One of the nicest compliments I have received is You can read a table like I can read a book. I had just helped the giver to interpret a simple 4x3 statistical table
One of the most inspiring people I have worked for had the disconcerting ability to read whole books of statistical tables (think Economic Trends) like a conductor reads a score - & spot the wrong notes in it
I can read musical notation in the sense that I know Every Good Boy Deserves Favour & All Cows Eat Grass etc. I can follow a score while listening to an orchestral performance. I can – probably – recognise a few scores by looking at them, at least if it is Beethoven’s Pathétique sonata or Mozarts Clarinet concerto. I cannot look at a score – even a simple melodic line - & ‘hear’ the tune. I have tried to learn. Maybe if I truly persevered, one day it would click
I could go on - & on & on – with this deeply self absorbed analysis. What else do I have to go on?
What we call reading is, broadly but essentially, the ability to interpret the words represented by black squiggles on a white background
We – today – think that this is something virtually everybody should be able to do. It is part of what it means to be a human being
This belief, & the need for this particular skill, is surprisingly recent however. And the computer screen, with icons, is changing the meaning of reading in fundamental ways
Which is why trying to assign the diagnosis of dyslexia (with the implication that there is just one method of cure) to everybody who struggles to read old-fashioned text may be hopeless
It also means that it is wrong, hopeless & maybe even cruel to insist on only one method of teaching reading & writing. Children should be exposed to as many methods as possible to help find the one which may click with them
A picture is worth 1000 words but it uses up 1000 times the memory
The Times Magazine 7 April 2001
Related post: Reading & writing Do you mind? Does it matter? The average man Its a point of view
