Re: Perfect Pitch

Padraic Brown wrote:
>> I don't even remember learning phonics, though I know we must have.>
I started out in a small non-public school, run as kind of a
teacher-training adjunct at a small local college.  Back in those dark ages
(1940), I don't think the system had a name; it was the _only_ system.  But
essentially phonics.  We first learned the consonants; then the "short"
vowels a: cat, i: hit etc.  then the "long" ones, (with silent -e) mate,
bite etc.  And we had to "sound out" the words. I think the more exotic
combos must have come in later grades.   I don't recall whether I could read
before I started school; I was _read to_ a lot, and could tell if someone
skipped a word, but that was more likely memorization.  I have a very early
memory, when I could read, of being perplexed by the word "fiend" in one of
my sister's comic books.  It looked so much like "friend", but the context
was clearly not friendly.

Whatever the system, it seems to have worked.   My nephews, in the early
60s, were taught by the whole-word method, and had great difficulty.