Try to read this, you'll be amazed. From RW Research
cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?
cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?
posted by gary at 3:20 PM
3 Comments:
Yaeh, azmanig. My mthoer tugaht radenig amlsot tihtry yares. Ponichs was waht she bleiveed in, rteahr tahn wlohe lnagauge. Yuor psot dpisoevrs the ponichs teorhy of lnagauge linreang.
I would say that my first grade teacher Miss Thilmony proved the worth of phonics beyond the point of rational argument. Her charges (even the dummies) entered the second grade reading at a middle school level.
The problem with the see-say method is this: What happens when we come across a word previously unknown to us, as young people do frequently? Those readers who learned phonics will sound out the word. Once the word is sounded out, the reader may be able to recognise it as part of his aural vocabulary. Otherwise, he will derive meaning from context -- or, if he has the energy, he will hike on over to the dictionary.
Once a word is stored in memory, we may be able to recognise a terribly misspelled variant of it on sight. That's how the human mind operates. But all experience proves that those who do not begin with phonics will fail to store new words. I've yet to see a study demonstrating that kids taught the see-say method read beyond their level.
To the contrary: Since the diminution of phonics, we have whelped up a generation in which the average person uses a vocabulary of some ten thousand words. Compare that figure to the twenty thousand word vocabulary of the average person in the 1950s.
Phonics has its place, but let's face it English is not a terribly phonetic language. In teaching a child to read I would say certainly they should learn that "this is the letter B" and it generally goes "bbb." I taught my daughter to read, using generally a sight-word approach. She was reading at least at a 4th grade level before she started Kindergarten. I remember one day, before she started school, we were walking down the street and she asked me "What does nativity mean?", pronouncing it correctly. We were passing the Church of the Nativity. She did not appear to be sounding it out, and yet certainly I had not taught her that word.
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