“It is easier for a reader to remember the unique appearance and pronunciation of a whole word like ‘photograph’ than to remember the unique pronunciations of meaningless syllables and spelling units”
— Smith, F. (1985). Reading without nonsense: Making sense of reading. p.146; New York: Teachers College Press.
Oh, yeah? Try it for yourself!
(Only works in Firefox 3.5+ browser so far. Click on the Illiterate View button.)
| Preprimer | Primer | First | Second | Third |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | all | after | always | about |
| and | am | again | around | better |
| away | are | an | because | bring |
| big | at | any | been | carry |
| blue | ate | as | before | clean |
| can | be | ask | best | cut |
| come | black | by | both | done |
| down | brown | could | buy | draw |
| find | but | every | call | drink |
| for | came | fly | cold | eight |
| funny | did | from | does | fall |
| go | do | give | don't | far |
| help | eat | going | fast | full |
| hers | four | had | first | got |
| I | get | has | five | grow |
| in | good | her | found | hold |
| is | has | him | gave | hot |
| it | he | how | goes | hurt |
| jump | into | just | green | if |
| little | like | know | its | keep |
| look | must | let | made | kind |
| make | new | live | many | laugh |
| me | no | may | off | light |
| my | now | of | or | long |
| not | on | old | pull | much |
| one | our | once | read | myself |
| play | out | open | right | never |
| red | please | over | sing | only |
| run | pretty | put | sit | own |
| said | ran | round | sleep | pick |
| see | ride | some | tell | seven |
| the | saw | stop | their | shall |
| three | say | take | these | show |
| to | she | thank | those | six |
| two | so | them | upon | small |
| up | soon | then | us | start |
| we | that | think | use | ten |
| yellow | there | walk | very | today |
| you | they | where | wash | together |
| this | when | which | try | |
| too | why | warm | ||
| under | wish | |||
| want | work | |||
| was | would | |||
| well | write | |||
| went | your | |||
| what | ||||
| white | ||||
| who | ||||
| will | ||||
| with | ||||
| yes |