We’ve Cracked the Code!
What if I told you that there’s a logical way to approach reading English?
Yes, I just used ‘logical’ and ‘English’ together in the same sentence. You know all of those “irregular” words? Words like ‘was’ or ‘said’ which seem to violate any predictable pattern of how the letters represent the sounds in the word? Well, they’re actually not irregular or exceptions. You don’t have to memorize them. If you know the code, you can determine all of the sounds and read any word accurately, just as easily as bat or map. In fact, there are only a handful of words (out of the millions in the English language) that don’t follow predictable rules and logic.
Wouldn’t you want to know the code?
Well, you’ve come to the right place! I can point you down a path. Wherever it may take you, undoubtedly you’ll be left wondering, “Why was I never taught this in the first place?”
So, let’s start there! Take a moment to reflect on the following questions (and continue reading when you’re ready):
What can you remember about how you were taught to read?
How do you read unfamiliar words (such as borborygmus)?
What do you do when trying to figure out the spelling for a word (and your phone is not nearby)?
As best as I can recall, I was given what many kids of my generation experienced: a smattering of phonics with some whole language baked in. I did worksheets and spelling tests. I learned when “two vowels go a-walking, the first one does the talking” and was introduced to the ‘magic e.’ My parents and teachers read to me aloud. I dropped everything and read (DEAR). And thanks to Book-It, I even earned pizza!
All of this was enough to suffice, fortunately. I had all of the privileges I needed to become a reader (i.e., a middle-class family, a stay-at-home mom who had time to invest in my learning, a curriculum aligned to my cultural identity and experiences, no significant cognitive or processing delays, etc.).
Not everyone is so lucky.
As it turns out, I was one of only about 40% of students across the nation that was able to reach ‘proficiency’ on state assessments. Yet, I never really seemed to perform up to my potential on standardized tests for English Language Arts or reading. This kept certain doors closed to me, such as participating in advanced placement classes. And even though I earned good grades and placed tenth in my graduating class, my ACT scores limited which colleges I could attend.
Of course, I internalized all of this over time. While I could read, it just wasn’t my thing. Reading didn’t come as easily to me as math. So, I figured it was how my brain worked, like I wasn’t smart enough in some way. I still was successful throughout my journey through education, until I hit a wall in graduate school.
In a challenging course on behavioral principles, I was tasked with reading journal articles loaded with scientific jargon. I stumbled across words I had never seen before, which forced me to use whatever decoding skills I had at the time. And once I came up with a reasonable approximation for an unfamiliar word, I often forgot what I had just read before it. So, I had to go back and reread the sentence or paragraph to try to make sense of the text. It often took hours to get through those articles!
Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was finally starting to figure out the code of the English language — a code that had never been fully taught to me. Sadly, it’s a code that is rarely taught, especially in its entirety, to very few— even to this day.
That, I believe, is the single greatest reason why so many fail to become literate, and why so many others (like myself) may not read, spell, or write as well as they might otherwise — we were never taught the code and how it actually works.
Cracking the Code
Your brain is not naturally wired to read. It has to be taught.
That’s very different than learning to talk. If you immerse a baby around people who speak any given language, over time that child will naturally begin to speak that same language. It just happens. There’s a dedicated area of the human brain that has evolved just for that purpose. ¡Qué fascinante!
On the other hand, there is no area of the brain that automatically “lights up” in response to alphabetic letters at birth. Rather, your brain’s visual neurons innately respond to faces or objects — an evolutionary advantage that has helped to keep us alive over the last 200,000 years. Conversely, reading and writing is a relatively new invention in the history of the human species (for more on this, check out Why Are Children Can’t Read and What We Can Do About It by Diane McGuiness).
To learn to read, the brain needs to be taught to associate symbols that we call letters (graphemes) with the sounds of spoken language (phonemes). That’s the essence of the code. Eventually, you develop a “letterbox” in your brain that automatically “fires” as written words are associated with meaning. Check out this video by Carolyn Strom to see how this all works (the hyperlink is cued to start where Carolyn explains this process).
So, what’s the code?
- There are 44 distinct sounds (phonemes) in the English language that are represented by 75 common graphemes (i.e., letters or letter combinations). Here’s how the folks at Logic of English have charted them — you can click on the letters and hear the possible sounds that they represent. (Note: Some approaches have identified a slightly different number of phonemes and graphemes in our language.)
- All the sounds of the English language are represented by one, two, three, or four letters. For instance, the ‘c’ in cat represents the sound /k/, the ‘ea’ in each is associated with the sound /ē/, the ‘ear’ in learn is paired with the sound /er/, and the ‘eigh’ in weigh is the code for the sound /ā/.
- A letter or combination of letters can represent multiple sounds. For instance, we usually teach that ‘s’ is associated with the sound /s/ as in snake, sit, or Sally. However, that actually only explains about half of the occurrences in which you’ll see the letter ‘s’ in English; the other half of the time it represents the sound /z/ as in lids, was, and has.
- A specific sound can be represented by different letters or letter combinations. For example, the /ā/ sound can be represented by ‘ai’ as in rain, ‘ay’ as in bay, ‘eigh’ as in sleigh, ‘ea’ as in break, or ‘ey’ as in obey.
- English is a morpho-phonemic language, which is to say spellings are chosen to represent sound while also preserving common meaning of related words. For instance, the ‘g’ in sign is silent; however, it is pronounced /g/ in signal and signature. The meaning of these related words is maintained by the spelling, even though the a specific letter may represent a different sound.
- There are 31 spelling rules which interplay with the phonograms and affect the pronunciation and spelling of words. As opposed to some of the rules that have been historically taught and contain many exceptions, the 31 rules proposed by Denise Eide in her book Uncovering the Logic of English: A Common-Sense Approach to Reading, Spelling and Literacy actually apply in almost every instance. For example, “C always softens to /s/ when followed by E, I, or Y; otherwise, C represents the sound /k/.” Now you can explain why the ‘c’ in circus and cycle can represent both the /s/ and /k/ sound!
Now that you have a brief overview of the tools to decrypt the code, let’s check in…
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How’s that setting in with you? Is it making sense in some ways? Does it seem overwhelming? Perhaps both?
How does all of this compare with how you were taught to read?
What parts of this do you currently use to spell or read unfamiliar words?
As I reflect on these questions myself, I recall being quite overwhelmed at first. It’s not easy to learn a complex skill. Plus, I had to unlearn some things that I had been taught — strategies that had sufficed, but were sometimes insufficient. And yet, there was also a sense of relief and amazement. It felt like I finally learned how to read. The long-held mystery of the English language was alas debunked!
It didn’t have to be this hard.
If all of this was explicitly and systematically taught to me from the beginning, it would have made much more sense. With a bit more success as a reader, what other doors might have been opened to me?
A Call to Action
The code for our language needs to be explicitly and systematically taught. Or said another way, it needs to be broken down and taught so clearly and thoroughly that “you can’t freakin’ miss it!” (a quote I fondly borrow from my colleague and friend, Dr. Kevin Feldman).
I have seen many students find success in kindergarten and first grade only to “hit a wall” when they are exposed to ever-expanding and more complex words in later elementary (or, as in my case, graduate school). It seems the strategies that they were given too often fail, leaving them to fend for themselves with something less helpful than the actual, complete code.
For far too long, and still to this day, so many instructional approaches and programs do not completely teach how to crack the code. Some of the common, evidence-based approaches often fall short, as they are at least partially:
- incomplete — parts of the code are taught, though the whole code (i.e., all graphemes and phonemes) and how the English language works is not fully provided. A telltale sign of this is any approach that tells you that a word “can’t be sounded out” or that you have to “make your best guess.” With very few exceptions, any word actually can be decoded — pending you have been taught all of the graphemes and phonemes, and are familiar with the rules of our English language (such as spelled out in the Logic of English by Denise Eide).
- not systematic — sounds and their symbols are not introduced sequentially in a meaningful order (i.e., most common before least common, dissimilar before similar, etc.) with intentional review of previously taught concepts as bite-sized, manageable chunks of new material are introduced.
- not explicit — skills and concepts are not directly modeled by the teacher (“I do”) and students don’t get ample opportunities to “try it out” as they are given scaffolded, guided support (“we do”) and independent practice (“you do”). If done well, students should experience instruction at a perky pace that is highly engaging, loaded with specific feedback, and filled with opportunities to practice.
To be clear, some literacy programs and curricula are much better than others. It surely matters that we choose wisely and that, to the greatest extent possible, we validate our methods through evidence.
I am unaware of a single literacy program or curriculum that works for all. It’s unlikely that such a definitive solution will ever exist (though if it ever does, I would bet good money it teaches the code as I have described here).
Whatever the approach, it behooves us to make sure that the code, rules, and essential features of the English language are wholistically taught — such as what is delineated in the book Uncovering the Logic of English or other structured literacy programs. Of course, such instruction needs to be embedded with continuous development of background knowledge and oral language skills.
And as one learns to break the code, they need to be given ample opportunities read and write. People need to practice the specific skills they are learning in meaningful, authentic ways with all of the necessary supports to ensure early success — similar to the way one progresses in learning to ride a bike.
So, I offer a final moment for your reflection:
What questions are now surfacing for you?
How do you feel about the literacy instruction you, or the people closest to you, have been given?
Where might you go from here to further your learning? Or to support the learning of others?
For myself, I am wondering…
How much longer must we all travel down this path without giving each person what they need to crack the code?
Eide, D. (2012). Uncovering the logic of English: A common-sense approach to reading, spelling, and literacy (2nd ed.). Pedia Learning Inc.
McGuinness, D. (1999). Why our children can’t read and what we can do about it: A scientific revolution in reading. Free Press.
