RE: “Yes, they will, finally, learn phonics in 4th grade, but they will NEVER be nearly as good in reading as my kids (or anyone else’s) that learned the skill at [a young] age.”
Yes, this is my sense of it. They do finally find the phonics inside the sight-words. But now they have a bit of schizophrenia in their cognitive skills, because their brains have TWO ways to attack a word. And you can’t know which works until you try one...then perhaps the other...But now a second or two has been wasted. Recreational reading is very fast, about 3, 4 or 5 words a second. Occasional small delays are going to prevent what most of us think of as normal fluency.
“Yes, this is my sense of it. They do finally find the phonics inside the sight-words. But now they have a bit of schizophrenia in their cognitive skills, because their brains have TWO ways to attack a word.”
EXACTLY. I’ve read that also. It’s criminal to confuse kids in that way...yet it’s per plan, without a doubt.
I may be behind the curve on this question, but I’ll throw it out anyway.
My boys are long out of the danger zone of public schooling. I recently heard from a business acquaintance that in addition to drilling on basic sight words, his children were being taught to write without using cursive technique at all.
According to him, all writing in all grades is now done in printed block letters to conform to what they see on the basic word flash cards as well as the “typeface” text on their computer monitors. He further said that he ran into a lot of flack from teachers when he taught his kids cursive at home and they attempted to use it at school.
I’d appreciate any insight you could give me on this matter.