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For years I have argued that the human brain has an innate capacity for reading, just as it does for spoken language. The difference is not in the brain’s ability, but in the quality of input it receives.
Think of it this way: A Malaysian child will not speak Japanese without hearing Japanese. The capacity is innate; the specific language is learned through exposure. Reading works the same way. The brain is pre-wired with potential (as shown by newborn connectivity to the future visual word form area), but it needs accurate, consistent print and sound input to wire the connections efficiently.
The Damage of Wrong Early Input
Many alphabet programmes and songs (like Charlie and the Alphabet) teach distorted letter sounds — “buh”, “duh”, “fuh” instead of the pure sounds. Young brains are statistical learners. The first strong input often sticks. This “poisoning” creates faulty mappings that later cause inefficiencies, slower automaticity, and frustration.
In transparent orthographies like Malay Rumi, where most letters represent one consistent sound (except ‘e’), clean input plus meaningful reading allows most children to decode naturally. No heavy multi-year phonics grind is needed.
English is deeper and more opaque, with multiple sounds per letter, silent letters, vowel teams, and exceptions. Even here, the picture changes dramatically when we get the basics right:
· Teach letter names and pure sounds together.
· Tell children openly: “Letters can represent more than one sound.”
· Point out new sounds or silent letters as they appear in real words.
With rich spoken English vocabulary and plenty of patterned, repetitive reading (like the Peter and Jane books I used with my first dyslexic student in 2004), the brain does most of the work. Many children self-teach patterns, irregularities, and silent letters automatically once the foundations are clean and their spoken vocabulary widens.
What Happens When Input Was Wrong?
I work one-on-one with dyslexic students who received poor early input. They often need targeted unlearning of the extraneous sounds before their brain can fully activate its self-teaching ability. Interestingly, research I did with older students in Perth showed that some children who still produced “buh-a-tuh” when sounding out isolated letters could nevertheless read non-words accurately. This tells us the brain had built some functional connections despite the distortion. Over time — often between Grades 4 and 6 — many figure it out through volume of reading and spoken language exposure.
However, for the roughly 20% who leave school functionally illiterate, spoken language enrichment alone is usually not enough. They need direct help to unlearn wrong sounds and rewire clean ones. Once that barrier is removed, the brain’s power kicks in.
The Practical Way Forward
We underestimate the brain’s capacity when we rely on endless phonics worksheets. The real solution is simpler and more respectful of how children learn:
Provide clean, pure letter sounds from the beginning.
Build strong spoken vocabulary through stories, conversation, and real language use.
Offer abundant meaningful reading — repetitive, interesting books that link spoken words to print.
For those with wrong early input, offer targeted unlearning instead of more of the same.
My 2004 student, who had dyslexia, went from struggling to reading at grade level in six months simply by listening to me read Peter and Jane books and reading them back. The brain wired the connections efficiently when given consistent, accurate input.
Reading is not “unnatural.” It is a human capacity that flourishes with the right data at the right time. Let’s stop poisoning the input and start trusting the brain’s remarkable ability to learn.
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