In my opinion, reading is so controversial because the sounds of alphabets and alphabet themselves do not correspond. For example in English there are 26 alphabets which can be pronounced with 47 different sounds. This also happens in Thai, my native language. As a result, there are many approaches to teach reading. Some focus on the relationship between graphemes (symbols in writing) and phonemes (sounds of alphabets). Some focus on decoding (making sense of words from the context.

• Nuntana Wongthai

In my perspective, reading is a subject of controversy due to the lack of correspondence between the sounds of alphabets and the alphabets themselves. English consists of 26 alphabets that may be spoken using 47 distinct sounds. This phenomenon also occurs in Thai, my mother tongue. Consequently, there exist several methods for instructing reading. Some individuals prioritize the examination of the correlation between graphemes (written symbols) and phonemes (alphabet sounds). Some individuals prioritize the task of deciphering words based on contextual clues.

• Angelo Oliveria

My teacher used to say that successful people love reading, and with reading comes learning. According to Tarigan (1990:7 in Jaenal 2010), reading is a process that readers carry out in order to understand the author's idea or concept as it is conveyed through the use of words or written language. According to this module, there are a lot of approaches to reading. I can say that I am grateful to be privileged enough to learn how to read. I admit that I had a difficult time reading when I was younger; it was never simple for me, and the approach that I have encountered and used to this day that I found difficult when I was younger is the phonics approach; it is complicated because, in English, words can be the same but have a different meaning, sound the same but have a different meaning, and have more complex pronunciations. But as time passed, I learned to enjoy reading, particularly our design analysis and decoding approaches. Today, in my teenage years, I enjoy reading stories with different genres, documentation, and more that need critical thinking and understanding of patterns. I agree with the saying that with reading comes learning. As we read, it is as if we are observing things or places that we haven’t been to before. We see and understand the world more. Another approach stated by Mrs. Judy Araujo, M.Ed., CAGS, is the motivational approach. In my opinion, one of the most useful approaches to reading is this. Based on my experience, reading books and phrases that give encouragement, enjoyment, and advice makes me feel relaxed and relatable to others. The approach or reading program that I would like to find out more about is the concept of both ways of reading pedagogy. To become a more effective literate, I'd like to learn more about reading principles, approaches, and other topics.

Reference:
https://www.mrsjudyaraujo.com/different-approaches-to-reading-instruction/
http://ronymbonster.blogspot.com/2017/05/reading-is-process-of-looking-at-series.html

• Johairah Macaslang

I think Turkish language is harder than English in some ways but English also has some difficult parts. For exampale in Turkish we have Ş or Ç letters which don't exist in English. SH gives Ş sound and CH gives Ç sound in English. So our students can confused while learning English.

• Selin Ak Tezgören

One of the problems of reading is not only not understanding the alphabet and sounds but also the poor vocabulary of a person. Because of this, the person who reads will not get what he read and will lose interest in reading.

• Tauzhan Kaiipbek

I think Arabic language is harder than English language specially in phonemes and its relationship between graphemes
There are more vocal out put in the same letter in Arabic language than in English ones

• Tamer Mohamed

The video material mentions about 26 alphabets and 47 phonemes (including diphthongs) in English language and the way phonemes are interchangeably chosen in different dialects, i mean the whole complexity. My mother tongue is Tamil and in this language there is a direct relationship from phoneme to grapheme but there are 247 graphemes. A word cannot be pronounced differently in pure classical tamil unless its done intentionally as in dialects. If at all the sound is transformed still the phoneme will exactly match the grapheme. So, my understanding is that this kind of theoretical understanding could change from one language to the other. This sounds bit controversial to me.

• Avs79 Avs

Controversy in reading comes in what type of text the reader reads. Bilingual readers like Filipino learners find it comfortable reading Tagalog or Cebuano (dialect) text. Reading English text is another experience. Finding meaning of unfamiliar English terms can be challenging and eventually discouraging especially when learners at home do not have a dictionary to look up the meaning of a word or don’t have a parent or significant someone to support the natural inquisitiveness of a child when reading. The resort of such reader can only guess such word according to his prior knowledge or experience of how that word sounds like to his own language or dialect. For example, a middle school learner was asked in a reading comprehension worksheet, “What is an Orangutan?” one learner answered that it was an orange juice by looking at the first two syllable ‘orang/e’ another say it was a vegetable because the last two syllables sounds like ‘vegetable’ in his dialect. The reader’s background makes a lot of difference in reading especially a bilingual learner. Reader’s comprehension depends on the available resources he has at home or at school.

• Irene Venus

As I was reading about the literacy approaches in english I was thinking about how different things are to syllabic languages, as it is the case of portuguese, my native language. No wonder why portuguese native speakers have so many difficulties when learning the sound in english. Everything is mixed up and we can't separate them in specific syllables. In portuguese we have 12 vocal phonemes and 19 consonantal phonemes, which make a total of 32 phonemes in opposition to english, which has 46 sounds, and each one sound very differently. Anyway, learning about the bothway reading pedagogy, that implies knowing not only the phonic representation of language and the graphic representation ( Kress really hits here) but also the meaning of language. Very bright classes. Thank you, professors.

• Lavine Lima

They say that the English language is the most difficult language to learn because of complicated rules. The learners get confused because of the rules that are supposed to be followed in grammar, but then it says that there's always an exception in every rule. My only consolation to the learners is that, when you pass elementary English, that means you are halfway perfecting the language. Besides, if you get through to the most difficult language, how much difficult would it be learning another?

• Irene Venus

Defining a fluent L1 reader as a person who learns to rapidly interact purposefully with a text whilst retaining in his/her working memory the newly acquired linguistic information combining it with his/her long-term background knowledge is a complicated process (Grabe & Stoller, 2011).. The complexity is enhanced when we attempt to teach our learners L2 reading, like in my case teach Greek students how to read English texts, witnessing problems stemming from the inconsistency of English graphemes with phonemes and the sociocultural differences of the literacy techniques across languages.

• Kyriaki Dermitzaki

Reading is so controversial because letters aren't exactly what they are in pronunciation. Though phonics is all about sounds of letters,still it is far more beyond that. There are 27 letters in English language while there are 47 sound produced by the same 27 letters.
The difference is between the phonics and gramaphemes,homophones and homographs.

• Muhammed Garba