The Alphabet – The Foremost Invention of All Time
What sets humans apart from animals is language.
It is language that enables us to think and communicate with one another.
We form all our concepts through words.
If our thinking is confined to the words we hear and speak our intellectual development is limited for it is through the written word that complex thinking is recorded and communicated. This is why learning to read is so important for it is by reading that we expand our vocabulary and more importantly our ability to think.
The Alphabet is the foremost invention of all time. It has enabled hundreds of thousands of words to be invented to record and communicate human achievement.
Reading and writing have a language base. They are skills which contribute to personal growth and enable people to contribute to society in countless ways.
All skills have fundamental principles that underpin them. When these principles are understood and mastered the skill can be established through practice.
To master any skill involves the correct form of practice and continuous effort. We are not born with the ability to read and write.
People need to be taught how.
I have been a teacher for over 35 years and have seen how many children and adults struggle with reading.
My experience within the school system led me to search for answers to this problem. It didn’t make sense to me that some very young children could read easily while many older children, teenagers and adults struggle and give up.
A lot of research has been done into reading trying to find the answers. One of the fundamental reasons many people have trouble learning to read is they do not understand how an alphabetic writing system works.
Understanding how The English Alphabetic Writing System works can be taught in a systematic way – step by step, one step at a time.
Learning the mechanics of reading and writing is like cracking a code.
Once a person understands how to crack the code they can concentrate on the information the text presents. For we read to get information.
It is never too late to learn to read and write because they are not biological processes.
If you would like an outline of the letter sound relationships that are one of the linchpins of reading and writing please visit
In my next post I will outline a brief history of the English Alphabet.
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