I get it, you know how to read but its been a while and you’ve sort of forgotten some of the basics. Well I’m here to help.
Vowels are worth 6 points. You want to collect as many vowels as possible without running into a soft sounding consonant. Soft sounding consonants bring your score down by 3 points per soft sound.
Let’s use the word “circus” as an example. The “I” and the “U” give you a total of 12 points, but the “C” in the beginning and the “S” at the end bring your score down by 6 effectively losing one entire vowel. Giving you 6 points when reading ”circus.”
You also want to avoid words with a double “S” right next to each other. Words such as “cross” and “bass” will really hurt your score because when the “S” is doubled it becomes twice it’s combined score. That’s 3 points for each “S” times 2.
The worst word that you could encounter while reading is “sassafras.” When reading “sassafras” each vowel gives you 6 points totaling to 18. But the “S” at the beginning and the “S” at the end brings your score down to 12. The double “S” also brings you down to 12 points giving you a score of 0. But let's not forget about the letter "F" in the middle. The "fuh" sound that the "F" makes is also a soft sounding consonant, which brings your score down by three more points. It is possible to have a negative score when reading. If you were to only read the word "sassafras" you would have a score of -3.
The reader with the lowest score has to go out and clean the slop bucket. You definitely don't want to clean the slop bucket because we haven't cleaned that thing in years due to people not reading anymore.
The best thing that you can do for yourself is to avoid books. Novels such as Undaunted Courage, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and even Bram Stoker's Dracula can all risk your chance of cleaning the slop bucket. I suggest finding a new hobby such as growing a spice garden or juggling.
