Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)

What IS the social cost of three-year-olds not knowing how to read?  Between
me and my five siblings, we have a range of confirmed reading ages (from 11
months to 8 years) and all of us are now at a minimum at our own grade
levels (the only ones who aren't drastically above reading level are my
brother and I -- we're both over 18 so I can't brag about being able to read
at a college level anymore ^_^ -- and my youngest sister, who reads right at
her grade level despite learning disabilities and a speech impediment; when
they give her a written assessment she scores above grade level but her
teacher makes her read out loud and then answer questions, and for some odd
reason that makes it harder for her)  We all hold reasonably intelligent
conversations with other people (when we want to), can follow along with the
evening news (which is why the evening news is now banned from THIS house;
the kids know what's going on even when we've got the closed captions
running), etc.  None of us is extra dumb or extra smart for having been able
to read at the age we did, and none of us is especially ahead or behind of
where we should be in terms of knowing about social sciences, humanities,
and even literature (with my second sister, Laura, my mother went to the
extreme opposite of what she did with me -- no forced reading or structured
lessons at all -- and we all just read to her until she decided she wanted
to read on her own)  Way way way before you start changing orthographies,
you should start with changing social patterns.  There are more benefits,
and you get to keep your pretty words.  ^__^  I think "yoo" looks silly, and
I like spelling words like "photography" and "rough."  They look nice.

Okay, I'm going to go rehearse now, because I'm *dangerously* close to
reciting something from John Holt or the Teenage Liberation Handbook or
something else (I'm trying to distract myself from my own "but reading at
age two isn't vital to one's intellectual development, even though I did it
myself" argument -- it sounds way too much like my "well, I'd never smoke
marijuana, and if my kids ever do it they'll be in Outward Bound before they
can finish their first coughing fit, but I'm not really enthusiastic about
banning it and throwing strangers in jail for it" argument)

Sarah Marie Parker-Allen
lloannna@surfside.net
http://www.geocities.com/lloannna.geo
http://lloannna.blogspot.com

"I will never buy an apple from peddlers plying their craft in remote places
where the customer base could not possibly support a full-time merchant." --
Rules for the Hero's True Love

> -----Original Message-----
> Behalf Of John Cowan
> To be sure.  But that is no reason not to try to reduce the net
> social cost.
---
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