This is a load of hooey. I taught three kids to read, and it was no problem at all. At about the age of three to four I taught the alphabet, one letter at a time (there are only 26 of them) and their sound equivalents. I found that there’s something about the mind at that age which keeps them from realizing the connection between sounding the individual letters of a word, and the whole word itself. However, between the ages of five and six, something “clicks” and virtually overnight they begin reading, fluently and without stumbling, almost as if by magic. From that day forth they can begin applying their new-found skill to their further education, and entertainment, if it comes to that.
If English spelling is such an impediment to reading, why is it that past generations learned to read without experiencing any of the problems today’s generation is going through?
“If English spelling is such an impediment to reading, why is it that past generations learned to read without experiencing any of the problems today’s generation is going through?”
It is due to many thing—demographic shifts, liberal takeover of education, purposeful dumbing down of students, etc.
My guess is that they didn’t have a million different activities that kept them from practicing their reading skills. If the only exposure to reading is at school them they probably won’t be able to read well. Phonics should be mandatory in schools. Make reading and spelling much easier but that might take away from extra curricular activities.
It really is aggravating to see kids in 6th grade that can’t write a complete sentence with proper puncuation and hyphenation. Since when do you hyphenate one syllable words? Amazing how little they actually learn in English grammer!
You are not supposed to ask why some students are having trouble learning to read. There is an elephant in the room and we are supposed to ignore it.