So, today, just as was true in Webster’s speller, words should be presented with no attention whatsoever to their meaning, but with great attention to syllabic divisions. Further, as was true with Webster’s speller, beginners should orally spell each word as it is learned, syllable by syllable, (but with Pascal letter names, not alphabet names). Attention should be focused on the sound of every letter, regular, irregular, or silent. I suggest that every beginning reading program, and most particularly those assuming a “phonic” label, should be judged as outlined above, by comparison to Webster’s “sound” approach speller. Any “phonic” program which introduces any “meaning” bearing sight words, and most particularly which introduces connected “meaning” bearing texts, before beginners have become proficient readers of the “sounds” of syllables and words, should either be discarded or revised. It is entirely possible to revise many “phonic” programs by removing the objectionable “meaning”-bearing sight words, and by postponing the reading of the programs’ “meaning”-bearing texts until the beginners have become proficient readers of the programs’ “sound”-bearing word lists. Beginners should learn to read those word lists purely by their letter “sound” and with absolutely no reference to word “meaning.” Furthermore, just as in Webster’s speller, they should be given lists of multi-syllable words to learn. In the beginning stages of reading, the emphasis should always be on the syllable sounds in words. Phonic programs which introduce “meaningful” texts for beginners to read, before beginners have become proficient in reading word lists containing ALL phonic elements, are fostering the very bad habit of “meaningful” context guessing. Giving connected texts to beginners to read, EVEN IF THE TEXTS CONTAIN ONLY THOSE PHONIC ELEMENTS TAUGHT UP TO THAT POINT (“short ‘a’ words,” for instance) fosters the production of reflexes for reading by “meaning” while it simultaneously weakens reflexes for reading by “sound.” Noah Webster was right. The first thing to teach little children is how to spell orally and then how to read, by their letter “sound”, long lists of multisyllabic words in English. “Meaning” should have nothing whatsoever to do with the initial stages of literacy. However, once the children's decoding has become automatic, they have become independent readers and are then ready for reading “meaningful” texts. As was true for little Webster-taught children before 1826, children can then pick up the Psalms in the Bible and read them fluently - or can read anything else, for that matter. **************************** Note: “Sound” or “meaning” approaches result in different and opposite conditioned reflexes in the brain, at the associative level. The nature of these reflexes is discussed in my recent paper, The Born Yesterday World of the Reading Experts, a Critique on Recent Research on Reading and the Brain. That paper can be downloaded without charge from the Education section of the donpotter.net website, or can be bought in paper form from AuthorHouse.com. From the A