KOM/PAOIL (compile). You must write these particular words in two strokes using this rule. You don’t want to have a conflict with KPAKT (exact), KPEL (excel), or KPAOIL (exile), which you studied on page 125 along with other words that start with “ex-“ (KP-).

There are notes at the bottom of page 139 regarding words where the first syllable is “co-“ and forcing a space command (SP-S) to avoid word boundaries. These explanatory notes are straightforward, but you should make sure you keep yourself alert to these situations. You might want to compose a few sentences to test your understanding of the examples offered. If you are unclear about certain word boundaries, drop me a note, and we can review them together.

Cover the longhand of the words, and practice your reading of the two columns until you can read them quickly. Do this several times so you can read the outlines really quickly. Practice stenotyping the words of both columns. Pull up your paper notes and read them back. If you find yourself hesitating in your reading, analyze your notes and see if you made any fingering errors. You may even want to test your transcription skills and type the notes in a Word document to compare with the list in the two columns. You should practice these two columns at least 5 times. You may even need to do them 20 times or more. Just make sure your fingering errors are at a minimum, and each time you work the list make every effort to improve your stroking ability. Pull your notes up after each writing, and read them back out loud.

Rule 3: Use K- for COR- when the second syllable is accented.

In words like “corridor” and “corsage,” the accented (notably pronounced) syllable is not the second one but the first. In words like “correct” and “corrupt,” the accent (notably pronounced) is on the second syllable, so this Rule is applied in these types of words.

Again, cover the longhand of the words, and practice your reading of the two columns in B. until you can read them quickly. Do this several times so you can read the outlines really quickly. Practice stenotyping the words of both columns. Pull up your paper notes and read them back. If you find yourself hesitating in your reading, analyze your notes and see if you made any fingering errors. You may even want to test your transcription skills and type the notes in a Word document to compare with the list in the two columns. You should practice these two columns at least 5 times. You may even need to do them 20 times or more. Just make sure your fingering errors are at a minimum, and each time you work the list make every effort to improve your stroking ability. Pull your notes up after each writing, and read them back out loud.

Rule 4: Words beginning with CON- are written out.

Nothing tricky here, so “content” is written KON/TENT, and “console” is written KON/SOEL. The examples given should be practiced and worked through as you’ve done for the other Rules. Read back everything!

Word Exercise 23-1 (Audio T23-1)

Practice these two columns, one at a time, and read back your notes. KMARND can be used for “commander” and KMAOURT can be used for “commuter” if you like as I’ve noted before.

After you’ve practiced the list at least 5 times and do not hesitate reading back your notes, you can practice audio exercise T23-1. Read back each time you’ve written the dictation. Pull up your notes, and check them against the list on page 140. If certain words cause you difficulty in writing, ask yourself why, or drop me a note to see if I can suggest something for you to eliminate the difficulty.

Exercises 23-2, 23-3, and 23-4

Note the optional briefs and phrases in your textbook. If it will help you to remember the optional brief for “police” (PLIS), in French this word is pronounced PO/LISS. Maybe you can make that association for this particular word. You’ll definitely be happy to write PLIFR for “police officer” – trust me!

–FS for “was” is used again in “there was” (THR-FS).

The final Note on page 144 reminds you that “commitment” is written KMIT/-MT. You can definitely write this word in one stroke without causing a problem or a conflict. I drop the consonant before “-ment” and write it KMIMT. Give it a shot, and you may like it. There are many other cases where we can safely use this same idea, and I’ll give you the ones that you’ll find useful as we continue to master these theory lessons.

As for these exercises, stenocopy them in full, exercise by exercise, slowly and accurately to the best of your ability. Pull up your notes and place them on your desk to read back and review. Are you sure each outline you’ve written is theoretically correct? Check the ones in your dictionary that cause you hesitation, or email me if you’re not sure of something. Stenotype the exercises again and read back your notes. Practice this way several times before you use the audio dictations.

Drop me a note with any questions or concerns. These particular rules are so important and actually they’re fairly easy to apply. I do not want you to memorize anything. I want you to REMEMBER the rules because you understand them. If you don’t, let me know. I’m available.