Ask-A-Linguist Message Details
| Subject: | Learning to read |
|---|---|
| Question: |
Hello, Can an individual, child or adult, learn to read before he/she can speak? Thank you. |
| Reply: |
To further expand on Dr Cruz-Ferreira's answer, almost all scripts, even Chinese are include a large phonetic component in which symbols represent sounds or combinations of sounds which are put together to form words. It's also important to understand that the mapping of sound sequences to words is mostly arbitrary. Without that knowledge, both speaking and reading would be extremely difficult to master. There might be cases where children could understand, but not produce, speech and possibly learn to read, but that would be the exception. |
| Reply From: | Elizabeth J Pyatt click here to access email |
| Date: | 22-Oct-2012 |
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