Alphabetics

As the English race has sinned most in the matter of bad spelling and an incomplete alphabet, so it ought to take the lead in restoring the science of alphabetics to a form which shall be perfectly and completely phonographic.

The examinations of living Indian pronunciation (pp. 1136-1140), though merely elementary, together with the account of ancient Indian alphabetics as collected, through Prof. Whitney's translation, from the Atharva Veda Prâtiçâkhya (pp. 1336-1338), may also prove of use in Aryan philology.

If, therefore, Mr. Bell, instead of trying the (so far as time and labor are concerned) costly experiment of Visible Speech on the poor deaf-mute, would make it his task to propagate among American teachers of articulation the philosophy of English alphabetics, which his father described in the work from which the above passage is cited, he would do far better service to the cause in which he is enlisted.

Almost all of the studies with results related to alphabetics were conducted with adult non-readers or beginning readers and none compared the effects of alphabetics instruction across reading levels.

Direct and explicit instruction in alphabetics involves systematically teaching students how to manipulate the sounds in words, develop their knowledge of letter-sound relationships, and apply this knowledge to reading words.

We have worked out the essentials of teaching alphabetics in the remaining chapters in the book.