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Comment by twelve40 | Hacker News Reader

> Skilled readers don't scan words and sample from the graphic cues in an incidental way; instead, they very quickly recognize a word as a sequence of letters

I'm really confused by this. Yes, this is what skilled readers do once they are skilled. But when any kid is starting out, they are by definition a poor (brand new) reader. Of course they will not recognize a word as a sequence of letters! So how does this "new research" help?

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Well, for one thing, it strongly suggests (and I absolutely agree) that phonics is the better way to go. I actually did struggle with learning how to read in early elementary school, and thank the Lord, I was lucky enough to get some phonics-based intervention that finally made things start clicking. Had that not occurred, I'm pretty confident I'd probably still be a relatively poor reader right now.

See "orthographic mapping." When you see a word you haven't learned yet, you look carefully at the letters in order to figure out how to pronounce it. Once you do this enough times for that word, it's saved into memory. You see the letters and you can retrieve that the word very quickly.

Next time you encounter a new word, try to catch yourself sounding it out in your head. I wasn't really aware of the process until I tried.

> Of course they will not recognize a word as a sequence of letters!

What makes you think so? Perhaps some kids pick this up really quickly and practice it. Some kids learn faster how to run and kick a ball, and some learn faster how to ride a bicycle.

when you are starting on day 1, isn't it obvious you don't know any written words and you have no skills to put the letters together, because you are just starting out?? Then saying "just start recognizing word as a sequence of letters like the skillful readers do" is about as helpful as "just start reading" if you've never done this before.

> instead, they very quickly recognize a word as a sequence of letters

This appears to be the very basic, which is far from being enough to become a "skilled reader".

i think steadily recognizing words from letter sequences is very far from basic or intuitive for anyone starting out. Probably the most difficult step actually. Hence all these tricks like the cueing theory to get the kids to understand at least something and start progressing.

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