Early strategies (2)
By the time they reach two years of age the average human being has mastered the strategies required to communicate using spoken language.
At around the same stage of our development we are introduced to a collection of twenty six symbols built up from collections of lines both straight and curved.
When a person draws our attention to one of these symbols they usually also make a particular sound with their mouth. We make use of the listening and speaking strategies we've already learned to associate the sounds with the corresponding symbols and to speak the sounds ourselves, until the symbols and sounds become anchors for each other - thinking about the symbol makes us think of the associated sound, and vice-versa.
We go on to learn that these symbols and their associated sounds form the building blocks of the strings of sounds (words) we've already learned to speak - A is for Apple, B is for Ball, C is for Cat...
With strategies in place for recognising letter shapes and their associated sounds (phonemes) and that some phonemes consist of multiple characters (i.e. ch, sh, ph) we go on to develop strategies for decoding strings of characters (words) into their corresponding auditory representations (sounds). At first we read out loud so that those who are teaching us can assist us as fully as they are able. As our reading strategies and skills mature we find that we need not vocalise the words as we read unless we are reading to other people.
And I'm very glad that you learned all of those strategies because now you are able, to read all the words on this page, and every other page on this website and to learn, really learn and integrate now all of this knowledge in ways that will assist you usefully in the days and weeks ahead.