Writing to Read

When I was in kindergarten, some educational theorist somewhere came up with the program "Writing to Read". Basically, they sat us down at word processors and said write as story. We said, "Okay.." and started typing. the only problem was, that they weren't correcting any of our spelling or grammatical errors. So, it was okay that I spelled was as W-U-Z, like the cartoon on the Disney Channel. The idea is that we were supposed to learn how to read by sounding out words and writing them down. Sounds like a good theory right?

Well, back in the day, some people theorized that the Sun orbits the Earth, and that sounded like a good theory at the time. The problem with "Writing to Read" is that while teaching us to read, it un-taught us how to spell. I've always been a terrible speller, and I thoroughly believe it is a direct result of having been exposed to this program. Vindication is sweet though, and I have found it. Apparently the human brain does not need the words to be spelled correctly for you to understand what is intended by the passage, for example:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

Oh that just makes my day.