ds, about 300 compose about three-quarters of the words we use regularly. Inschools where the "whole language" is taught, children are constantly memorizing "sight" words during the first three or four grades of school, but are nevertaught how to unlock the meaning of the other 499,700 or more words. Reading failure usually shows up after the fourth grade, when the volume of words neededfor reading more difficult material, in science, literature, history, or math cannot be memorized quickly enough. The damage to children who have not been taughtphonics usually lies hidden until they leave the controlled vocabulary of the basal readers, for more difficult books where guessing, or memorizing new words justdoes not work. The result is that textbooks in the middle and upper grades are "dumbed" down to a fourth or fifth grade reading level.This is the real reason why the SAT scores have dropped to such low levels during the last three decades.From the time the alphabet was invented until the time of French scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal, reading was taught by memorizing the sounds ofsyllables, and then stringing them together to make words. But Pascal found that by separating the syllables into their letter parts, one could learn to read moreeffectively and efficiently. His method was intended only to assist in the very beginning stages of reading, when a child is learning the printed syllables of his ownlanguage.Former teacher and researcher Geraldine Rodgers puts it this way: "It was only for this purpose that Pascal invented it [phonics], to make the previously almostunending memorization of regularly formed syllables . . .unnecessary. But phonics works, and has since 1655. So it is not surprising that it was invented by oneof the most towering mathematical and scientific geniuses in history, Blaise Pascal . . ."19th century: "look and say" introducedIn 1837, Horace Mann, a lawyer and Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Edu...
