Odisho, Edward Y.

Edward Y. Odisho was brought up in Iraq as a multilingual with Aramaic alphabet being his native script. He received his doctorate in phonetic sciences from Leeds University, England. He taught linguistics for over three decades in different universities in Iraq, England and the United States, coupled with numerous publications in the form of books and research papers. Presently, he is a US citizen, and a professor of bilingual/bicultural education at Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago.

Linguistic Approach to the Application and Teaching of the English Alphabet

2003 0-7734-6663-0
The book approaches the nature of the alphabet and its teaching as a universal concept as well as a language-specific one. With focus on the teaching of the English alphabet, the book calls for a departure from the traditional phonics approach simply because of its failure to objectively and accurately handle the alphabet as a linguistic system and an important tool of oracy and literacy. The alternative approach recommended here scrutinizes the nature of the alphabet and comes up with four different linguistic identities: phoneme, grapheme, nomeneme, and sequeme. Each is objectively reexamined and redefined so as to identify where and how each identity should be recognized and applied. This radical distinction implies the institution of different methodologies and strategies to teach them.