“All the phonics people say that the very process of memorizing these words will prevent the child from becoming a good reader.”
Sorry, but:
a) Citing the opinion of a group that actively dislikes “sight-word” reading, and pushes a method that makes money for some of these people, as being scientifically valid is irresponsible.
b) Making an absolute statement like that (re the phrase “will prevent”) is a good way to utterly discredit any point you were trying to make, because if your premise is founded on that absolute, then *anything*, even a single example, that refutes the absolute statement then refutes the premise . Case in point: Me. I learned by sight-word reading, learned very early, and wildly outstripped my peers, many of whom were taught using phonics, in reading ability i.e. reading at a 5th-grade or so level in Kindergarten, and well beyond high-school level by 6th grade.
Now, if the article had pointed to a study by a neutral group that showed that sight-word reading methodology resulted in higher rates of illiteracy than phonics, it might be a different matter, but that’s not the case here.
What seems to be the pattern is that the smarter kids, no matter how they are taught, will work their way through to phonics.
You may have been started with whole word, as I believe I was, but in a few years, you’re seeing the sounds inside the words.
It’s actually an interesting question whether anyone ever learns to read with sight-words. Maybe a few kids with near-photographic memories and willingness to work very hard for many years (compare learning Chinese).
What most kids, the ordinary kids, learn is to be functionally illiterate. We have 50,000,000 of them.
Google “42: Reading Resources” for a lot more.