Lately you’re heard a lot about the “science of reading”. What is usually meant by this is that the phonics method has been certified by science to be the best method of learning to read. Phonics, however, is based on a lie.  The lie is that “letters have sounds”.  While letters are closely linked with sounds in many languages, in English the sounds associated with a given letter are all over the map.  With its rich history of adoption from other languages, spelling in the English language is crazy.

“Heard – Said – Spelled – Read” (or HSSR) is a new method of learning to read that is better than phonics — and way better that its predecessor, the “whole word” method, which is still widely used.  HSSR was developed and refined over the past 25 years by independent scholar Judy Ramirez of San Diego, California.

HSSR teaches kids first to hear the sounds of the spoken word (“Heard”), both as a whole and as a sequence of unit sounds.  Then HSSR teaches kids to say the word as unit sounds (“Said”) and to recognize the word from its sequence of unit sounds. Next, kids learn how to spell the word as letters (“Spelled”), using the sounds as a guide.  Knowing how to spell a word means that reading it is easy (“Read”). Kids to learn to read by learning all the knowledge and all the skills necessary for reading and then putting them into practice.

Judy describes this method as “No neglect.  No nonsense”. “No neglect” because everything necessary for reading (like unit sounds, skills with unit sounds, and spelling) is taught.  “No nonsense” because nothing false (like “letters have sounds”) is taught.

Until now, the only way to use this method was for the teacher (you, for example) to learn it all and then teach it to a child. We are announcing the completion of a new app, Black Swan Reading, that you can use to guide your child through the method.  In 20 hours of joyful screen time your child — from 3 to 17 — can be reading. Are you interested?