I wrote:

> suzmccarth wrote:
> > So the phonetic analysis required to use the alphabet has to
> > be learned in school? That is what I also believe.
>
> Suzanne!? You're joking, right?

Sorry, I didn't mean to be harsh, or even less so enigmatic. It is just it
this sounded so obvious to me that the kind of analysis required by
alphabetic writing is all but natural or intuitive.

But, probably, that's seems so obvious to me only because I am witnessing
how pre-school-age son is unable to perform the (seemingly) easy task of
splitting, e.g., [ba] in [b] + [a]. He knows all the letters, he can tell
each letter's sound, he can segment a word in syllables, but he just can't
get the notion that a syllables can be further split into "smaller"
segments, or, seeing it from the reading side, that adjacent letters can
"merge" into a single syllable sound.

> --
> Cingar

Ooops!, I should be more careful with my "secret" identities! :-)

--
Marco