Fake Reading Theory is the Slave Trade of Our Era

RightSideNews.com ^ | Dec. 13, 2011 | Bruce Deitrick Price

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

Fake reading theory is the slave trade of our era. Conscience demands that it be opposed.

A hundred books, perhaps two hundred, have been written on the reading wars. Finally those millions of words come down to a few dozen. English is a phonetic language and must be learned phonetically. Whole Word, the opposing theory, is a mirage, without merit.

The great sophistry of the 20th century was to create the illusion that Whole Word could actually work or, one step lower, that there was a legitimate choice between the two approaches to reading, as there is between fahrenheit and centigrade temperatures. The sophists urge even today: let’s use both.

Please don’t. In truth, there’s no debate, no choice. Whole Word is a lie.

One architect of Whole Word casually stated that most people could memorize “fifty to a hundred thousand” sight-words. Not true. In fact, only people with photographic memories could memorize even 20,000 sight-words. Ordinary people have trouble reaching 1,000. Many children cannot reach 100 sight-words. Virtually no one actually reads with sight-words.

Fortunately, most students finally see the phonics inside the sight-words and learn to read in a normal phonetic way. Unfortunately, the students who don’t see the phonics (the sounds) usually remain illiterate. They also become damaged and deeply unhappy. Many end up on Ritalin.

It’s important to say decisively that Whole Word is a fake, a scam, a hoax, I would even say a crime. The people promoting it are too smart not to know what they’re doing. That is my reluctant conclusion....

.

[Ron C.]

It’s called deliberate dumbing-down - and yes, it is a monumental deliberate crime that deserves to be prosecuted for what it was and is.

[aruanan]

English is a phonetic language and must be learned phonetically. Whole Word, the opposing theory, is a mirage, without merit.

This is idiocy. The fact that English is a somewhat phonetic language makes it possible to predict what certain words that are familiar in spoken English may look like in written English such that they may be recognized if a reader is already familiar with them. It also makes it possible to produce a written form that can be recognized and understood by other English readers. It is undeniably true, though, that the number of written English words vastly outnumbers the number of spoken English words. It also does not follow that because English reading may be learned through the use of phonetic approaches that fluent English reading is done through a phonetic process. This is impossible. The speed at which it is performed in adult level fluent reading is far in excess of the time required to employ phonetic rules. Although a phonetic approach can enable a student to gain mastery over the written word in a comparatively easy fashion, compared to learning an idiogram-based language, the adult version of reading is not a phonetic process.

[Paradox]

the adult version of reading is not a phonetic process.

I was about to write some painful drivel, something probably nonsensical, that said essentially the same thing you have. You have said it much better than I though. Thank you!

[PoloSec]

Another method of learning to read; that is neglected today in the dumbing down of America, is learning how to identify the meaning of words; by identifying the context, a few years ago I had a boss in his late twenties, he could read some words but was almost clueless as to what he was reading, simple written instructions needed verbal explanations. By the way he was an obvious affirmative action employee, although I’m sure the company would deny it.

[kabumpo]

Don’t agree. At all. I learned whole words, was reading at age 4.

[JRandomFreeper]

Unless the foundation is solid, the house is unsound.

Phonetics is the foundation. Practicing reading leads to sight reading over time.

But without the foundation... It doesn't work. The numbers show it. Phonetics was taught in grammar school for ages, and literacy rates were high for those that learned to read.

Phonetics was dropped, and literacy has fallen even though we have near-universal education.

/johnny

[Designer]

Are there schools that still try to teach sight reading? I thought most schools had returned to phonics. No?

[JRandomFreeper]

You were never taught the sounds of letters, or how to sound out a word?

/johnny

[kitkat]

I never knew until now that I’m illiterate. Strange, I passed all my tests with high marks in a demanding school. And I’ve written and sold several articles on various subjects to large newspapers. Guess I’d better send back the checks because I’m illiterate.

[meatloaf]

I agree with that. We couldn’t figure out why our son wasn’t able to read well going into the third grade. It was the whole word crap that had him buffaloed. We did the phonics thing and taught him at home to sound out the word. After that he excelled in reading comprehension. It was like we hit the go button. BTW, that was long before hooked on phonics hit the market.

[GAB-1955]

My sister-in-law, who is NOT a liberal but IS a special education teacher, points out whole word does help some students before phonics. But I think a mix between the two processes is the most pragmatics approach.

I can't recall learning how to read myself; I could read at two years old.

[Wingy]

...the adult version of reading is not a phonetic process.

Few adults learn to read. Children learn to read. Which process is best for children in order to learn the skill of reading? I'm 59 years old and I DO NOT read phonetically. However, 53 years ago it was the method that was used to teach me. In first grade I went from trying to make out words on the back of the Rice Krispys box to reading the jokes in The Readers Digest. Not a bad method for most people.

[Tony O]

It's like comparing an advanced class in a subject to a beginning class. Phoenetics provides the foundational tools for a child (or anyone for that matter) when challeged by a new written word, phoenetics are applied to translate the word into the imputed sound of the word if spoken. At that point context is added to the new word by the phoenetic association. “Whole Word” reading is adult reading, you see a word, you recognize and can speak it, and figure out the context. Neither is wrong, it's a matter of which process should be taught first.

[marsh2]

Phonics doesn’t work with some types of brains. My son couldn’t learn to read that way. They call it a “processing disorder,” but it is a very right brain oriented type of issue and has been associated with dislexia.

My son is 30 now, but as a child, his brain filed words as pictures. When reading a sentence, he would see the action unfold. This has to be whole word reading. It is till difficult to learn to read because of all the abstract words that have no associated picture. Phonetics made no sense at all. A key was speed reading where his brain learned not to stop when he came to an abstract word.

He is extremely intelligent. The armed services courted him in high school because he registered so high as a potential code breaker on tests. He is an original thinker who puts unique things together -very inventive and able to solve problems in troubleshooting complex systems.

IMHO, whoever wrote the article is an idiot.

[Ron C.]

"We did the phonics thing and taught him at home to sound out the word."

I was in first grade in 1947 when 'look-say' teaching was first instituted. My foster-mother found out they were not teaching phonics and proceeded to teach me. It took less than three or four months and I was reading books far above 'grade level' and my teachers wondered why and how.

Today I know how to pronounce words on first-sight that are rarely used in print. Sight reading simply doesn't provide that ability, nor does it give you the basic tools you need for learning how to spell words easily.

[aruanan]

Phonics is an excellent way to teach reading. It give the child a way to recognize words that he already knows that is not possible in any other form of written language. It enables a kid to quickly gain mastery in reading. I never knew a time that I wasn’t able to read. My nephew in kindergarten and first grade could fluently read aloud the Chronicles of Narnia (and just about anything else—I remember him reading Podkayne of Mars) at a level that you just had to laugh over because it was so beautiful.

[Melas]

I never understood exactly how reading became politicized. I was taught using whole word, and we taught our two youngest children (now adults) whole word as we homeschooled. We all read just fine, thank you.

Listening to some of the more rabid phonetic advocates, it’s a miracle that Asian children, with their non-phonetic written languages ever learn to read at all. If everything these advocates claim is true, then these languages would have died in their infancy as it would have been impossible for a sizable amount of the population to learn to read them.

[muawiyah]

One recent discovery is that as you track a line of text you simultaneously read the end of a word with the beginning of a word. For example: You have the word "Antidisestablishmentarianism" ~ you read "AN" and "SM" immediately. Your processing system matches that discovery against the context of the story line preceding the word "Antidisestablishmenarianism".

You might even say something like "Animalism" if you were reading it out loud and "animal" had anything to do with it.

If that doesn't make sense to you, you take another look at the word and check out what the other phonemes are telling you.

In short "WHOLE WORD" doesn't work by itself and neither does "PHOENICS". It's much more like reading hieroglyphics or ideograms than not.

Could be why the first successful writingsystem, Sumerian, was done in hieroglyphics. Er, so was the second, and the third, and the fourth, and so on.

Alphabets are a far more recent invention ~ pretty good for typing ~ not necessarily strictly phonic ~ more line linear hieroglyphs that are easily written.

[reed13k]

I was also reading at age 4. I attribute my ability to 2 things.

1) My mother sat with me and read comic books (which I still love) pointing to the words and sounding them out (I’m convinced she did this out of her need and not an attempt to show me, in either case I love her for instilling that early ability in me) and

2) because my dad would come home and sit in his recliner and read the paper and pulp westerns after supper while the tv played in the background - I wanted to be just like him so i was determined to learn how to read as quickly as I could.

My teachers had issues with my reading before I was in school - they were convinced that I would end up with less ability because I didn’t follow their methods - or so I’ve been told.

My girls are avid readers now as well - in two languages - I’m convinced it is instilling the love of reading that drives the capability - not the method. My youngest struggled a year or so more than my oldest. Then one day I noticed she was on her 3rd book in a week and she had a sparkle in her eyes - I asked if she liked the book and said she was reading more than before... She gushed about how it was like seeing pictures in her mind and went on and on about the author and the story without any prompting for nearly 10 minutes. After that I knew she wouldn’t have any issues with school (let alone reading)- and she hasn’t (nothing but straight A’s last few years).

Now my wife would appreciate it if I cut down my library a bit (upwards of 20K comics and well over 15k books (paper and hardback)) - it does tend to sprawl around the house - but ... well I think I’ll just hold on to my books.