Maybe.
Does it involve a lot of reading?
Presumably there's a tremendous amount of data processing going on in our brains to check out the stuff in the middle ~ odds are it's a probability search rather like the one Google.com uses to look ahead to give you clues about where to look next.
I use a combination of WHOLE WORD and WORD SHAPE to rapidly whip through any amount of writing ~ from an address to a whole book.
My grandson is six years old. He went from not reading to reading EVERYTHING in a matter of weeks. He is learning phonetically, and doing wonders. He can read everything I have typed on this post, without help. Unfortunately, he can also read the graffiti in the walls, also.
I started Russian study about 18 years ago.
My first lessons were definitely phonics-based when it came to learning new words, and it still is.
Another person on this thread (I forget who) mentioned the MASSIVE amounts of signal and image processing our brains do on-the-fly.
It does seem that to LEARN to read, you need phonics, but that the brain trains itself to sight-read over time.
BUT, BUT, BUT, throw a new word at me in Russian, and it’s back to PHONICS-PHONICS-PHONICS............
I think the phonics method teaches people to recognize the sounds of letters, syllables and words. After that, we begin to memorize the whole words that we learned syllable by syllable.
But any explanation of how someone begins to learn starting with the whole word just sounds like nonsense, or some cumbersome memorization procedure.
Phonics is a pedagogical tool. Eventually, as people become experienced they learn to read by sight and can skip over the intermediary details. The question is whether it’s better, for a child who hasn’t learned yet, to jump straight to sight-reading or use phonics as a stepping stone.
I don’t really know the answer. I remember I was a late reader, and I was taught nothing but Phonics. It’s hard to remember exactly how old I was at the time, but I did have similar aged friends who were proficient readers. Yet I struggled and struggled, and got frustrated, and put up with the taunts from my big sis about being “stupid” (what else are siblings for?). Then I clearly remember one day it was like a light was turned on in my brain and from then on I had no trouble reading anything. Sometimes a child just needs to mature a little before they’re ready to start learning.
I have found that children are individuals, each having their own learning style and pace of learning. There is no one way, therefore, to teach reading to all children.
Many strategies should be tried, and if you find one that works, use it. If not, try something else.
Uhhhhhhhhh .... no.
My son, now a second year law student, learned the same way at about the same age.
The professional educators when he was in elementary education, were negative about the process but he too was the most effective reader in the advanced placement group.
Well, to rehash discussion on a thread a few months ago....
I’m convinced that there’s some percentage of people for whom phonics is an intermediary step that’s a waste of time. Perhaps there’s a far larger percentage of people for whom phonics is the best initial teaching method.
But I was reading before entering Kkindergarten, and I’ve never sounded out a word in my life; my sole instruction was being read to a lot.
I was reading at a 12th grade level by 3rd grade, scored a perfect 800 on the Verbal Section of the GRE, and I can read an average novel in a couple of hours.
At any age, phonics seems unimaginably tedious to me. But that’s just me.
Unfortunately the whole issue has been politicized; no one way of learning to read is right for anyone, as is true of pretty much any teaching method.
I learned to read by sight and my active and passive vocabularies are far broader than that of my children which were taught phonics
It is my observation that most sight readers naturally incorporate some phonics as their reading skill matures.. also we tend to break words into known parts, being able not just to READ the word but know its definition ...and in the end learning the meaning is more important than the pronunciation
I couldn’t disagree more. I, like many voracious readers not only didn’t learn to read phonetically, but we lack the internal monologue that phonics forces. In my case it occurred naturally, but truly good readers share on thing in common: No internal monologue when reading. If memory serves me correctly, it’s almost impossible to exceed something in the neighborhood of 300wpm while sub-vocalizing, which by necessity is forced by a phonetic approach to reading.
Most good readers, can read the following with ease. Phonetic readers, not so much.
Arocdnicg to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Fonics would have put me on the short bus...I had trouble when we were taught fonics in Spelling ...in 2nd or 3rd grade.
It should be determined if children are visual or auditory learners and taught to their strength. Kids who have trouble blending sounds are going to have a problem learning to read with phonics.
But schools teach "methods" rather than kids. Not all kids are going to learn by any one method.
All I know is that a generation or two of kids has been hooked on phonics and still can’t read or spell.