Return-Path: <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov>
Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id h5CL1qC16601; Thu, 12 Jun 2003 17:01:52 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 17:01:52 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <3F5434AD.21714593.0AB94E44@aol.com>
Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov
Reply-To: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov
Originator: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov
Sender: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov
Precedence: bulk
From: AndresMuro@aol.com
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-4EFF:2375] Re: Fw: Overview concepts of Michael Pressley
X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
X-Mailer: Atlas Mailer 2.0
Status: O
Content-Length: 3704
Lines: 19
Andrea, Tom, et al:
Andrea, thanks for your response to Tom. It may clarify my cluttered attempt to say a similar thing. Thinking of this further, here is another attempt at explaining it in different words.
Chemistry is a good way to see this. When I say water, some of us may see a river, the faucet, or the actual word "water". A chemist may see H2O. If I say salt, she will see NaCl and if I say gold, she will see Au. In other words, the brain has stored thousands of pictures in the brain for formulas that are not learned phonetically, but that carry meaning. In other words, they have mastered a non-phonetic language. If language were only learned phonetically, this would be impossible. In other words, how would you ever figure out that H2O means water and that NaCl means sodium chloride and that Au means gold? There must be a non- phonetically process that goes on in the brain. Historically, the first language systems were non-phonetic, neither they were alphabetic. Today, there are many language systems that are non-phonetic/alphabetic, such as math, chemistry, music, and computers.
All this is not intended to say that we should not master a language phonetically. For many of us, it is the easiest way to master sounds, but not for all. At the same time, at some point we must move on.
Specifically, what happens in the brain when I say the word cat is that a literate adult will see a cat, or the word "cat" as a "template", or picture in the brain. When I hear the word "cat" I do not see the letters c-a-t forming the phoneme "cat". However, a child that is learning to spell phonetically, will, when he hears the word cat, either see an image of the cat, or the letters c-a-t sounding the phoneme "cat". However, once the child acquires mastery of the image connoted by hearing the word "cat", he will not see the word as composed of the letters c-a-t into the phonetic unit "cat". He will only see the word "cat" as a single picture. This single picture is stored in the occipital area of the brain, while the sound "cat" as a phonemic unit, is stored in the Wernieke's area. When reading, people use the visual area of the brain to recognize pictographs, even though some of us may have learned them phonetically, since this was easiest for us.
For many, the ability to decode words into phonemes and phonemes into letters is not connected with the visual cortex. So, I may hear the word "cat" and see a cat. I may also hear the word cat as a phonemic unit represented by the letters c-a-t. However, I cannot when I sound the letters c-a-t into the phoneme "cat" tie it to the visual image of the animal that I have stored into the occipital lobe. So, the only way to learn to read is not to decode the word cat as a set of letters, but to master the whole word as a picture that is tied to the image of a cat.
I know that this sounds hard to grasp, but this is the way the brain learns. There are forms of aphasia that are so unusual, that they are virtually unbelievable. For example, there is a rare form called alexia w/o agraphia, which means that a person can write, but the person cannot read. So, if I spell the word cat on a piece of paper, someone with this condition will not be able to read it. However, if I say the word cat, the person will be able to write it, but he will not be able to read what he wrote. In this form of aphasia, the Wermnicke's area hears the word, sends a direction to the motor cortex (frontal lobe) and the motor cortex spells the word that was learned phonetically. However, when the person sees the word, the person cannot process the visual image as a word.
Andres
--
go here: www.geocities.com/andresmuro/art.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Mar 11 2004 - 12:14:40 EST