Scientists have learnt much about how the brain reads written words. They now believe there are two “pathways” used in reading - the “whole word” pathway and the “sound-of-the-letters” pathway.
When we read using the “whole word” pathway, a word (for example 'cat') is checked against the storehouse of written words in the brain. When the word is recognised, the brain can extract the meaning (or picture, or idea), and bring the meaning to our consciousness.
When we read using the “sound-of-the-letters” pathway, the word is broken into letters or letter-groups (for example 'c-a-t') which are translated in the mind into sounds. These sounds are then assembled to give the sound of the whole word (for example the sound 'cat'). This word-sound is then checked against the storehouse of word-sounds in the brain. When the sound is recognised, the brain can extract the meaning (or picture, or idea), using links in the mind between the stored sound representations and the storehouse of meanings.
Normally when we are reading, these two “pathways” are operating at the same time (in parallel), so that the brain can work out the meaning as quickly and as accurately as possible.
But the English spelling system, which is not based consistently on the sound of the words, is a hindrance to the efficient working of these two pathways.
When we read a word like 'night' or 'come', the “sound-of-the-letters” pathway is not very useful. The only way we can work out the sound of such words is by remembering rules like “forget the 'gh’'' or “make the 'o' sound like a 'u'”. So for such words we often turn off the “sound-of-the-letters” pathway and just recognise the words using the “whole word” pathway.
If 'night' was spelt 'nite' and 'come' was spelt 'cum' we could read these words using the “sound-of-the-letters” pathway as well as the “whole word” pathway (at the same time). This would make reading much easier and more accurate.
The most important part of a human being is what is in his or her brain. Our personality and sense of “self” are determined by the contents of our brains. The basic outline of these contents are laid down in our early childhood years (see "Fertile Minds" in Time Magazine, February 3, 1997).
Probably the hardest thing that children need to learn is how to read and write. This process involves the storing of thousands of words in the brain. It is important that the storage and retrieval of all this information is done efficiently.
The tragedy for English-speaking people is that it is not done efficiently. Instead of storing words like 'bum', 'dum' and 'cum' (for example), we need to store 'bum', 'dumb' and 'come'. So the learning process is much more difficult than it needs to be, and the recognition and retrieval of the words requires more effort.
If we stored written words more efficiently then we would not abuse our
wonderful brains by filling them with gh's and ph's, or by word-patterns not
related to the sound of the words (like 'queue' or 'enough'). Then reading
and writing would involve less mental effort, and our brains would be free to
soar into new realms of knowledge and experience.
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