I’m one of the 55%
Bookworm on May 21 2008 at 1:17 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghi t pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.
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Tatlloy aswmoe!
I’m never again go to apologize for my frequent typos, that’s for sure! I’ll trust that most of you are 55 percenters and just move forward.
olve ti.
I can read it easily, but spelling is still important. I know I’m in the minority suggesting that we should hold on to long-established standards and rules, but language is so much more than mere word recognition. For example, without correct spelling we lose the links to other languages and word roots that enrich our understanding and enable us to figure out the meanings and derivations of words we may not have encountered before. And how on earth could we complete the crossword puzzle?
Hmmm. I wonder about the other 45% and why it is that they cannot read it?
Helen didn’t follow “the rules” in which the first and last letter of each word have to be in the same place but what she said was instantly recognizable. I suspect the human mind can still figure out words that are not configured according to the study’s rule but it would just take a little longer.
Deana
Scotoma helps too – you see what you expect to see, read what you expect to read. Often surprising to find out it doesn’t, in fact, say that!
This illustrates the difference between the phonics and the whole language people. The ability to read this is vindication of the whole language process: reading one word as a whole, not broken down into sound-syllable combinations. However, to LEARN to read, one needs to know the various sound-syllable combinations by heart: i.e., phonics. Phonics provide the KEY for unlocking the relation between the spoken and written language. Whole language is a higher level than phonics, but still rests on the foundation of phonics. While multiplication and calculus are at a higher level than addition and subtraction, they rest on the foundations of addition and subtraction.
The whole language people made the assumption that because the repetition of sound-syllable combinations involved in phonics is boring for an adult, that it is also boring for a young child, and should thus be discarded. On the contrary, young children love the repetition: it reinforces learning. How many times does a four or five year old want the SAME STORY read again and again, to the consternation of the adult? Similarly, young children like repeating the sound syllable combinations of phonics. At the same time , learning by phonics does NOT mean one should not read entire stories to children.
Doing whole language instead of phonics is like doing calculus and multiplication without knowing addition.
Good question, Deana. 55 and 45 aren’t all that far apart. We’re talking about a little less than half and a little more than half of the population. So why _can_ some read it and some cannot?
I could read it, but I had to “slide” my eyes over it. That’s not a good description, but it’s the best one I can give – I didn’t read it the way I would normally read it.
An addition to my comment in moderation. Note that a substantial proportion of the adult population -45%- cannot decipher using the whole language method. A further reason for discarding whole language as the only method for teaching reading: it doesn’t work for everyone, even for adults.
Interesting. I wonder if this has something to do with the way people read. Those who read a great deal probably have unconsciously trained themselves to “hydroplane” over the page without, you might say, getting wet. The words are absorbed without focus on each letter. Slower readers might be like someone trying to water-ski from a rowboat. Thus, they might have more trouble reading this kind of text. But, hey, what do I know?
I agree with Judy about everything but the crossword puzzles, which I consider a waste of time. Etymology is a part of human history: It matters. And I agree with Gringo, we need both phonics and whole language in teaching children to read. And Deana, I hope you’ll forgive for “braking the rules” this one time.
As for the other 45%, maybe it has something to do with vision. Just a guess. There are people (one is now a lawyer that I taught as a young teenager) who cannot read when we something is printed in ALL CAPITALS.
>>And how on earth could we complete the crossword puzzle?>>
Or guess the words first on “Wheel of Fortune”????
Helen, try some better crossword puzzles. NY Times puzzles are best (only thing in that paper worth paying attention to). They’re not just about word definitions. They test your knowledge of history, of languages, of culture, and much more. I like the challenge, and when I finish the Saturday puzzle (the week’s hardest) in ink (because I can’t see things written in pencil very well any more) I feel very good. And I’m also getting an anti-Alzheimer’s “vitamin.”
I’ve seen these before, but I’d never heard about the 55% – 45% statistic. Hmmmm…that’s interesting. I didn’t realize so many people cannot read this.
I just tried it out on my 10 year old. I asked him to read it out loud to me, and he did with no problem. He didn’t even hesitate over the words.
Oh…except for Cambridge. That was the only word that slowed him down.
You can only do this with commonly used words. Forget big words, rare words, uncommon words, or modified/uncommon/non-standard forms of common words.
I read by looking at the first 3 letters in a word and the approximate length of the word. That’s also why, on usual speed, I totally ignore people’s typos, unless it distorts the word so much in the beginning that I immediately notice it. But for the most part, people can make typos and I just fill in what the correct version would be automatically.
Of course, wihle proofreading, it’s a good idea to turn that off.
I got this in an email, am one of the 55%, and passed it on. LOL
“I totally ignore people’s typos, unless it distorts the word so much in the beginning that I immediately notice it. But for the most part, people can make typos and I just fill in what the correct version would be automatically.” Me. too.