Bee Season: The annual spelling bee brings out protesters as well as nerds

[Tom Zurinskas]

It's in print.  Check this site, excerpts below

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1225119.stm

Scientists say they have discovered the biological basis for dyslexia.

Research published in Science magazine suggests that parts of the brain
crucial to reading are not working properly in dyslexics.  The problem
exists across many nationalities, but the research found that
English-speaking dyslexics suffered most, because the language is so
complex.

The study looked at why dyslexia is more common among English or
French-speakers than Italians.
The English language is made up of just 40 sounds, but these can be spelt in
more than 1000 different ways, say the researchers.  In Italian, the
language's 25 sounds are made up in just 33 ways.

The main scientist behind the study, Eraldo Paulescu, suggested languages
like English and French could be changed to make them easier for people to
read.   He said: "There is an argument for reforming complex orthographies,
or writing systems, to improve literacy problems in these languages."

Truespel spells the 40 sounds only 40 ways.  It would be interesting to see
how the brains of dyslexics work reading truespel.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
See truespel.com - and the 4  truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at
authorhouse.com.





>From: "Gordon, Matthew J." <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU>
>Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: Bee Season: The annual spelling bee brings out protesters as
>            well as nerds
>Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 20:56:31 -0500
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "Gordon, Matthew J." <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: Bee Season: The annual spelling bee brings out protesters
>as
>               well as nerds
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>What is your basis for claiming "Paulescu says that he believes
>inconsistent phonetic spelling 'causes' dyslexia"? Is he a friend of =
>yours or did he say this in print? I thought the article I cited was =
>pretty clear about causation.
>
>-Matt Gordon
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Tom Zurinskas
>Sent: Thu 5/31/2007 8:29 PM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject:      Re: Bee Season: The annual spelling bee brings out =
>protesters as              well as nerds
>=20
>Thanks Matthew for the quote, but what does "deep orthography" mean.  It
>basically boils down to inconsistent spelling in terms of letters
>representing sounds.  What Paulescu has said is that this brings out
>dyslexia and that's why there are twice as many folks labeled dislexic =
>in
>English speaking and French speaking lands.  Paulescu says that he =
>believes
>inconsistent phonetic spelling "causes" dyslexia.  He is in favor of
>simplified English spelling.
>
>I'd like to see truespel applied to mild dislexics to see how well they =
>can
>read it.  It could be a test of just how much decoding words into speech =
>is
>a problem.
>
>Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>See truespel.com - and the 4  truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at
>authorhouse.com.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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