Isn't this a little brash and simplistic? We all know the story of how Lincoln learned to read and scribbled words with charcoal on the back of a wooden shovel. Did Chaucer or Shakespeare learn phonics? Did Gutenberg print the first phonics primer?
Phonics seems like is a fool's parade if you can look at ghoti and see the word fish. How do you phonetically pronounce ghost?
I personally did not fully grasp English comprehension until I was taught Latin and Greek word formations (root words, prefixes and suffixes) and the difference between Teutonic and Latinate contributions to our language.
The difference between "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light" or "Consequently, Diety announced , Allow illumination — ensued illumination" opened a whole new world of understanding.
Up to that point, Dick and Jane allowed me to devour Jules Verne, Tom Swift, H. G. Wells, Boy's Life and Readers Digest.
“How do you phonetically pronounce ghost?”
Fist, but only when you’re trying to be a wise guy.
Phonetics pertains to the **sounds** of the letters, and the sounds of the syllables, which in turn are the building blocks of words which have **meanings** representing things and ideas.
But phonetics is not the study of the **meanings** of the words. Phonetics is the study of the ** sounds** of the hieroglyphics on the page.
I learned to read the sounds by learning phonetics. Sound it out, I was told.
I learned the meaning of ‘Mama’ when she pointed to herself; and how to read the word two years later. Sounding it out makes it immediately clear that the word is one syllable spoken twice.
As I did say, first you learn the rules of how the letters (and combinations) sound : p is puh, h is huh; then you learn the exceptions to the rules: ph together makes the f-sound, fuh, not puh-huh.
All I meant is that it’s a whole lot easier to memorize few sounds and exceptions, than trying to memorize all the words in the freakin’ language by looking at flash cards.
“I did not fully grasp English comprehension until I was taught Latin and Greek word formations (root words, prefixes, and suffixes) and the difference between Teutonic and Latinate contributions to our language.”
Well of course I learned these things too. My study of Latin and a little bit of Greek in high school still, 4 decades later, enables me to pick apart words and discern their **meanings** without always needing a dictionary. I can break down the word and figure it out. Phonetics in reverse, as it were. Complementary, not contradictory, as you seem to imply.
But before I could parse prefixes, roots, suffixes, and discern the **meanings**of multisyllabic words, first I learned the letters and their sounds; I learned to READ and was taught how to look up words in a dictionary, events and concepts in an encyclopedia.
And my point, rather belabored, I’m afraid, is that these building-block break-it-down analytical **processes** aren’t being taught in most American schools anymore.
Do you even realize the average college freshman has no clue how to look up a word in a dictionary? No clue about root words, prefixes, suffixes, antonyms, hominems, synonyms, diacritical marks.
Guten—who? Did he know phonics?? He must have known some rudimentary fore runner of phonics. He certainly knew the alphabet and the sounds the letters were supposed to make. Otherwise that whole moveable type thing would have turned out badly, methinks.
Shakespeare? Chaucer? Students of Greek and Latin, not of American schools. Did they know phonetics? On some unpracticed, instinctive level, I think they did.
Latinate? Teutonic? Whuh? Ohhhh, some kinda European stuff.That’s racist. Elitist. Not.
We need to return to phonetics and Latin and Greek and reading and critical thinking. And no, it’s not brash or simplistic to say this country is in deep trouble because our putative educational system is turning out a nation of nitwits.