In Glenn Doman's 1963 book How to Teach Your Baby to Read, which sold 13 million copies, he claimed that children from birth to age six are capable of learning to read better and faster than older children.

But in 1971, Felicity Hughes, an elementary school teacher who taught her children to read at ages 2 and 3 using Doman's method, wrote a book Reading and Writing Before School. While generally very enthusiastic about Doman's work, she criticized his argument that the study of phonetics is not necessary for learning to read.

She wrote...

Doman has seen that understanding written words is exactly comparable to understanding spoken words. He points out that if we do not need to know phonetics in order to hear, then we do not need to know phonetics in order to read...

But then comes the catch. Doman implies that because we do not neecfto know phonetics in order to hear, and because we do not need to know phonetics in order to read, then we do not need to know phonetics.

And that is where he is wrong...

For a child needs to be able to see a word in two quite different ways, for two different purposes.

He needs to be able to see it as a meaningful symbol, so that he can understand it.

And he needs to be able to see it as an arrangement of sounds, so that he can translate it [into speech].