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Start of Chapter : Optimize your Alphabetics
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Optimize your Alphabetics
Alphabetics refers to how we recognize and translate writing into concepts in our mind. Most people reading this chapter will have acceptable skills in this area, so we don't discuss ways to improve core Alphabetics. We do however look at ways you can improve your recognition of text. We first do some tests to check your eyesight, and then look at how you can optimize viewing of both printed and on- screen text.
Alphabetics refers to the way we translate written characters into sounds, words, and meanings in ouryou develop when you start reading. There are two parts to this skill:
- Recognizing characters as letters and sounds that make up words.
- Translating words and symbols into the correct representation in your mind.
As you build your reading skills, your mind starts to change from seeing individual letters in words to seeing just the words themselves. After a while, it seems the order of letters within the words doesn't matter that much. Try reading the following example:
Do we raed ltteres or wrods? Can you udestannrd tsehe snetncees? Rsercaeh at Crbidmgae Urvnitesiy fnuod taht we can slitl raed wrdos eevn wehn the ltteres are mxied up. As lnog as the frsit and lsat lrtetes are the smae, we can slitl raed the sncetnee. Tihs sohws taht aeftr we hvae lnreat the bcisas of riadneg, we srtat sneeig wrdos as a wlohe, rehtar tahn a cctiolleon of lrtetes.
The lesson from this exercise is that your brain converts a combination of letters into a symbol. It's able to recognize those symbols even when the basic letters are not in the right order. This is one part of how the brain learns to read faster. Reading more and reading a wider range of material helps ingrain more of those symbols in your mind, which then increases your reading speed.
As you are already reading this book, it's likely that your skill in this area is enough. Regular reading of various material will help your brain do these translations with less effort. Techniques are unlikely to help improve this specific skill. It just takes time and repeated exposure to the words themselves.
What you can do, though, is make sure your eyes and brain have the best chance of recognizing words quickly. In this module. we look at a few ways of doing this, including:
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