Those kids in your class in elementary school that seemingly never figured out how to sound out words?

@SeekingConnection That isn’t how English works. English is a phonetic language with sounds. Attempting to memorize the appearance of words instead of reading them is complete folly.

@Muthafukajones It's exactly how it works, and exactly how I was taught to read and write. Take a word like 'draughty', as a random example off the top of my head. What use is phonetic spelling in knowing how that word is spelled or pronounced? You have to recognise the form of the word.

@SeekingConnection Do you have any background in linguistics? True English is not perfectly phonetic but it is a phonetic system. How that is taught takes a lot to explain. If you read by memorization of the appearance of words then you are not technically literate in English. There is an excellent system in place. Learn it. Don’t fight it or try to change it.

@SeekingConnection what do you do when you come across words you’re not familiar with then? I think you may utilize sounding things out more so than you realize. Of course memorization plays a role when it comes to a shitty phonetic system like english, but I doubt you solely rely on memorization

@Zeuro when I was learning to read I would sound out words like

Knife
Elephant


I would say

K neyeff

Elee p hant

The teacher said … hmmmm … those aren’t words but what do they sound like?

It’s a little game you play as a child… it’s also helpful learning English spellings.

@Muthafukajones interesting, so you were basically taught to think of similar but slightly different sounding words to find the correct pronunciation?
I’d imagine the usefulness of it declines over time, as most people get older the likelihood that a word which you can’t pronounce correctly by reading would be one you’ve heard before decreases

@Zeuro You have start somewhere. I remember thinking as a child how hard it would be to remember the spellings of every word. Practice makes it second nature no matter what language you speak.

@Muthafukajones if only english were more phonetic. Did you know that the only languages with more convoluted spelling rules are the Celtic languages?