Reading or Memorizing? The Difference Matters

Episode 91: This week Miss Beth dives into her viral video that sparked thousands of comments and a lot of strong opinions. After sharing that children who can read familiar words but struggle with nonsense words may be relying on memorization rather than decoding, the internet had questions: is memorization bad, do skilled readers really sound out every word, and are adults just "fake reading"? Beth unpacks what she actually meant, explores the research behind decoding and orthographic mapping, and explains why nonsense words reveal so much about whether a child truly understands the…