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Vowels are a Major Part of the Problem Shaw's criticism of our language with his "ghoti" example is exaggerated and unfair. Not only is "gh" never pronounced as "f" at the beginning of a word, "ti" only rarely occurs at the end of a word (Cincinnati), and is never pronounced as "sh" when it does. Actually the consonants are quite consistent. The hard "c" and "g", and the soft "c" and "g" probably present the most difficulty to learners--"cat", "ice", "gas", "age". But generally those having difficulty with reading do not have difficulty because of the consonants. While Shaw's criticism of our language relative to consonants was certainly overstated, unfortunately his criticism relative to the vowels, such as the "o" in "women", was all too justified. All vowels have several different pronunciations. For example, Richard Venezky, a linguist who argues for the consistency and "rational" nature of the language, found that the letter "o" is pronounced 17 different ways in our language. The sentence below illustrates some of these: "Although throughout the ambitious book the author insisted the women could count on the nations of the interior, he was proven wrong." When teaching someone to read, important and difficult decisions must be made as to which of these 17 pronunciation should be taught, how many should be taught at a time, and in what order they should be taught. Unfortunately, even the need to be concerned with such decisions appears to be unrecognized by the authors of most reading programs. Venezky also found that the vowel "a" makes ten sounds and the vowel "e" makes nine sounds. The following groups of words illustrate some of the different pronunciations of these vowels.
eat, adhesive, absent, amateur, accelerated, weather, achievement, self, adhere, women abide, beginning, brain, nation, friend, field, said, criterion, eight, air, bird round, about, journey, column, though, annual, computer, exhaust, fun, guard
In addition to their inconsistencies, vowels aren't used nearly as much in reading as consonants are. Although Hebrew is taught using vowels, it is often read without them. We can read or at least "figure out" sentences without vowels in them much easier than we can sentences without consonants. Try this one with vowels and no consonants. I* *e*e*a* *i***e *o*e** a*e *o* *o**i**e** a** *ea**i** **e* i* *i*e*y *a**e* e**o**. Can you read it? Most cannot. Now try the same sentence with consonants and no vowels. *n g*n*r*l s*ngl* v*w*ls *r* n*t c*ns*st*nt *nd t**ch*ng th*m *s l*k*ly w*st*d *ff*rt. Can you read it now? Here it is with both: While the version using only consonants isn't as easy to read as the version using both vowels and consonants, it is certainly easier than the one using only vowels. It is quite apparent that consonants play a much more important role in reading than single vowels. Click here to go to the beginning of this section. Click here to see some Attempted Solutions to the vowel problem. |
Traditionally educators have spent a great deal of time trying
to teach students the sounds for single vowels, probably a great deal more time
than is justified, when one considers how highly inconsistent single vowels are.