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It's not what you say ...

By Terry Gillen (October 2004 Issue)
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Here is a thought for you. Like most people, I was never taught to read at school. Once my teacher was happy that I could look at words in a book and speak whole sentences with the right pauses and minimal hesitation, she asked me to go and read quietly by myself so that she could help another child.

What I was doing, however, was not reading; it was word recognition. Reading is much more complex. In addition to word recognition, it involves deciding objectives, working out an appropriate strategy, comprehending what is written, and organising, comparing and storing information for later retrieval. I had to learn all that by myself in adulthood. Lots of people don’t get that far, but they still think they can read.

All this is remarkably similar to communication. At school, I had to listen to teachers, read, write, give presentations, and so on, but I didn’t get to learn how to communicate until much later in life. And, judging by the surveys (see Table 1) lots of people don’t get that far – which is a bit worrying when you consider just how central communication skills are.

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