Computers In Education
will know that they have been taken into account and given exactly as much or as little material as they need to practice in order to move towards a total and individual mastery of all the necessary components of reading. What the computer brings to them besides the program is the right to move ahead as swiftly as they are able, or to dwell as long as they want on that on which they still need to work. The format of a set of command keys and a TV monitor in front of the student is the normal one. We have nothing to add here. The question of what commands are necessary for this specific program has also been solved. The students will either need to move forward and will press a “next” button, or need to return to a stage they sense is less secure than they thought it was and can press a button that “brings back” earlier material. They may need to isolate items, to magnify some, to review a detail. All such demands are routine in computer technology. Thus, individualizing learning is akin to the normal uses of the computer, and we do not have to concern ourselves with it. What then are the challenges inherent in the problem of the use of the computer for literacy? A solution will only exist if, theoretically, going once through the program will be equivalent to meeting all the components of the act of reading. Actual languages make different demands upon the illiterate, because reading requires recognition of written words and these have a traditional form called their spellings. Only strictly phonetic languages would not present this component, and not make demands of that kind on speakers who want also to be readers of their language.
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