[senco-forum] Re literacy

Chris
I assume that you are talking about people with very specific learning difficulties whereas I am talking about people with no specific learning difficulties.  So essentially, we are talking about different things. I am happy to concede that those with very specific learning difficulties will not learn in the same way as those who do not have these difficulties.  I thought I had made it clear that those that I am campaigning for have no specifc learning difficulties and therefore the symbol to meaning correspondence you describe does not arise. Hearing is of course a core requirement for any system which has sound as a component.  If we were discussing a particular subset of people with no hearing then of course, normal phonic considerations would not apply. Perhaps I should rephrase my statement. All hearing people who can read have mastered the phonic code and all hearing people who can't read have not. This rephrasing would have of course to be made in respect of any other subset of people who had a very specific learning disability.

For me, reading is a silent, anti-social, receptive interaction between a person and a text during which the meaning invested the text is assimilated by the reader. It has been established beyond any reasonable doubt that the mechanics of the reading process are simply the subvocalised recreation of speech triggered reflexively by the visual experience of the symbols which code for the sound units in our speech.

Eddie C.