[senco-forum] Re: senco-forum Spelling reform

Jean, I understand the motivation behind wanting reform as a dyslexic and
someone with a poor visual memory for spelling (I can convince myself within
a short space of time that any word 'looks wrong').  However I still feel
very strongly that to destroy our etimology simply to make my life easier
when there is an increasing array of helps and aids to spelling, would be
wrong.  For me its tantamount to saying 'bulldoze the castle and abbey ruins
we have as they serve no purpose and take up valuable building land'.

Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk]On Behalf Of Jean
Hutchins
Sent: 07 August 2007 13:07
To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: [senco-forum] Re: senco-forum Spelling reform

"All children in the USSR are given an ABC book and start to learn
from it the day school begins. They learn at first about a letter a
day and what it stands for, and gradually proceed to syllables and
words.

"By December 15 of their first year all Russian children are through
with their ABC books and start reading simple stories and poems.
There is no further instruction in reading as such after the end of
first grade. [Rudolph Flesch, "Why Johnny Still Can't Read" (New
York: Harper Colophon Books, 1981), pp. 167-168.]

1 Dec 2005. Independent review of the teaching of early reading interim
report.
Jim Rose. Department for Education and Skills: The Standards Site. "27. It
is
generally accepted that English is harder to learn than many other
languages,
because the relationship between sounds and letters is more complex than in
languages such as Finnish, Greek or German."
www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/rosereview/

28-29 Sep 2005. OECD-CERI Learning sciences and brain research.
Conclusion includes: "Countries with deep orthographies might possibly begin
to
consider the political and societal feasibility of implementing orthographic
reforms."
www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/39/35562310.pdf

2001 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. (PIRLS)
When published in 2003, one comment was:
"The gap between the highest and lowest attaining children tended to be
wider in
English-speaking countries such as England and New Zealand, than in other
nations. Researchers said one factor might be the irregular nature of
English"
(TES April 11).

Richard Feynman: "If the professors of English will complain to me that the
students who come to the universities, after all those years of study, still
cannot spell friend, I say to them that something's the matter with the way
you
spell friend."

OK, there is no agreement on what reforms there should be,
and no mechanism for implementing them, as there is for
many other languages, but I just wish it could happen
for the sake of dyslexics and other reading/spelling disabled.

Jean
-----------------------------------------
Jean Hutchins, SE Surrey DA.
RSA Dip SpLD, AMBDA, retired.
E-mail: jeanhutchins1 at ntlworld.com
British Dyslexia Association Web: www.bdadyslexia.org.uk
Also into spelling reform: www.simplifiedspelling.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

--
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.11.8/940 - Release Date: 06/08/2007
16:53