Reading and the Brain

There have been opposing theories about the best way to help an individual (child or adult) learn to read efficiently. With the abbreviations used in many electronic devices, I’ve had questions about how to teach a child to read well – a skill that is critical to success in almost any domain. First, studies have shown that talking clearly and frequently to children from at least birth (if not before) and onward and reading to them often, helps the brain store “phenomes.” What is a phenome? It can be defined as the smallest sound in a given language. The English language has more phenomes than there are letters (26) in the English alphabet because some letters have been combined to make a unique sound including ph, sh, ch, qu, th, ugh, and so on. You may find this website interesting, especially if you are learning English as a second language or attempting to help your child learn to be an efficient reader, as it has a chart of 45 phenomes in the English language. (https://www.theschoolrun.com/what-is-a-phoneme)