ABSTRACT
In the 1970s, neuropsychologists were busy discovering, or at least demonstrating, that it is possible to read without phonology, in two senses. Firstly, in order to read a whole familiar word aloud, it is not necessary to be able to assign phonology to individual graphemes; thus a patient who, given the printed word try, cannot respond with /tə, rə, ai/may easily be able to produce “try” (see, for example, Beauvois & Derouesné, 1979). Secondly, in order to comprehend a written word, it is not necessary to know anything about its corresponding phonology; thus a patient who, given try, cannot respond /tə, rə, ai/or respond “try”, or judge that it rhymes with high, may still know what try means (see, for example, Saffran & Marin, 1977).
