Ninety percent of art in teaching reading lies in a teacher reading it first.
--Brenda Thompson, Reading Success, P.109, (tersened).

Hookt on foniks wurks fer me :) Sometimes, I don't spell, and I especially hate the standard spelling for a line-up or kyuu; no wonder only computer scientists and Britons know that word well. George Orwell told us to use small words. It almost follows that you will be using old words that everyone knows, instead of new words for old things.

Because of about three thousand frequently occurring "sight words" that make rules of their own, phonics is incomplete. If an elementary school teacher does not teach phonics, then children will need to learn it on their own, and only bright ones will form good rules. The first rule is that every child learn to ignore impatient demands that they sound out a word, because if they stumble, then it is probably because they do not understand what they are reading. "What does it sound like? What does it mean?..." One can often tell that another comprehends writing from tone. So phonics is essential, so essential that an alphabet song is probably responsible for a lot of basic literacy. Did I improve upon it?

My Introduction to advances in phonics

began in about 1996 with an order for letters that made more sense than the Roman alphabet you know. Actually, that was only when I determined that a lot of people should know about my order. My discovery that other orders are for letters came from reading a Harry Lorayne book on mnemonics in about 1994. It also began as a linear alphabet that is one long line. Later, in late 1997, when I was an internet fledgeling, I concluded that two ways were to order consonants. One is from back of mouth to front. Another order relates voiced consonants (Vee for example) to whispered consonants (like Fuh).

Changes I plan to make
Can Verbal Information come through Colour?
Better Letter Names
Elaborate Songs about Phonics

I chose both. In a table, consonants are ordered labial, dental, palatal, then glottal in columns rightward. Odd rows are voiced. Even rows are whispered consonants. Two rows (five and six) in my colour table are hisses, while stops are on two bottom rows. Imprecision in that table: Hii (aych) is no tone-bearer, voiced hisses bear tone, and voiced stop consonants do not carry tone very long.

Graphically relating similar sounds

followed naturally from phonoglyphic order and as few rules as I could come up with in a radical font, which is double-mapped from Shavian, mainly because if someone finds my font without documentation, then Shavian names will illustrate my intentions in regyuhlr speLing (opposed to standard spelling). My font is slightly smaller than Shavian, because I did not make glyphs for two vowels that lead an awR. I mean to imply thoze vowelz, as standard English does. For you to hear what I mean if you do not pronounce the following words with a rhotic (North American) accent is very hard: "Air", "ear", "ire", "oar", "uur". You may notice a vowel similar to a schwa intervenes between a hard vowel and an awR in those words; same with these mostly non-words: "Ahr", "err", "ihr", "awR", and "uhr", except a letter name haz its own vowel, and it is very much like a soft oh. I count two vowels that lead an awR, and I do not speL them.

Roman fonts contain Arabic numerals that are more precise in music, especially harmony, than Roman letters and numerals. Strangely enough, ten dijits was an east Indian invention.

Voiced and whispered counterparts in consonants are upside-down from each other. Hard (long) and soft (short) vowels are also upside down from each other. Some versions of Saffron Karaoke (Roman, now a quartet, and perhaps to become a quintet) contain a note about my realization that awEE (I) is actually a dipthong (conjugated vowel). The most arbitrary parts in my font's natural order are in Lay, Yeh, Hai, Waw, and Ruu; semivowels, which are consonants that are so difficult to distinguish from vowels that three in the middle of that list are commonly confused with vowels (in French, spelt with vowels), while Asians meld Lay and Ruu. Nasals are in the same order as other consonants, with one flaw, that being my schwa is among nasals. That choice was for neatness in my colour table and my mirroring eksersize (good for any artist). I could either make one group of vowels six letters long, or stick a vowel where it does not really belong, and since all other groups contain four or five members, I chose to stick a schwa (as in "put") where it does not belong.

Using Music to Increase Interest

"Jee", "See", "Kyuu", and "Eks" are dumb names for letters: thirty-five sounds are in English, not twenty-two. My most recent song on this topic is a bridge to legacy; New names; familiar order. You might notice a Chaw in place of a "letter see". That is how Italians use it in "Cello" and a few other words that are also English. A Guu is in place of Jee. I do not pronounce Qay as Kay. It is a voiced glottal hiss in the name "Marghoob", and Tim Horton's catch-phrase "Roll up the Rim to Win". Ruu and Qay might be the sole example, except for em and en, of where Romans placed two similar-sounding letters together, those being growl and awR. I doubt that, since it would put growls in some unlikely places within latin. In other words, it is likely that assigning Qay to growling, which is frequently heard for awRs in some Spanish speakers, does not reprezent Latin assignments. Conversely, using Xah to reprezent the sound common to a Scottish "Loch" and a Jerman "Buch" is not new: That is what eks means in IPA.

The first song I used for my glyphs was "Morning Has Broken", with English words from Eleanor Fargeon, and its melody being ancient Gaelic (public domain), except for a bridge that is probably from Cat Stevens, and since my lyrics are longer, I needed that bridge.

My second song is an adaptation of "Born Free" with a different beat and more length. Eleven verses are in "Morning Has Broken" --three from Eleanor, four from a contributor to "Voices United", and four more from a Scout. That might get boring after about five, so I think it needs nine variations. I suspect that if I pose them correctly in relation to each other, then "Born Free" can work as duet harmony for "Morning Has Broken".

My third song is in four parts, and I am not sure that I cannot improve upon my arrangement. Two parts of Pavlov 4 Cybersocial Birds (P4CB) are in a call and answer format that signifies blues. Two parts in P4CB went into my fourth video, which is harder than I want. My idea for making it easier to sing probably demands more range, because I hav a fifth part written. My four part version five will probably stand with colour corrections and a better semblance of karaoke in my full-screen version. P4CB serves the same purpose as my first two videos, except that its tune is more difficult for having more irregularities of timing. You might ask where Pavlov comes into that video; paired stimuli.

Naming letters to carry over noise

Alpha, Tango, Bravo. You probably heard letters from that phonetic alphabet, which police, military personnel, and pilots use, before. My names are one syllable with the same effect; clarity over noise. What pattern is in vowels attached to consonants? Hard vowels, Soft, Hard in reverse, Soft in reverse. That way, Vuu, Fuh, Bay, and Pah end up with different vowels attached, so they sound much more distinct than Vee, eF, Bee, and Pee. You can get the idea from filling out a mirroring eksersize based upon roman letters you know.

Colouring Letters

was an afterthought to make videos more interesting. My colouring scheme became maximally, and perhaps provably, systematic in my tables in early 2010. P4CB currently contains inferior colouring, while all of my Saffron videos are up to date. My video for legacy (connecting my work with what you know) will be up to date regarding colour in its first version. I did not mean to announce my first version of that video outside of my web site, because it was too challenging as karaoke: It displayed one glyph at a time, whereas karaoke typically shows you some of what you hav already said, as well as what you will say. Oh well, the Linux manual says release early and release often.

My objective in colouring is a minor one that I will eventually test upon myself with a Java applet that regularizes English spelling before turning it into text that is nothing but circles upon squares of one colour upon another. I might be able to make a reading puzzle out of a public domain, project Gutenberg short story or collection of poetry in which some letters are replaced with phonoglyphs, some letters are replaced with coloured circles upon squares, and yet text contains enough roman letters that most English speakers can read it; strateejik replacements. A colorfont package is for MikTex (a very sophisticated publishing package) that I might be able to adapt for such purposes as colouring roman letters in an automatic and efficient way other than rendering text as graphics and manually colouring it like I am currently doing. Expect me to write more PDF in the future, because it is far beyond HTML to do such things, and even JavaScript is not easily equipped with shaded fills.

Better Letter Names
Elaborate Songs about Phonics
Graphically Relating Similar Sounds
A Reasoned Order for Letters

Things to perform, and ongoing tasks

Hone my technique for voice training and introducing this in person, especially my open microphone act, and not to miss is selections of things that people already know.
Kompleet (or reasonably so) my Ingglish Alfabet song as a karaoke wmv.
Rewrite 640by480 Saffron videos more properly as karaoke (80by60 will not change).
Write a deck of playing cards that features my font and much more colour. I already hav a hand-modified standard deck, and it is not as interesting as it could be.
Rewrite, probably with ChucK, sine waves in most of my videos with Strings for Bayse, Reed for Tenor, Brass for Alto, and Pipe for Soprano. If (very probably when) Saffron works in five parts, then Tenor can be bells, and Baritone a reed: Make it easier to follow one part.
Rewrite Pavlov 4 Cybersocial Birds as a two-part mixed solo and colour it better.
Rewrite Rightward and Leftward Phonoglyphs as two-part mixed solos with better colour.
Publish this (with references made into numbers, and links at end) in relevant mailing lists, newsgroups, and to educational materials reviewers, some of whom should also get disks.
Put older lyrics to "Morning Has Broken" into my videos, too.
Start all of my videos with a fractal animation of some sort, perhaps during tune-up phases.
Find or adapt a standard English to regyuhlr Ingglish dictionary in JavaScript, perhaps something among mailing lists for spelling reformers.

Organized Babble