~ lf.~rr.d. ·~'?gn~tiolf:i,.l~~ss: .'~-~'l;he "word~recoknition" meth·, 

· od 'of teaching reading is based 

~on a fundamental ~onfusion as 

.;. to.';the,,..na~ur_e · of writ~ep lan-

; guage. ', T~is c~nfusion ptems' • . from the erroneous view that, 

int a·' language employing a ' 

•. phonetic· a 1 p h a b e t, writte1i'. 

words are symbols of· things. " .But they are nothing of the . i,sort. "They ~.a,re symbols of' 

I! sppken.._!lounds. More. accurate-: 

ly, th~Y· B:,~e. :qi.or\? t~an SY!IJ~Qls; ,t 

they ,are .c)1.o.rds of sound, eom- - Pfirable to;'IJ'Jus~~al notati9n. ., ; 

Consequently, the protago-

' nists' of v!sual teachi~g , of 

reading are making the, hope- ,. less' attempt to convert a pho· ... n~tjc, lang1)age. ,ill-to ~ ·., pic- ~t9grap~c .language,. and by ·so . /.doing n to ' set civilization. back some 30 centuries. Ne~t io the ~ jflvpntiQ!J.' .:0£'1 ~laμguage 't itself, ;· 

• the-· inve:q.tion of the ' phonetic 

; •alphabet ranks highest of all. 

inventions in the intellectual · advance · of mankind. For it 

j· gav~ 1 an incomparable tool for~ . the~; diffusion·' of knowledge n 

· ; among' all classes; 'and in mod· ~ ern democracies, it more an(! · ; more' assures. that the talents : of a.II classes will be tappl}d for . ' , the common good, • · · • :· : 

~· That is,~imless the1 visual 

::;,,methqd -finally triumphi;. ·For 

.·.the visual ·method is the road to , 'virtual illiteracy.:The reason is 

'very simple~ 'the method ·de- , mands that the reader :memorize 

the forms of' words instead of 

an1lyzing their dynamic sound- . systems. · The English language 

contains upward of 500,000 ~ words,j •''A-:;, well-read:·· person 

" knows many thousands of these . 1 

t«Worcls; •but •it would 'a:equire a,/ 'long•lifetime~to memorize the , ·.·mere · pictographic~ form of - ~ , few thousands of these .words. · • 

" This fatal; handicap:. of the.,: 

visual method has b~en put to 1 

rigorous scientilie test. Dr. Sam- . uel '.-Orton,'; well-known practi- ; 

tioner'and authority in the ~eld · " o~ reading; ·~riting and s~ech • difficulties of, children, told me . some :years: ago, that he had 

tested thousands of children for 

' .word,knowledge; and that there · : ·was 'one , difficulty ·common"'to · ,, the great majority'of them •. ·• ·.,-.\rnue'to'the'pictogram method· : of teaching, they confused hun- 1 dreds of common word.w; that 

superficially' looked alike, 1 such 

r. as · r.umbl~ and ramble. Tihe re- 1-: sultfwas1 that ·they' could not 'i. comprehendingly read,virtually 1 

l'!'any• single! paragraph. in· any , i' subject· of study: Dr.' Orton's ~:extensive investigations led-him · to conclu.de ,. that • among stu: ~: den~s of ~h*' visual.method, 25 . ,per. cent Ie!irrt, to. read ,:z:qod-, f;erately wel.t, 50 per cent are so -- li mediocre as· to be "alniost illit- if. erate,'1and-25 per'cent cannot )l~«11J. to.read!!!-~ all· f•~ ''?·;,~-· .. ;: 1

• 

~ll·Itiis.'in,this·Iatter' class'.that · .,acute delinquency shows up at , !;-about'. the '

1 age'' of! adole~ep.ce. ·• -For then, as Dr. Orton's case- · J histQries' show, 1 revolt / against , this ~ ... mysterious "inferiority" 

leads · to such activities as truancy,·, theft and attempted ' murder .' '.' · · ... : · 

. .., Equally ~erious is the de~ent ' 

f:~into. a pre}iterate' stage of cul- . ture:-1 For' visual\ reading,"com~ ·; ~ · bined 'with TV, radio, the . 

j

, movies, . the.: ~oruic . books' and ., 'the -;;,pictorifll ', magazines, · is 

'hurrymg us l along the· road to ~.pii:tographie illiteracy.· It is no i 

iwonder;tha~ \he book publish-. 1 

ers are 1n the doldrums •• ; · ·: i:~~!\. ·~·<-.WARD'SHEPARD •. fr'=} "f ' ... ~ ~ f' " 'A ~ ~·fl)t.Oakton, Va. ·:· ... ·, J."'"\," ~ ~~ t::~t.'!,t~~r.: ~ 1~;i~) .. , ~(~,~, ~,' ~=4-'I .. 

Plion~fZ. JIQ. ~ 

"Readrng" is defined as "tak· 

ing ·in the sense of, as of Ian· - guage, by interpreting the 

characters with which rt is ex· pressed" (alphabet) or "utter· 

ing aloud or rendering some- thing written" (note sound element). - · "Alphabet" is defined as "the 

series of characters used m writing a language, and intended to represent the sounds, 

of which it con!iists." 

"Writing" is aefined as "one 

of the oldest arts, usually di· 

vided into ideographic writing" 

(such as ancient hieroglyphics) 

"m which signs represent ideas, 

and into phonetic writing, m . which signs represent sound." · In all of these definitions, the 

idea of the correlation of the 

two senses of sight and ' hearing is clear. Phonics is a very, 

basic science. It is m~rely th~ 

science of the , associa~ion o the sight of words w1p1 the 

sound of woros. h 

A child hears words and e sees words; phonics is t.he tie· 

. A child reads wor~s he m. h ·cs is the . wishes to say; P om 

t . ·n A child hears words he 

ie-1 • - • the . wishes. to write; phonics is 

tie-m. , . b s· How else can reading e po 

sibly taught other than ~hrout~ 

the medium of phomcs, t 

basic tbol ! d b 

A child must see a wor e· fore he can read it. Therefore, 

all reading is sight reading. 

What do our "experts" mean by 

''sight reading" as a means of 

teaching "sight reading"? Can't 

qmte figure this one o~t. 

' At any 'rate I believe our :modern educational " " expe rts'' 

d and forgot to have ~~~p:om~lers of dictionari~s and encyclopedias brmg theu~ 

definitions up to date to co~re-

, spond with modern teachmg 

methods.BETTY HALLMAN. 

Arlington. 

! SYN~-;;~diz~R s:sr~o~Ar1: . WGMS Washington Apr~ 27 a~ 7.05 p.m. 

broadcast for the first time m the .city the resul~ 

of the electronic sound synthesizer ~evelope 

and recently introduced by the Dav~d Sam~ff 

Labs, Princeton, N. J. The electron~c synt. esizer according to WGMS, "is a music making 

devi~e that can, in theory, originate :u1Y sound 

and any voice. Therefore, by mech~mcal means 

alone mu~ic can be produced wh1c~ do~s not 

origi~ate with any musician or musical ~st~u­ ment." Members of the press, electromcs 1~­

dustry and music and h1-fi fields heard a pre· 

view of the music and explanatory ta~ks tha 

same day before the broadcast. ~us1cal e}" 

amples were introduced with esp~cially trfscribed remarks by Brig. Gen. David Sarno~ • 

\'./1• i..,t(-1,-:.i~t. ...... 1 i~Q>t.u:o. .. 1 .. :t .,, ·\ _,.J 

@'pproved for Release by NSA on 0 9 -06 20 13 pursuantto E.O. 1352a