Re: Phonics

[anne mullin <mullanne@isu.edu>]

bobbie silk wrote:
> 
> Hmmm.  I don't know, Lady.  Phonics to teach spelling seems like it would
> almost be counter-productive.  Speaking of phonics, does anyone remember
> the details of Bernard Shaw's effort to regularize spelling?  I recall
> that he used satiric persuasion to make his case to the public, spelling
> "fish" phonetically--taking the sounds from the many irregular words in
> English (like the "f" in "cough" so that the phonetic representation of
> "fish" began with "gh"). And wasn't there a remarkable reading-instruction
> theory 20 years or so ago where the primary reading texts had all the
> words spelled by true phonetics?  What ever happened to that program?  (I
> remember it being disasterous, but perhaps I'm wrong.)
> 
>   --Bobbie
> 
> 
Bobbie -- The GBShaw spelling of fish was GHOTI -- GH as in enough, O as
in Women, TI as in lotion.  Makes a lot of sense, right.  I think I read
this in what used to be the equivalent of "Parade" (This Week) in about
1948. Really stuck with me -- wonder WHY, of all things????