I’ve mentioned in the past that I am a hearing parent of a deaf/HOH cuer, but that I personally did not learn phonics as a young reader.  My grade level in school was taught the whole word method to learn to read.  I really didn’t even understand what phonics and phonemes were until I learned to cue.  How much difference does it make to learn to read via whole word method vs. a phonemic method?  I’d never really thought much about it until…

Ray, my “cue kid”, and I were riding in the car a few days ago.  We stopped at a stop light and I looked at the vanity license plate of the car in front us.  It said “GTHR LV”.  I began pondering what it represented.  I immediately thought that the LV might represent the roman numerals for 55.  That seemed logical since 55 is the standard speed limit and this was on a car.  But what would GTHR represent?  Get there? Got her? 

I was still pondering when Ray must’ve noticed me staring at the tag.  He asked “do you know that means”?  I asked him what he thought it was.  He said “That’s easy, Gather Love. They just left out the vowels”.  I realized a bit abashedly that he was right.  My son who learned the English language through Cued Speech is obviously better at phonemic awareness than I am.  I’m not sure if this a statement on how well he has internalized phonemic awareness, thanks to Cued Speech, or how poorly I have internalized it, but I certainly found it an idea worth further pondering.