[FreedomPoster]

Phonetics is what allows a reader to be able to read and say a word like diethyldimethyltoluene without having encountered it before. Trying to learn the English language with Whole Word when it is 90% phonetic is absurd.

[Strategerist]

Phonetics is what allows a reader to be able to read and say a word like diethyldimethyltoluene without having encountered it before.

As a child I easily read and understood (from context) words like "Archaeopteryx" without any attempts to sound them out.

Could I then pronounce it correctly? Of course not. But some kid tediously trying to "sound it out" isn't goung to end up pronouncing it correctly either.

[aruanan]

Phonetics is what allows a reader to be able to read and say a word like diethyldimethyltoluene without having encountered it before. Trying to learn the English language with Whole Word when it is 90% phonetic is absurd.

Using a phonics approach is what enables a reader of an alphabetic language to pronounce (maybe) a word he has never encountered before in print. And if he is familiar with the word already, he will almost certainly recognize it once he decodes it phonetically. This is the beauty of an alphabetic language. However, once someone has learned to read an alphabetic language, he does so by shape recognition, initial and final letters, or other idiosyncratic distinctive features, not by a phonetic process. The amount of time required to do this is far too long for the speed at which fluent readers read.