About Reading

I have been trying to figure out what has gone wrong with my reading and in doing so having some fun finding out some interesting things about reading in general. These are some hypotheses I have based purely on observation.

• The fundamental unit of reading is the word
• A sentence context is used to build each sentence from words
• Letters are only used where word templates cannot be found
• There are two word mechanisms and I call them Juvenile and Adult (for reasons which will become clear).
• "Juvenile" is a one to one word lookup. This is the initial look up method used for a word 
• "Adult" uses a fuzzy algorithm from the sentence contect to match an initial template to a vocabulary. THIS IS THE BIT THAT IS BROKEN IN MY READING
• Spelling can be used when there is a missing template or a badly formed template (misspelled word).
• The juvenile mechanism and it's associated vocabulary is formed in early life (perhaps up to 12 years old) and one that age is passed new words are not added
• Reading and Writing (and speaking) use totally separate mechanisms
• I believe that reading, writing and speaking are joined together through an Information Context containing Information Snippets which are not word or sentence based but based upon a categorised memory mechanism

This is my picture of what I think  it might look, but of course the clever stuff is going on in the Sentence Context (which holds on to a few sentences I thing) & The Information context (which is the heart of our memory processing). I would love to play with this stuff if I have the time.

So here is my reasoning from observation.

• The fundamental unit of reading is the word

Hard to explain : Without a word there is no context (that is you cannot move forward in the sentence). With my problem I cannot read an "Adult" word without context , spelling alone will not provide context. 

• A sentence context is used to build each sentence from words

See previous explanation

• Letters are only used where word templates cannot be found

This is a bit of a guess, but  my spelling mechanism at the moment is explicit. That is I have to force it and therefore recognise is use. For juvenile words it is never forced, and for adult I have to force spelling when I need.

• There are two word mechanisms and I call them Juvenile and Adult (for reasons which will become clear).

I am pretty sure on this one (see research below). The juvenile words work for me with no problem like simple lookup. These are all very familiar words that were probably learnt in my first 10 years of life. I stumble only on those later learnt words (unfortunately / fortunately my drugs have improved my reading and I can not test as easily now) where context is needed to see the words (adult mechanism).

Further evidence : I did read german but I seem to have NO juvenile words forcing me to use context to get going in a sentence (this was very hard with my broken template mechanism)

• "Juvenile" is a one to one word lookup. This is the initial look up method used for a word 

See discussions about, I can just read these straight through without impediment

• "Adult" uses a fuzzy algorithm from the sentence context to match an initial template to a vocabulary. THIS IS THE BIT THAT IS BROKEN IN MY READING

If I find a word I do not understand it DOES NOT APPEAR SPELT CORRECTLY. Once the context is brought in by scanning the sentence the correct spelling magically appears. Spelling alone will not do this!! Very strange to see but true it is like watching a spell checker at work.

• Spelling can be used when there is a missing template or a badly formed template (misspelled word).

See above, mechanise not at all clear

• The juvenile mechanism and it's associated vocabulary is formed in early life (perhaps up to 12 years old) and one that age is passed new words are not added

See the twin mechanism argument above

• Reading and Writing (and speaking) use totally separate mechanisms

Easy one, I could not read properly but I could speak perfectly and write OK except where I had to read to "help"

• I believe that reading, writing and speaking are joined together through an Information Context containing Information Snippets which are not word or sentence based but based upon a categorised memory mechanism

This is on the edge, but I believe this because once I moved on a couple of sentences  (perhaps a paragraph?) I could no longer use the context to re-read the sentence (it hat been forgotten). However the information had not been lost, I remembered the information content in a different context. It had all gone into a differently structured "Memory" 

I got some confirmation of the Juvenile / Adult  mechanism theory in current research from the speech therapist who spoke to me (we had great fun talking about this stuff and she thought it might be useful for here current Masters work).

TOTALLY FASCINATING

Wish me luck for next weeks surgery.