Important!

[SwissMercenary]

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh 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 are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

[Bolty]

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh 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 are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

Holy crap, it's true - speed reading your message gave me no troubles at all and I was able to understand it perfectly. So all we need are tpyos wirtten wlel and we will be oaky.

-Bolty

[NiteFox]

...

My brain hurts.

[Count Duckula]

Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

Isn't this only if you learned how to read phonetically? I was taught to look at individual letters, then slowly working up to consonant pairs and groups of letters, all the while studying the rules on why English sounds the way it does. People who learn by the word have problems when encountering new words because they aren't sure on the pronunciation. People who learn by the letter, however, don't really have this problem because their minds have gotten so used to analyzing letters and patterns that they can guess at how to say a new word just by the way it reads and how the rules go.

It took two readings out loud to understand your post, Swiss.

[Walkiry]

:huh: :blink: :o :lol:

That was brilliant! I did miss a couple of words when speed reading it, but I guess that's because I'm a foreigner ;)

Just... wow :lol:

[--Pete]

Hi,

Isn't this only if you learned how to read phonetically?

Probably.

People who learn by the word have problems when encountering new words because they aren't sure on the pronunciation.

Yep. They also have a tendency to read more slowly without getting any more info from what they read. They also are terrible proofreaders. So, as usual, it is a trade off.

People who learn by the letter, however, don't really have this problem because their minds have gotten so used to analyzing letters and patterns that they can guess at how to say a new word just by the way it reads and how the rules go.

Without thought the tough cough ploughed and hiccoughed him through. Hmm, what's the "ough" rule again??

How about "ghoti"?

How the symbols developed to represents the sounds of one language can ever be expected to do a decent job on a different language which contains many more sounds but isn't just a superset is beyond me. Sorry, but IMHO "fonix" is a bad joke perpetuated on the youth.

It took two readings out loud to understand your post, Swiss.

While I got it all on a quick scan. Probably a generation thing and how reading was taught at various times. Much like hemlines, fashion dictates teaching to read but there really isn't that much variety available :)

--Pete

[Copadope]

Wow...

Do you have a link to the actual research? I'd be interested to see it if you do.

[keenduck]

I'll throw in another guess, and say it might have something to do with how much you read. If you read a lot of material, you'll pretty quickly gain the ability to scan through large amounts of text and unmask its meaning. I often find myself having read through a passage understanding the main point without picking up on the small details. In this case, the "small details" might be the spelling of the words, which is why I was able to read through it in one pass.

[NiteFox]

Wow...

Do you have a link to the actual research?  I'd be interested to see it if you do.

Yeah, but would the URL actually work? :)

[EspyLacopa]

Isn't this only if you learned how to read phonetically? I was taught to look at individual letters, then slowly working up to consonant pairs and groups of letters, all the while studying the rules on why English sounds the way it does.

Interestingly enough, That is how my teachers wanted me to learn how to read. But I was stubborn, and didn't. Then my parents stopped reading my gaming magazines to me, so I had to learn how to read by repeatedly asking them "What does this say?" and "What's this word?" Thus, I can say my gaming love taught me how to read ^_^

[Jester]

I could read that post quickly without trouble, but if I slowed down, it came to a screeching halt.

I suppose it's related to the bunnies-in-the-clouds thing: we're built to quickly recognize cogent patterns, even if they aren't actually there.

Jester

[Griselda]

The general meaning of your post is true, but, IMO, it really misses the point.

When fluent readers (of any age) read, they do not typically sound out words. They're familiar enough with them that it would be a waste of time. But, the eye takes far more than the first and last letters into account. We unconsciously notice the placement of letters with distinct shapes- f and p, for example. Vowels actually tend to matter least, and it's not surprising that (not counting y, of course), they tend to be less distinctive as letters go.

This process is generally much more efficient than going letter-by-letter, but it does lead to substitutions of commonly read words for similar less common words of a similar shape. For example, when I'm reading school related stuff, I'll know I've done this when I find myself substituting Diablo-related words into the articles.

There are several different cueing systems at work when we read. Fluent readers tend to be able to use all of the cueing systems simultaneously when they read. Phonics is *one* of those systems, and, as such, should be taught. But, there's no reason for teaching to end there.

I don't know if your intention was to ridicule the idea that reading strategies other than phonics could be included in a good literacy program. But, that is a common attitude, and I personally find it infuriating. There's a lot that goes into learning to read and write. It seems to me that we're shortchanging kids, and society as a whole, if we limit ourselves to one strategy.

-Griselda

edit- proofreading

[pakman]

Holy crap, that's hilarious. I understood everything without having to "read" it.

[Archon_Wing]

I could understand it right away, but it's not something I'd like to do on a regular basis. :)

[Taem]

Humm, that is interesting. I also think Griselda is right about letters that stick out. I read it clearly without stopping, but it is mostly novelty because I don't think it is useful outside of a forum post, save for impressing your friends with random knowledge.

[Jeunemaitre]

Vowels actually tend to matter least, and it's not surprising that (not counting y, of course), they tend to be less distinctive as letters go.

I know this thread started with a research report on English, but Griselda 's post got me thinking about Hebrew, where vowels are represented by ancillary dots and lines below and around the consonant characters (and lets also remember that the Torah is written with no vowel marks whatsoever (so I'm told by my wife)). Apparently English is not the only language where vowels are less relevant than consonants.

One thing to remember about language is in the case of learning new vocabulary, we tend to search our memory for similar sounding or looking words that we already know; for example, whenever I hear something that ends in -ology I immediately deconstruct the word into the study of- and whatever the preceding root might be from context. It seems to me that this step would be the goal of phonics, where we use the combination of sounds to call to mind root/prefix/suffix combinations that we already have in memory to help us along in learning. I agree that phonics are insufficient for teaching reading, the same why that pattern recognition is inadequate for teaching integral calculus: yes, I could tell you the integrand of e^x dx (if I remembered Calc II), but I couldn't tell you why. Stopping at phonics is like stopping at wrote memorization: you have the answer, but only in the way a computer knows where your files are without caring what’s in them. However, everyone relies on phonics to get through the day on a regular basis.

Like all other decisions (yes, speech and reading are decisions (including word choice, inflection, tone, etc.)) there are two ways to go: 1) thorough processing to arrive at a reasoned decision, and 2) heuristic judgment (matching the current state to a pre-thought decision pattern, eliminating the time taken for processing buy using mental frameworks already in place). The reason we can read the text in SwissMercenary 's post is because we are allowing our reading heuristic to do it for us. This type of reading is the sort of thing where we read the text, but it doesn't get any further than short term memory. That's why all the writing teachers in the world hammer the fact that writing must be interesting and impacting, especially at the beginning of a piece: to jar people out of their heuristics and into actual processing.

[Copadope]

After much scouring of Google, I still have no solid evidence of actual university research in this area. However, I did discover that as of September 12, the jumbled blurb was posted on just about every blog in existence <_< . If anyone has any clues as to the validity of this research, I'd really like to know.

[Occhidiangela]

Folks have been trying to prove excretus bovus for years. :P

Salvanos Domine contra excretus bovus

[SwissMercenary]

After much scouring of Google, I still have no solid evidence of actual university research in this area.&nbsp; However, I did discover that as of September 12, the jumbled blurb was posted on just about every blog in existence&nbsp; <_< .&nbsp; If anyone has any clues as to the validity of this research, I'd really like to know.

Of course there wasn't any actual research. :D

But it doesn't make it any less interesting (Or funny).

[Griselda]

Apparently, much of the research in this area is 50-100 years old, so current work in the field tends to be a bit more complex. For example:

http://www.jsmf.org/awards/bmb/essays/2002/fiez.htm (turned that up with google; it's not a project I'm familiar with)

I got my information from Constance Weaver in Reading Process and Practice. Chapter 5 has a pretty good summary as well as lots of examples. She does provide several references to research in the field. The particlar works referenced were books rather than articles, so I wasn't able to turn up the full text of these in a quick web search.

Google turned up this bibliography which should at least some useful stuff on it:

http://www.geocities.com/hao520/research/p...20Visual%20Word

-Griselda