Zero-sum?

I’ve been wondering to what degree SOUND MAP, *CloudSpelling* and WordsAhead Decodability Rankings for Word Lists might be considered a zero-sum proposal.  “Zero” leaves no wiggle-room.  “Zero” doesn’t seem possible, and it may be so.

Certainly perspective matters.

Copernicus put forward a zero-sum proposal In medio uero omnium residet Sol (In the center of all rests the sun) and thereby reversed the entire science of astronomy and flustered all religious loyalty to Joshua 10:13’s commanding the SUN to stand still.  It could be argued that life on earth was lived well-enough without this disruption.  But the future needed a tweak in conventional thinking.  Space travel wouldn’t allow the old ideas; it needed reality.

Today, of course, most of us learned to read from a letters-to-sounds approach.  Good enough.  And yet…  Artificial Intelligence needs reality.

Sounds-to-letters is real and it is important, even though not yet sustainable because there are no supportive infrastructures or platforms on which to build.  But when *CloudSpelling* does gain wide usage in time, “sight words” must lose status proportionately.  When spelling-out SOUND MAP’s V01-C39 labels become popular, sounding-out phonics “Long-A, B-Sound, Hard-C, etc.” will seem counter-intuitive.  As sound-factored rankings for literature (of the type shown in the literature database of this site) become demonstrably more durable and competitive as measures of literature decodability, the education industry will inevitably be forced to lose confidence in, for instance, Lexile measures.

We do know that many people are doing very well – thank you very much – under status quo educational methods.  We also know that many learners suffer identifiable confusions which may be pivotal in their generalized failure-to-thrive status.

In time, powers-that-be may deem this conversation worthy of attention.