Dyslexia A new perspective part 2

March 7, 2010 - PRLog -- Bahasa Malaysia (The Malay Language)

This is our National Language and all students have to learn this language. The only letter that represents more than one sound in Bahasa Malaysia is the letter ‘e’. It can be pronounced ‘er’ or ‘ay’.

You pronounce ‘besok’ as if it is baysok (meaning tomorrow) and berok with the ‘er’ sound.If you have not heard the words previously you would not know how to pronounce them. For example how do you pronounce the word ‘lega’ (spacious or wide) if you have not been taught this word.

One can learn how to read the newspaper in Malay within a month of learning. Of course one would not understand what one is reading. Take any long word in Malay eg. ‘rambutan’(a local fruit) the sound can be broken down to ram- bu- tan, kewarganegaraan (citizenship) which can be broken down into : ke- war-ga-ne-ga-ra-an.

I remember being shocked when my first son, Fadhil, read the word “Tahun taksiran” on an income tax letter, he found in my car, when he was in his third month into primary one. When I asked him who had taught him that word he replied, ”No one daddy. Anyone can read this”. That was an incident that occurred in 1987 and is still vivid in my mind as if it happened yesterday.

Another interesting point is that we don't have spelling bee in Malay nor in Han Yu Pin Yin. Why is that? Simply because most who have finished primary one can spell any Malay word. Likewise for Han Yu Pin Yin (Romanized Mandarin).

Mandarin (Han Yu Pin Yin)
This is even easier than Malay. There is no exception as in the Malay letter ‘e’. One can read anything in Han Yu Pin Yin within a month of learning.

English
There is no way you can pronounce the following words if you have not heard them before. A few words as an illustration would be, chalet, quay, island, and bouquet.
Many words in English are irregular. English is an orthographically inconsistent language.They are not spelt the way they sound and this is basically why dyslexics have a problem reading English as opposed to reading Malay or Han Yu Pin Yin.

There are:
1.Multiple pronunciation for the same spelling : wind (as in the winter wind)and wind (as in wind down the window)

2.Spelt similarly and pronounced similarly : cut, but, but there is an exception :put

3.Different spelling but pronounced the same: pear, pair, road, rode, hare, hair.
4.There are many words where letters are silent eg. Salmon , plumber, and debt to name just a few.

In the English language there are simply too many exceptions. Would I want to teach these children the exceptions? The answer is an emphatic NO! I know, after having taught these children for almost 6 years, that it is not necessary to burden them with this enormous task of learning the exceptions. They will learn it as they go. It is a natural process. I did not study English by learning what is a consonant blend or consonant digraph and yet I can read very well.

There are 26 letters in English to represent 44 sounds. Inadvertently some of the letters must have more than one sound. For instance:
a) The letter ‘a’ represents 4 different sounds as in –bat, mate, among, salt. In addition when combined with other letters it can have yet another new sound –meat.

b) Even consonants are not spared. The letter 'c' represents both the sound 'k' and 's'. The word 'cat' carries the 'k' sound while 'city' carries the 's' sound. The letter ‘G’ is used to spell both the words ‘Gift’ and ‘Giant’.

c) There are some sounds that can be represented by more than one letter. The 'f' sound can be represented by the letter 'f' and 'ph' (as in Phone').

Children should be taught the regular words and learn the others as they arise. From the onset I let my students know that many letters have different sounds and that we’ll learn them as we come to them. I point out to them the different sounds the letter makes when we come to those letters as we read. I than compare it with the previous sound the letter had made in a different word. For a student with dyslexia this is very important. He should be informed from the onset that the letter ‘A’ and the other vowels, as you come to them, have more than one sound. This prepares his mind when the time comes to learn the other sounds represented by the letters. I will clarify this again on a later date as this is an extremely important point as you will come to understand later in my articles later.

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