Phonics, Spelling & Dyslexia

By Camilia Sadik

Phonics, Spelling, and Dyslexia: When addressing “spelling” or “dyslexia” in English, referring to “phonics” becomes inevitable. The inconsistency of phonics causes spelling difficulties, and spelling difficulties cause dyslexia.

Sounds and Symbols: Typically, a spoken language has sounds and written symbols to represent these sounds. The symbols of the sounds are usually letters, which are used in words. Most known languages have a consistent single letter to represent a single sound every time that sound is written in words. Such languages might have only the single letter “k” to represent this sound whenever the sound of “k” is written like this: kite, kat, karakter, frekwently, and makcimum.

Unlike most known languages, the symbols that represent English sounds are very inconsistent. For instance, the sound of “k” in English is spelled in five different ways, as in kite, cat, character, frequently, and maximum. Not only is the sound of “k” spelled in five ways, every English word that contains the sound of “k” can be spelled in any one of these five ways. As a result of this irregularity, the spelling of the “k” sound in each English word would have to be memorized independently. What’s more is that the spelling of hundreds of different English sounds in thousands of words can be significantly difficult for those who cannot memorize without logic.

Letters and Phonics: English words were written for memorizers who can look at a word and memorize its spelling; only five or six spelling rules were supplied like the trivial “i before e except after c” rule that teaches 17 "cei" words. English words were written for memorizers, not for analyzers who need logic before they can memorize. In English we must memorize over 180 symbols of sounds we call phonics (ph=f), and memorize which phonic to choose when spelling every single sound in every English word (choosing: sophisticated or sofisticated). Conversely, logical persons can memorize but in a different way and they question everything that does not make sense. They are too intelligent and too analytic to memorize, without logic, the spelling of thousands of English words one-at-a-time. Unlike English, most known languages have a single consistent letter (not phonics) to represent a single sound every time that sound is written in words. To solve this problem for logical persons, we either have to do away with phonics or provide logical spelling rules to help logical persons memorize the spelling of English words.

Details: (1) memorize 26 letters (2) memorize each of the isolated spelling patterns of hundreds of sounds we call phonics, like the isolated “ee” phonic that sounds like long “e” as in “succeed”; note that memorizing isolated phonics is like memorizing the rest of the ABC’s (3) memorize each unique spelling of each English word independently; we need to memorize which phonic to choose when spelling every single sound in every English word (4) for instance, we need to remember whether or not to choose “ee” in thousands of words like media, succeed, deacon, complete, elite, receive, believe, bikini, lucky, and valley. Other languages that are consistent and only use letters with no phonics would spell this sound like this: meedia, succeed, deecon, compleet, eleet, receeve, beleeve, bikeenee, luckee, and vallee).

A phonic is a single sound that can be represented in two or more letters, like the single sound of “u” in “argue” being represented in “u+e.” A phonic can also be a single letter that does not sound like its letter name, like the sound of “o” in “choir” that sounds like a “w.”

Logical persons can easily memorize the spelling of the “s” in “rose” when informed ahead of time that “s” can sound like a “z” when between two vowels. No one should have the right to ask logical persons to read the word “rose” and to memorize the spelling of the sound of “s” in “rose” before informing them of that rule and then presenting pages of examples that contain words like rose, nose, because, compromise, music, museum, etc.

In addition to learning letters and phonics, choosing a specific phonic to spell a specific sound in each specific English word is another challenge. For instance, after learning the phonics “cial” and “tial” as in “social” and “substantial,” logical persons need a logical spelling rule to tell them which spelling pattern of the same sound to choose when spelling this sound in all the words that contain this sound. Words like existential, credential, facial, crucial, etc. The rule in this case turns out to be that we usually spell with “cial” after a vowel and with “tial” after a consonant. This entire spelling rule is available.

According to reliable statistics over 60% of the population cannot spell English words correctly and thus 60% of us are functionally illiterate. Citizens of any nation have the right to be literate in their first language; but, written English has been an obstacle blocking too many natives from achieving literacy and all the fine things in life that come with literacy.

We need to do away with phonics and use letters to spell sounds; and we need to have one spelling pattern per each sound in all the words that contain that specific sound. For instance, the long “i” sound is presently spelled in these 15 ways as in night, sign, child, mind, climb, choir, Christ, tie, like, style, icon, bye, buy, by, cyclist; I would spell the long “i” sound with “ie” in all of these words like this: niet, sien, chield, miend, cliemb, chwier, Chriest, tie, liek, stiel, iecon, bie, bie, bie, cieclist.

My critics will ask, “How will we differentiate words like buy, bye and by?” and the answer is easy. We will know the difference from the context when words are used in sentences; we will know when we hear them or see them written in sentences like these: Ie went to bie flowers and then went bie her house to say bie-bie. She doesn’t want to say bie. She actually came bie last niet to say hie. We will bie a smaller house. Ie don’t need to bie a big car; ie just want to get bie. Last niet ie liekd her more when she came over rieding her biecycle. She is a good cieclist and she has a great miend. Her liefstiel is liek mien and we can have a chield together after we biend and tie the knot. Jesus Chriest, whie would ie want to sien a prenuptial agreement? She is a well-known iecon and ie’ve know her since we used to sing in the chwier and we cliemb mountains together.

Over 60% cannot spell words correctly: According to reliable statistics, 60% of native-English speakers are either mildly or severely illiterate. Some of them can read and comprehend but cannot spell most of the words that they read; others cannot read at all, or read below their grade levels. Typically, native-English speakers can get by and pass in schools because their teachers can understand what the words mean when spelled with letters instead of phonics.

They may spell like this and be understood, “We uzed to meat hear to eat meet and to have some soop with bred, and inorder to here what others had to say about us. We eight and hour kar was toad away. I beleive in superstision and he is irrasional; it was his karakter that cozed the commosion hwen hour car was toed away. I love you to, let’us not seperate again.”

How do we learn phonics? Forty percent of the population is memorizers that can memorize to spell phonics in words while reading them in a story (whole language). For instance, a memorizer who had just learned his ABC’s will simply memorize the spelling of “My cat is cute.” after reading it in a story.

An analyzer, however, is a very logical thinker and too intelligent to accept such nonsense; s/he questions, “Why did they lie to me?” and “Why isn’t this sentences written “Mi kat iz qut.”? Analytical minds continue to question all the symbols (phonics) that are suddenly thrown at them randomly and right after they learn their ABC’s. Analyzers can be great memorizers but only after seeing the logic behind the subject they are about memorize.

Even if they end up memorizing isolated symbols like the “ph=f”, they simply cannot memorize which of the over 180 such symbols to choose to spell thousands of words. They may learn that the symbols f, ph, and gh represent the sound of “f” but they may not know which of the three symbols to choose when spelling all the words that contain this sound. They may spell this sound like this, “sofisticated, laufter, transpher, fonics, philosofy, etc.” They see that this whole process of learning to spell so many sounds in so many ways in so many words as a process that does not make sense; they insist on finding logical explanations before they can memorize the spelling of each English word. If no logical explanations are found, logical learners will continue to write “karakter” for “character.” They will end up becoming poor spellers in English but not in other languages that have letters and no phonics. It is not a matter of choice for them; their rational minds cannot memorize without logic or regularity. Their brains reject such inconsistent spelling patterns of the same sound in so many words.

Memorizers (less than 40% of us) can memorize the spelling of phonics while reading them in sentences (whole language); analyzers, however, cannot memorize the spelling of phonics in words unless they are presented to them logically and one-at-a-time.

Aquiring Dyslexia:  Eventually, poor spellers acquire dyslexia and they normally do that before third grade. Their only fault is that they were born logical and too intelligent to memorize anything that does not make sense; they can only memorize after their questions are answered logically.

Over 60% of native-English speakers were NOT born dyslexic; they were born logical and only logical minds can become poor spellers and only poor spellers can acquire dyslexia in English. If they were born into a consistent first language, they wouldn’t have acquired dyslexia. They were NOT born spelling letters in a reversed manner either. They acquire dyslexia because they were forced into speed-read before they could read or spell words; such speed-reading causes them not to see the way words are spelled and to see letters in a reversed manner and eventually spelling them in that same reversed manner. Dyslexics do NOT have learning disabilities, others who don’t understand them do. Dyslexia in English is given to children in K-3rd grades. Adults who learn English as a second language can also acquire dyslexia in English, but not in their native language that has only letter with no phonics.

Reading and Spelling: Millions of dollars are being spent for obsolete reading programs with very little mention of the word “spelling.” Poor spellers or dyslexics are constantly asking for spelling programs but they are told, “You need to read more interesting books to learn to spell better.” Traditional teaching still cannot tell the difference between reading and spelling. Traditional programs, unknowingly, veer people away from learning and participate in creating illiteracy.

Solutions: There are only two solutions to the phonics problem; either reform the language to make it letters with very little phonics, or find a logical way for the logical 60% of us to memorize phonics. For instance, we can throw away the “ph” completely because we have the letter “f” for that. We need to keep the “ch” as in “chips” but throw away the “ch” as in “choir” because we have the “k” and throw away the “ch” as in “chef” because we have “sh” as in “ship.” In this way, every time we hear the sound of “sh” in any word, we write “sh” and no “ch” which French and not English anyway.  People should hear or think a sound and spell it without having to stop to think which spelling pattern to choose every time they hear a sound or think it. When every phonic is memorized, spelling is memorized; when spelling is memorized; dyslexia is ended.

No program, book, tutor, or teacher could force logical learners to memorize the spelling of the words that they read unless they supply explanations to every inconsistency that occurs along the way. For this reason, someone has had to spend 15 years intensely dissecting English, grouping words together, discovering over logical 100 spelling rules, writing over 600 phonics lessons, and preparing a comprehensive phonics and spelling program for people to memorize the spelling over 25,000 words within weeks or months.

People shouldn’t have to spend 15 years intensely dissecting English, simply to learn to spell. I am looking for followers to reform written English—I need followers who are willing to throw most phonics away and switch to using mainly letters instead of phonics. For example, I would change the “s” to “z” in these examples: noze, becauze, compromize, muzic, and muzeum.

Please watch this “Lee Can Read” video shown on YouTube

In 1999 Camilia Sadik taught Lee, a sixth grader who couldn’t read words, more than he had learned in schools in six years. Lee had dyslexia and ADD. Please watch Lee's reading before and after:

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