This is particularly true of children just learning to read. They have a lot of very tentative hunches about the connections between the look of printed letters and the sounds of spoken words. If we give them enough time, they will gradually, as they read for pleasure, test and confirm and strengthen these hunches, and make them a part of what they really know. But if we put too much pressure on these hunches, by continually asking children questions about what this or that letter says, we are liable to jar these hunches loose altogether and convince the children that they don’t know anything,
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