Wren

Wren teaches both the rule and the exceptions by singing.

This was a teaching method she developed herself, based on her own childhood. Wren — whose given name is Awen, an old word meaning poetic inspiration — grew up in a household of singers. Her family had been itinerant musicians for several generations. Her parents had performed at weddings, festivals, and small concerts throughout the kingdom. Awen had been raised on song. She had learned to spell, as a small child, by singing the letters. Her mother had taught her that letters had melodies — that you could sing the spelling of a word as a small song and the song would help you remember the order of letters.

This had been, in Awen's family, a folk-pedagogy method. It had not been formalized. It had been passed down from parents to children for at least four generations.

When Awen was seventeen, she encountered formal spelling-instruction at the village school. She had been amazed to discover that most children were not taught to sing the spelling. They were taught to recite it. R-A-I-N. Rain. B-E-E. Bee. Awen had thought: but if you sing it, you remember it better. Why would you not sing it?

She had begun to teach her classmates to sing. She had taught them small two-vowel-pair melodies. "A-I, A says I" for rain, paint, brain. "E-A, E says I" for eat, beat, neat. "O-A, O says O" for boat, coat, road. The melodies were simple — small four-note phrases that the children could pick up in one repetition.

The classmates had picked them up. The classmates had remembered them. The classmates' spelling-test scores had improved.

The village schoolteacher had noticed. The schoolteacher had asked Awen where she had learned the technique. Awen had explained the family tradition. The schoolteacher had said: "This is a real pedagogy. You should formalize it. There is an academy that would appreciate this."

Awen had walked to the QuillSpell academy when she was eighteen. She had brought no academic credentials. She had brought her singing voice.

The academy master — Lex — had interviewed her. Lex had said: "Demonstrate."

Awen had sung. She had sung the ai song. She had sung the ea song. She had sung the exceptions — the ea of bread is not the same as the ea of eat; here is how you sing the difference. Lex had listened for fifteen minutes. Lex had set down her tea. Lex had said: "You are appointed. Take your academic name. Wren — for the small bird with the loud voice."*

Awen — now Wren — has been the academy's vowel-team teacher for nineteen years.

In her classroom, she begins every first-day lesson the same way. She sings. She does not speak first; she sings. The first song is the ai song:

"A-I, A says I; rain, brain, paint, train, A says I."

The melody is simple. Five notes. Repeats with each example-word. The children pick it up immediately. They sing it back to her.

She then teaches the ea song:

"E-A, E says I; eat, beat, neat, seat, E says I."

And then the exception — the ea of bread:

"E-A, E says short; bread, head, dead, lead, E says short. Watch the E. It changes its mind. Some words long. Some words short. Sing both. Remember both."