Notes from the Inaugural Chat
			
				 with

			 Thomas Veatch, Ph.D.
				 and
			   Hariprasad Doley
		Veatch Scientist for Phonetic Literacy

			    July 20, 2025


Preamble:

The null or default hypothesis regarding literacy is that humans are
already literate by virtue of having a discrete sequential symbolic
representation for language in the form of spoken phonology, just as
they also, already, have vocabulary, and syntactic, semantic,
and pragmatic systems to express themselves and interact with others.

Writing is in this simplest possible view simply a relabelling of
existing structure, a re-mapping of existing human skills in thought
and communication to a visual, writing-utensil-compatible form.

Under this default hypothesis, literacy is not a different skill from
the skills of spoken language production and perception, but instead
makes use of those pre-existing skills, adding only a minimal,
alternative mapping of known, mental, sound categories -- a
relabelling exercise that unambiguously associates sound categories
with the new written-squiggle, a.k.a.  letter, categories.  This
hypothesis depends for empirical validation upon the one sound, one
letter, constraint which makes this mapping 1-to-1.

Then when a competent user of any spoken language with the same
practiced ease and confidence shown in speaking while thinking of
content can equally easily and confidently map sounds to letters and
vice versa while focussing on the meanings communicated, presto, they
are already literate.

To be clear, learning a second way to surface the existing inner
sound-category system need not depend upon advances in vocabulary,
syntax, meaning, and interaction.  Those also pre-exist, according to
each individual's level; they also develop continually in each.

Then a mere, minimal IPA teaching and practice programme will provide
anyone basic phonetic literacy. This should be the fast and easy path
to a complete form of literacy, able to meaningfully represent any
spoken utterance for its speakers.  Once made confident and easy, the
many skills of literacy such as management of 
space, surface, paper, pencil, the ideas of getting information
from squiggles on paper, and of transmitting information by creating
them, and the experiences of learning, fun, and usefulness through
literacy, all these are independent of using any standard and
potentially difficult, irregular, orthography.  But once achieved,
then competence in such non-phonetic or semi-phonetic spelling systems
requires but a little further phonetically-grounded explanation and
practice.  In contrast, attempting to start one's literacy career with
irregular and complex orthographic systems like that of English,
without the definite trustworthy foundation of phonetic literacy, is
navigating in a maze, a hall of mirrors, an easy place to be
demoralized.  To know a thing could be one of multiple options, and
not to know how to disambiguate, is a state that can continue over a
lifetime without improvement, and irregular orthographies are full of
such ambiguities, which can be, and are, insurmountable obstacles to
many learners who lack the benefit of mental certainty provided by
proper phonetic literacy.

I therefore hope to empirically study and prove, or equally if it is
false to disprove, that Reading Phonetics First is a universal
literacy accelerator, and if so, to optimize and promulgate
universally accessible, even viral ways of sharing it.


			Award of Scholarship:

Being thus motivated, and seeking to develop the science of reading
and to eradicate involuntary illiteracy from the planet, I offer this
scholarship to the First Veatch Scientist for Phonetic Literacy,
Hariprasad Doley, of the Department of Linguistics, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, Delhi, India.

Congratulations, Mr. Doley!


			   Meeting Program:

We discussed HP's 8 questions.

1) Kids vs Adults?

   Kids, since virality will follow success, whereas
   success -- in changing the institutional standard of care for early
   literacy education in the world -- may not follow virality.  Let's
   achieve some progress in science which can influence the schools.

   Adults are a side project, except that teaching teachers will serve
   both.

   (Liz thinks I am giving up my special contribution, maximizing the
   impact of picture-labelled phonetics tables in giving literacy to
   the illiterate, for a very different task, exploring primary school
   literacy education, for children who will anyway become literate.
   Hmm.)

2) Selection based on education level: preferably illiterate pre-schoolers.

   The cleanest demonstration of potential impact is a pre-school
   intervention, only because a pre-test may show the lowest initial
   literacy of all for illiterate preschoolers and thus the largest
   contrast relative to post conditions.

   But science is persuasive when results are significant, not only
   when they are most significant.

3) Teach and compare at different levels, groups, ages?

   If we teach preschoolers and measure their 1st year schooling
   impact, and compare that to different groups, then we can compare
   many groups while only teaching to one group.
   
   Testing will need a hierarchy of tests for each language:
      A)  Self report: can you read?  If so what?
      B) Upside-down paper test: offer it upside-down,
           if they rotate the paper we call it "pass" else "fail"
      C) Letter recognition tests: Ask, What is this? holding up cards with:
           numbers: e.g. "2", "5", "9",
           roman letters: up to ?four?
	   local-native-script letters: up to ?four?
      D) Word-reading test: from most basic to academic
           STOP, haha, Rama/ra:ma/, pajama, rupee/rupi:, 
	   (both Hindi and English)
      E) Sentence reading test: simple to newspaper headline
      
   Test results for each subject should be documented:
      A) before intervention,
      B) after intervention, and
      C) after 1 year of school,
      and
      D) on control children at various levels.

   Then we will be able to make more than one comparison, and have a
   better picture and a richer story.

HP says:
   Let's do kids in schools. 
   A friend pointed out this is a gift to the kids.
   HP's father upon learning about articulation, was mesmerized, almost as if he got enlightenment. 
   These things are really interesting, metalinguistic awareness is always interesting, 
   Always enriching.
   
So of course to the kids, that should be the priority:
   The Waltham results motivate this work
   
   Yes, we might also compare the adult groups, and compare differences between kids' results and adults' results.
   
   If we teach the kids they will know it but perhaps will not spread it much.
   
   If we give to adults we spread not only the technical but also motivation,
      and can teach some who themselves can spread it more from there.

4) How many?, How much?

   During exploratory phase, teach 4 kids at a time.
   
   Then they can pair up and work together, and the teacher can see
   the inner process of each.

   How many hours, what schedule?  For kids, a pre-first-grade class
   during summer break for a month or 5 weeks,
   
   At least 2 days a week.  Even an hour is too long
   for. preschoolers.  You will see how to optimize it.
   
   Give time at end of the class on the transition to common spelling
   for English or Devanagari etc.
    
   Teacher's job will be to make it interesting.
       3 days a week, 20-40 minutes, time for a snack, ...


5) online, offline, both?

   Off-line, in person, so as to learn what it looks like to teach
   literacy through phonetics, phonetics first.

6) Follow-up class, and Tracking?

   Yes we need to keep records for followup and tracking.
   Child's name, birthdate
   Perhaps home language, age of first speaking, can we measure vocabulary size?
   Parents names, address, profession, education level, etc. to measure social class.

   Tracking: AFTER 1st grade we want to again re-test them and get school results if available.
   Follow-up classes? We don't have plans for higher level classes, except for teaching, and teacher-teaching.

7) Quantity of time and effort requested: I was thinking 5-8 hours a
   week along the lines of a 3 unit course for a summer quarter.

   But the purpose is results not hours; I won't be asking for time
   cards!  Instead, let us specify goals and deliverables rather than
   hours, unless the hours devoted become significantly out of
   proportion.

   On an imaginary schedule it could support a kids' class in the
   middle of a 10-week term comprising 4-5 weeks of 2-3 classes per
   week with time for prep and review/note-taking during the class as
   well as before and after it.

   But this is inappropriate given PhD program starting in a few days,
   also we don't know the academic calendar for local elementary
   schools.
   
   Let's think about how to translate that into reality at a time and
   pace that doesn't interfere with your program.  Let's gather data
   and discuss next week.

 8) How to persuade kids and parents to participate?

   This is an experimental pre-school literacy accelerator program
   following the principle Read Phonetics First.
   
   It cannot hurt and could dramatically help preschoolers in their
   education, according to reports from Waltham.  If it might raise
   students' reading level to far above 1st grade at the end of 1st
   grade as Waltham reported then it may be attractive to parents. And
   since it is phonetics, it is fun and will be attractive to kids;
   anyway that is the teacher's job.


Followup:
   Tom to send Waltham reader image to HP: See TomVeatch.com/read/TransitionReader.php
   
   Tom to email Rakesh Jugran about maybe emailing February's DIET
   student-teachers for participation, for example, for
   pre-intervention literacy comparable levels.

   Why not Hindi script? For the medium of drawings, in which the
   elements of d+h+a, for example, require separate sets of drawings

Etc.:
   
   HP's JNU PhD Program's classes start in a week, six courses,
   requiring 3 credits each, paced at 2-3 per semester, It may be
   possible to make time for Read IPA First for children in the
   evenings.  But there are no upcoming ten weeks of summer.  Maybe we
   can do it next summer, or in dribs and drabs before then.

   A kids class 1x/week for a term? 

   HP's PhD topic probably comparative Tani tone, diachronic and
   synchronic.  Classes this term, acoustics, Optimality theory,
   computational linguistics, and others.  The great scholar of the
   field at present is Mark G Post, who has done the most meaningful
   research on the Tibeto-Burman branch of Tani, having written a
   descriptive grammar of Galo.