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There are basically two different common methods of teaching reading.
A "look say" method introduces rigidly selected vocabularies in progressive texts. Students memorize the appearance of words,
or learn to recognize words by looking at the first and last letter. Students taught to read by the "look say" method are not
taught to pronounce new words. It is known that "look say" students do not naturally learn to spell or write unless explicitly
taught. However, they can learn the 5,000 most common words in roughly three years. This is sufficient for basic literacy. The
classic implementation of this approach was the McGill reading curriculum used to teach most baby boomers to read in the U.S.
"Look say" is the same method used to acquire literacy in languages such as Chinese, based on ideograms.
A "phonetic" method teaches sounds to be associated with letters and combinations
of letters. Students memorize these associations. They learn to sound out and then blend sound combinations to produce words.
This method requires direct teaching of "sounding out" methods, and memorization of pronunciation rules. The most perfect
phonetic system is Orton
phonography, originally developed to teach brain-damaged adults to read. Orton described 73 "phonograms", or letter
combinations, and 23 rules for spelling and pronunciation. By following these rules one can correctly pronounce and spell all but
123 of the 13,000 most common English words.
Advocates of "look say" teaching argue that it is the method used by literate adults to read all familiar words. Also the
method is said to be easy to teach, and pleasant for students. Critics charge that a "look say" student can only speak and spell
words that they have been taught, therefore, the critic says, they are permanently crippled when compared to phonetically-taught
students. Also, it is established that this method requires an expensive set of textbooks for each student. It is therefore very
popular with textbook companies. Critics have charged that for this reason, book companies may have found methods to biase
experts and institutions to favor this method.
Advocates of phonetics cite the large reading and spelling vocabulary that phonetic students can theoretically obtain.
However, critics of phonetic methods talk of students that fail at each one of the method's many mandatory skills. Almost all
students learn letter-sounds. Many students find it difficult to "blend" the letter sounds to produce sensible speech. Some
students also fail to apply rules to select letter sounds. Also, critics charge that in phonetic programs, students can learn to
pronounce a sentence without ever learning to understand it. The same, of course, holds true for "look say".
In practice, the most successful reading programs combine elements of both. For example, the extremely popular book, Teach
Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, by Siegfried Engelman, et al. (ISBN 0-671-63198-5), teaches pronunciation and
simple phonetics, then supplements it with progressive texts and practice in directed reading. The end result of a mixed method
is a casually phonetic student, a much better first-time pronouncer and speller, who still also has look-say acquisition, quick
fluency and comprehension. Using an eclectic method, students can select their preferred learning style. This lets all students
make progress, yet permits a motivated student to use and recognize the best traits of each method.
Speed reading continues where basic education stops, and teaches the
student to read multiple words at once, even whole pages at once. Usually after some practice reading speed can be increased
fivefold. At this speed, it is necessary to stop any "talk to myself" action in your brain, because this would slow you down.
There are various speedreading techniques. Hopify is a GPL tool to practice speedreading.
Readability indicates the ease of understanding or comprehension due to
the syle of writing. Reading recovery is a method for helping
students learn to read.
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