Curious about the controversy, reading this was only more confusing.
I learned to read by the phonics method, and the idea there are words whose meaning I don’t know. If you don’t know the meaning you try to intuit the meaning from it’s part of speech, context, and if you can’t figure it out, move on.
So I was surprised and confused reading this article to believe that readers were taught to skip the phonics and jump to some kind of gestalt of the word shape?
It should be no wonder that some people don’t like creative typography and layouts.
Yes, its called whole word learning. Its how I learned to read, and how my kids learned to read. its not a gestalt, its simply shape recognition. You learn letters and common letter combinations and how to work out words you do not know later instead of first. its not a very reliable process in English though! Are you sure of the correct pronunciation of a word you come across only in written form?
The advantage, in my experience is that you learn to read faster and its more fun. You start off with something like guessing game with flashcards and kids quickly learn a wide range of words.
The disadvantage maybe that it really needs one to one attention. Great for kids that learn to read from parents (like me and mine), but not going to work well in a classroom.
> skip the phonics and jump to some kind of gestalt of the word shape
I like that summary. It highlights something specific for me: this teaching method is essentially about word grifting, as in “trying to cheat the text out of a meaning without having paid its cost of reading”. With that mindset instilled early and decades ago, it’s no wonder AI text is so prevalent in schools and that such schisms exist between its adherents and detractors. I bet the students who were taught to grift reading don’t realize anyone who learned reading one of the hard ways can identify AI text from nuances invisible to them.