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A Test for University Professors and Researchers to Replicate

The following is a test that anyone can use to validate (or disprove) Professor AVKO’s arguments.  Most researchers design a test, administer it, and report the results and make their conclusions based on correlations that show statistical significance as opposed to practical significance.  The fault many critics find with educational studies is that replication is difficult and often inconclusive when attempted (Rowntree, 1981).  Professor AVKO has the unmitigated audacity to challenge the educational system to come up with results that don’t almost perfectly match his.

The Survey Test was given to over 1,000 adults (mostly teachers).  53.85% had perfect scores.  32.69% missed only 1.  9.61% missed two.  Only 3.84% missed more than two!  Both the mode and the median was 100% correct.  Only the mean was less.

Mark the easier word to read, spell, teach, learn, (your choice) with a check mark.

Skeptics are encouraged to substitute words for those chosen by Professor AVKO.  All he asks is that in any computer generated list of words chosen at random:

1. The same initial consonant blends or digraphs are used.

2. That the total number of letters in the easier words is exactly the same as the total number of letters in the harder words.

3. That in each pair of words one contains only patterns commonly encountered in grades 1-3 (the easier).

4. and the other contains at least one pattern rarely encountered in those crucial first three grades.  For example, in the pair meaningful and mechanized, meaningful has 100% simple commonly encountered parts, i.e., /m/ ea /n/ ing /ful/.  However the word mechanized has two patterns rarely encountered.  First the ch in mechanized is not pronounced /ch/ as in chop, chicken, and church.  Rather, it is pronounced /k/ as in chaos, echo, anarchy, and Christian.  The letters an in mechanized are not pronounced to rhyme with Dan and fan even though they are in the words mechanic and mechanical! The words containing patterns such as these usually occur in the curriculum after the third grade. 

Do you know where you can find a complete listing of all these power patterns found in “big” words not taught in the first three grades?  Answer: they can be found in The Patterns of English Spelling (McCabe, 2008).  You should be able to find a copy of it in your local library, but you won’t.  In fact, 99.9% of all colleges and university libraries do not have a copy of this book.  The U.S. Department of Education does NOT have a copy of this book!  No State Department of Education has a copy of this book!  At present only a few teachers, usually teachers of dyslexics and the learning disabled possess a copy of this book.  The Center for the Study of Reading does not have a copy of this book.  Nor does the Institute for Research on Teaching!  But the International Dyslexia Association, The Disabled Reader Group of the International Reading Association, The Reading Reform Foundation, The Center for Family Literacy, and the Texas Reading Institute do!

"When interpreting SFI (Standard Frequency Index) values, note that the SFI statistics form a logarithmic scale, like the Richter scale used to evaluate the magnitude of earthquakes.  As a result, arithmetic differences in SFI values correspond to geometric differences in word frequency. For example a word with an SFI value of 55.0 has a frequency per million that is 10 times higher than the frequency of a word with a 45.0." The Educator's Word Frequency Guide, TASA, 1995, p. 12.

Note that the frequency of the POWER words is HIGHER than that of the corresponding simple words, so that we can infer that the difficulty of these words is NOT because of the frequency factor but rather that of the spelling patterns involved.

Note the words opposite each other have the same beginning letters, e.g., pa- in painter and pa- in partial.  Notice that they have exactly the same number of letters and the same number of syllables.  The only significant difference between the words in column A and column B is that the words in column B contain patterns that are not taught in the first three grades or that are not generally learned through exposure no matter what system of teaching reading is employed.  That is why the words in column B are more difficult—not because they are less frequently encountered!

He claimed, tongue in cheek, that the word fish could be spelled ghoti

gh = /f/ as in enough. o = /i/ in women.  ti=/sh/ as in nation. 

But in English there is not one single word in which the letters gh are used to start a word having the /f/ sound.  Nor is there a single word ending with the /sh/ sound spelled ti.  However, the sound “fish” is always spelled “fici” in words whose base has more than one syllable.

                          uh fish   ul                     official

                    ben uh fish   ul                 beneficial

                          ee fish   unt                 efficient

                         suh fish   unt               sufficient

In “A fisherman is fishing” the base is

fish which has only one syllable.

Yet, the patterns that make the words in column B on the page before this more difficult are highly regular. For example, the pattern ci- is almost always pronounced /sh/ as in racial, special, social, spacious, suspicious, etc.  Somehow good readers learn to respond to them. Dyslexics have a miserable time with them.

Good readers who are horrible spellers will often substitute sh for the ci pattern and spell the words rashul, speshul, soshul and spashus.

If Professor AVKO’s theories are wrong, then it follows logically that people who can read will, half the time, pick a column B word as the easier word.  Certainly, total non-readers (such as those whose native written language is not a Roman alphabetic language)will average 50% when quizzed.  But readers, whether dyslexic or not, will invariably pick the word in Column B as the more difficult word.  And they don’t know why.  All they know is that somehow the word precious is a tougher word than pretends even though precious occurs more frequently in print than the word pretends.

Prediction:  The obvious is true:  Words whose phonic components are either systematically taught in the first three grades or whose phonic components are in words commonly presented for learning in the first three grades will be chosen as the easier word.  Words whose phonic components are not taught and rarely, if ever, occur in words commonly presented for learning in the first three grades will inevitably be chosen as the more difficult.

Significance:  If the vast majority of students are to become good readers and not just the “elite” who can read the word elite, educators should find a way to ensure that all students are given the opportunity to learn the words that contain the phonic components that are neither taught systematically nor occur in words presented for learning in the first three grades.

Note:  The consensus among the reading experts selected by the NIE for its report, Becoming a Nation of Readers, was that the teaching of simple phonics should be completed by the end of grade 2 (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, et.al., 1985)!  From there on in, instruction in phonics is not indicated! Professor AVKO disagrees.  He does agree that idealistically the teaching of “simple” phonics should be completed by the end of grade two.  Professor AVKO wouldn’t mind if the completion of the teaching of “simple” phonics were to be completed by the end of grade three.  However, AVKO contends that mastery of “simple” phonics is not enough for the majority of learners.  The phonics of words whose base has more than one syllable should be taught systematically starting at least as early as grade four.Tests:  On this page are two simple pencil and paper test that can be administered to as many individuals at the same time as a researcher desires.  Please notice that the second test is a control version of the first test.  If a researcher wants to verify that the number of letters and specific letters has nothing to do with the difficulty, but rather the patterns, the control version totally eliminates the patterns while retaining the identical letters.  The letters are the same.  However, the consonants in each word are put first and deliberately placed in such a fashion that pronunciation cannot take place.  The vowels are placed at the end of the word.  Again, if there are multiple vowels, care was taken to order them in such a way as to make any reasonable pronunciation difficult. Previously we supplied cards to enable different methods of giving the test individually.  Now, they are available only upon request.

The Survey Test given to over 1,000 adults (Mostly teachers).  Nearly everybody had a perfect score!  The lowest score recorded was by a featured speaker at a reading conference!  The median and the mode was 100% correct.  Only the mean was lower.

 Now for the control test!

Mark the easier word to read, spell, teach, learn, (your choice) with a check mark.

The Control Survey Test given to over 1,000 adults (Mostly teachers).  Nobody had a perfect score!  On this test the mean, median and the mode was where it is supposed be—around 50