Reading Words As Patterns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNNULmgIUAs

This is an aspect of language that has always fascinated me. Many people think when we are reading written language, we are going through and specifically decoding each word, which is how I think we did it when we were first learning to read, but after gaining years of experience, our brains have created a shortcut that allows us to read much faster.

This video shows us that we are able to read and comprehend words, even when horribly misspelled, as long as the first and last letters are in the correct place and all other letters are somewhere in the middle(though I'm sure there are exceptions). This proves that our brains don't necessarily go through and piece together each letter in a word before understanding it. I think we would read much slower if that were the case. Instead, we store images of thousands of words in our brains and recognize them by their patterns.

About Me

Hello Everyone,

My name is Scott Welker. I am 22 years old and I am in this class because I am fascinated with the English language as well as languages in general. I plan on majoring in English and I am nearly finished with my second year of college. Writing has always been my favorite activity in school so I always look forward to these courses. I also enjoy trying to learn other languages and I even spend some of my free time practicing German or Spanish. I am not fluent in either but it is one of my goals to become fluent in one or both. My other hobbies include music, bass guitar being my instrument of choice, and I enjoy playing basketball. I look forward to getting to know all of you and I hope it's a great semester!