FSACNIATNIG (Peploe can raed bteter tahn you mhgit tinhk tehy can)

National Review Online ^ | September 16, 2003 | Jonah Goldberg

[Timesink]

FSACNIATNIG [Jonah Goldberg]

From a reader:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Posted at 05:55 PM

[aruanan]

Uo-hh, tihs menas "wolhe wrod" rediang mihgt siltl hvae a baiss in fcat!

Not rlleay. See my psot aobve. Aphlaebitc wiitrng (and radenig) has all the avdnagtes of wlhoe wrod or iedoagrms raednig and mroe.

[trini]

Pnig.

[aruanan]

Man, they took long enough to publish. I was reading about this back in the 1970's in Psycholinguistics and Reading by Kenneth S. Goodman. Though he and others of the psycholinguistic approach back then TOTALLY missed the point of phonics as the best instructional approach to beginning reading.

[reagan_fanatic]

LLO!!!

[Charles Henrickson]

You need to use specchellk.

[Maria S]

SOMEBODY started off on the wrong "home keys". (You're probably still pretty young if you have no idea what I'm talking about!)

[Snowy]

Interesting. Once in a while I stumble on a word when written that way.

[Charles Henrickson]

MY BRIAN HRUTS!

[decimon]

Thaw a corck of hits!

[Charles Henrickson]

Tihs is vey sirees.

[sanchmo]

tihs menas "wolhe wrod" rediang mihgt siltl hvae a baiss in fcat

No, not rllaey:
People don't perceive "wlohe wdros" until they've learned & internalized them - similar to muscle memory. However, when learning new words, students must do several things in parallel: (a) learn the meaning, including subtle nuances; (b) learn the pronounciation, which is the spoken version of the word; (c) learn the spelling, the written version of the word. Whole word teaching avoids the most effective technique for learning how to speak and write words. As they say: "you hvae to wlak bforee you can run."

This article is really not news or surprising. Ask a writer, editor or proofreader how often they come across obvious misspellings or transpositions that the writer (or even a reader) didn't notice - even though they knwo instinctively how to correctly spell the word. Likewise, how many times have you looked at word you've typed in an email or posting, thinking "That word just doesn't look right - but I can't figure out where the typo is" - and still you have no problem understanding the word.

The idea that after some familiarity people recognize entire words as a single symbol (as opposed to individual symbols stringed together) even if typos or transpositions are included is the basis for every "speed reading" technique.

[Charles Henrickson]

Tihs is HGUE!

[Charles Henrickson]

Ecsuxe me, I manet to say:

Tihs is HGUH!

[pgkdan]

Wow. Taht ralely was azaming! I raed the whloe thnig wihtuot misisng a baet!

[11th_VA]

Tihs is HGUH!

RLOFLO !!!

[r9etb]

The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Actually, I think the mind reads patterns of letters, and self-corrects to known spellings when it sees them. I noticed that I had to work a little harder in deciphering the misspellings to figure out what they should have been.

But that's probably too simplistic -- the mind also uses context to differentiate between words which could be "corrected" more than one way. We basically know what the word "should be" because we are able to perceive the basic thrust of the thought before it's completed.

For example, let's just randomize the order of the sentence:

The deos ervey a total rset mses and be you wrod wlohe can be raed it porbelm can. huamn bcuseae be mnid not raed lteter by Tihs is istlef, but the the wouthit as a.

The context is gone, and now it's much more difficult to tell what's going on. It looks much more like random typing.

[stainlessbanner]

ma I degglo ni?

[mrtysmm]

You know what's scary? I really can read that stuff. Is this what's going on in our schools? No wonder the kids can't pass tests. No wonder the TEACHERS can't pass the tests.

[Publius6961]

Correction.
Real readers may be able to do that.

Not too many of us left.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

I thnki eth ctorrec aswnre si tath ti si wrokngi, ohtersiwe, yuo wuold nto eb aleb ot raed teh grabel ot bgein wthi.