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June 17, 2004

Winner of inaugural 'ridiculous file' weighs in ... or should we say 'ways' in?

It's been more than a week, but BoardBuzz readers still have something to say about our inaugural 'Ridiculous File' story. In fact, the latest response comes from one of the candidates. Here's some of what Alan Mole, president of the American Literacy Council, had to say to us.

"In your 'Ridiculous File' you wrote about the protesters at the Spelling Bee. I am one of them, and this is my response. (By the way, we actually like the Bee, since it's a good way to learn this complex subject, and great fun for the kids. Our difference with the Bee is that they glorify our spelling for its irrationality and complexity, and applaud the one student in a million who can master it. We want to make it logical so everyone can master it and millions more can read. And then we could have a Vocabulary Bee instead.)

"Some of your readers may like to know more about spelling reform, a cause sometimes associated with cranks and considered ridiculous or amusing.

"But spelling reform is quite serious. We have 22 percent functional illiteracy in America, some 40 million adults. In Sweden it's 7 percent, Germany 10 percent and Norway 12 percent. All those countries reformed their spelling, some several times in the last century. And their low illiteracy is due to their spelling. A paper in Science reports that Italians have just as much dyslexia as English speakers, as measured by trouble repeating syllables and by brain scans, yet there is far less trouble reading. The paper concludes that the difference is due to the spelling systems.

"Most European countries have reformed their spelling and lowered their illiteracy. It can be done. And it could be painless here in America because computers can transform documents, to or from reformed spelling, in seconds. So no one would be forced to read or write in reformed, nor is it likely that newspapers would change for a century.

"But as a gradual start we want to take some dyslexics who have failed every effort to learn reading in regular spelling, and teach them in reformed. Perhaps someday one will hand you a note in SoundSpel. Would you deign to read it, knowing it made that man literate? Could you read it?

"Well, here's an example. SoundSpel drops silent letters ("no" not know) and it spells long vowels (AEIOU) as AE (as in steak), EE (as in meet), IE (as in tried) and so on. Heer's a sampl. It is a litl shoking at ferst but beeing fonetic it's eezy with sum practis. Wuud U tri to reed it, to help a dislexic?

"Wel, Mr. Editor, I expect this wil ster up a hornet's nest and I luuk forward to ansering a slew of fuerius rebutals!"

Indeed! BoardBuzz is going to stand by our earlier assertion that the Bee protesters were worthy candidates for 'The Ridiculous File.' But we love (or is it 'luv'?) the dialogue and the good humor shown.

Just one not-so-funny editor's note: The statement about a 22 percent illiteracy rate (40 million American adults) is something of an urban legend. The Washington Post's Jay Mathews uncovered this myth a few years ago, noting that the claim is based on mistaken assumptions derived from a federal study. According to the study's director, 70 percent of the adults deemed by some to be "illiterate" read a newspaper every week. "This is not illiteracy," the study's director told Mathews. You can find out more about this and other public school myths on NSBA's new Center for Public Education website.

Posted June 17, 2004 12:00 AM