« previous post | next post » Or maybe I should say, "AI prosody"? In a series of posts over the past year, I've suggested that evaluation of reading performance ought to go beyond the question of whether individual words are correctly decoded and pronounced. In " Reading Instruction in the mid 19th century " (8/15/2025), I began by quoting a passage from an 1853 McGuffey Reader , which starts like this: The great object to be accomplished in reading as a rhetorical exercise is, to convey to the hearer, fully and clearly, the ideas and feelings of the writer. In order to do this, it is necessary that the reader should himself thoroughly understand those sentiments and feelings. This is an essential point. It is true, he may pronounce the words as traced upon the page, and, if they are audibly and distinctly uttered, they will be heard, and in some degree understood, and, in this way, a general and feeble idea of the author's meaning may be obtained.…