Anyone Still Interested in Theories of Reading??

rantrave.com ^ | March 2, 2011 | Bruce Deitrick Price

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

A recent post about a new book by Denise Eide called “Uncovering the Logic of English” prompted more than 80 comments.

One person in particular objected that phonics was not the entire answer, and argued that Sight-Words were easy to learn, and that many people read this way. I don’t think so.

So I am always trying to figure out CLEVER NEW WAYS to explain this mess to all the confused parents out there, and the confused teachers in the schools.

This new article points out quite simply that reading, as described and prescribed by the so-called experts in Whole Word, is an absurdly difficult task, not at all the easy, pleasurable activity that most of us call “reading.”

Real readers just settle into a book and read! Sight-Word "readers" spend all their time looking for clues and trying to figure out the mystery in front of their eyes.

The title of the article is: “Clueless: Reading as Detective Work.” It makes the case that Whole Word is quackery and the reason we have 50 million functional illiterates.

This is a somewhat specialized article, but it’s a good read for anyone involved with reading.

There are also three YouTube videos accompanying the article; these provide more context.

[Melas]

It’s not a matter of saying the letters. Sub-vocalization is the process of internally saying the words to yourself, not the letter. Good visual readers do not hear the words when they read.

[Melas]

You are a sight reader. I am too. When I was a freshman in college, I was in an Eng comp class for kids that scored over 650 on the Eng Achievement and SAT. We were the only class that had spelling because they told us that studies showed the the best, fastest sight readers were notoriously poor spellers. Are you a poor speller?

Yes. Speaking for myself, I'm a visual reader and until college I was a notoriously poor speller. In this day of spellcheck, I'd probably still be a poor speller. I had to buckle down my freshman year and spend a couple of hours a night, every night for my first semester, forcing myself to learn to spell. A couple hundred hours later, I could still read better than my classmates, and I equaled or surpassed most them in spelling as well.

[lonestar]

Me--reading a 9th grade science experiment:

Me: "...put it in gelatin (guh-lay-tin)..."

Teacher: WHAT?!!!

Me: guh-lay-tin

Teacher: You stupid idiot! (Really!--he called everybody stupid idiot at one time or another.)

Me: Oh! jelatin.

BTW, those of us who survived his classes didn't have problems in college. Several of his C students in chemistry were tutors in college. One of his better students taught Physics at Rice, after getting his Ph D. Several future doctors, dentists, engineers were in H.S. the 4 years with me...and we had 300 kids at most.

His name always comes up at reunions...he passed many years ago but not forgotten.

[muawiyah]

No problem reading. I had that solved in the first couple of weeks of first grade. My father learned to read spontaneously at the age of 3.

I am a perfect speller ~ if I make a mistake it's simply because I usually type over 100 wpm. Modern keyboards are too weak for my speed.

Ever read the Oxford English Dictionary? I have ~ lots of words in there ~ incredible words ~ long words. I usually pick them up as fast as I see them.

NOTE: I have an unfair advantage here. I wrote vast quantities of postal regulations over a 10 year period AND several major handbooks (of hundreds of pages) explaining the intricate details of all sorts of processes and gadgets.

Later on, as my vision began deteriorating, I turned to simply reviewing monetary disputes and resolving them. They owed the money. It was my job to get it. There is actually a lot of very specialized writing in that sort of thing.

Then, they invented the internet and I never looked back.

[muawiyah]

We had a secretary who was a close runner up in the National Spelling Bee contest. She'd been born abroad, but when she came here they put her in a COLD IMMERSION CLASS where English was the only language. She quickly went to work learning all the English words and the way they were spelled.

She later entered and won beauty contests.

We hired her 'cause she was a good speller Fur Shur.

[Sherman Logan]

As others have pointed out, there is a BIG difference between learning to read phonetically and how one reads after becoming proficient.

I can’t speak for others, because I quite literally cannot remember knowing how to read. But from what I’ve read those who are natural sight readers will pick up reading without strain, while phonics allows those who aren’t natural sight readers to develop proficiency.

[RnMomof7]

But would I trade reading at less than a third of the speed I currently read, and perhaps even have my comprehension suffer to more accurately pronounce words that I’ve read? Not no, but hell no. When I’m in doubt, I’m perfectly capable of reading a pronunciation key.

Exactly... and today we have a" talking" internet to tell us how it is pronounced :)

[cycjec]

Practice, practice, practice. :-)

[cycjec]

this is excellent, I was trying to write something along
this line and gave up.