There are currently two main approaches for teaching the bases of reading acquisition.

The syllabic one, is concentrating on the components of each words segmented in syllables as they appear when a word is voiced.

On the contrary, the global one attempts to train young aspiring readers to recognize words through their graphical imprinting, in toto, without segmenting them further down.

The first approach tends to produce readers more attentive to orthography and with a rich vocabulary. However, it has the very unfortunate effect to tie the reading experience with the auditory circuit, hampering further down the possibility of speed reading where the meaning of a text is acquired from image recognition through understanding without activating the auditory circuit. In extreme cases, we have even glottal involuntary movements triggered in support of reading slowing further down the reading.

But all is not rosy with the global approach. As mentioned, it is promoting a vaguer experience of the text and, maybe, a less diversified vocabulary, at least in performance which is quite understandable as reading is not reinforcing speaking abilities through exercising the common auditory regions. But on the other hand you gain speed, and more leverage for even more speed when you are naturally developing your reading skills toward the kind of procedures advocated in speed reading courses which is very difficult to do for “phonic” readers.

We are in an age where information has to be collected very quickly. So going from image scanning through understanding without the slow process of underlying sub-vocalization is an immense advantage in our society.

I’m very aware of this important dichotomy in the reading experience as I’m an phonic reader when my mother is an “eideitic” reader. Give her a newspaper and you’ll believe she’s just browsing the pages, waiting to find an interesting article to pause and read it. But no, she’s actually able to read everything at the pace I’m only able to browse, very infuriating.
But wait, give her an intricate reading, e.g. some abstruse philosophy book and she will considerably slow down in proportion of the complexity of the arguments in the text. And even for a “normal” text, she will summarize it but not be able to remember the details of the wording or quote a sentence. To be able to do so, she has to concentrate and slow down.

This is fascinating but unfortunately a relatively untouched subject. Besides, it could have, this is an hypothesis, a strong influence on higher maths abilities. I suspect the “eideitic” reader should have a strong advantage when deciphering complex math expressions over the “phonic” one, forced to linearize the perception of a formula through the sequential utterance of internalized sounds. This hypothesis should be testable with the apparatus mentioned in this article.

All in all, I’ll love to register in this experiment with my mother to compare our brain activation patterns when reading Kant then the Daily Mirror ;-)

Regardless, it’s not surprising that individuals develop various faculties at different rates. And true, some individuals may have faulty genes regardless.