Posted on 08/24/2015 7:00:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Hundreds of websites still casually assert what is probably the most destructive sophistry in the history of education:
The Dolch Sight Words [created in the 1940s] are a list of the 220 most frequently used words in the English language. These sight words make up 50 to 70 percent of any general text….Dolch found that children who can identify a certain core group of words by sight could learn to read and comprehend better. Dolch's sight word lists are still widely used today and highly respected by both teachers and parents. These sight words were designed to be learned and mastered by the third grade.
Even at a glance, you may see several problems. Just because they were “designed to be learned and mastered” by the third grade doesn’t mean they will be. The majority of children cannot master these words by any grade, if by master you mean name them with automaticity at reading speed.
“Respected by both teachers and parents” is a slippery construction that conspicuously omits mention of “reading experts who conduct research.”
Furthermore, even if these words make up two thirds of a text, that means a child cannot read every third word. Nothing resembling reading can take place.
Note that phonics instruction would allow the student to read every word by the second grade. But the sight-word method promises that by third grade, the children will know a small subset of English words but still remain largely illiterate. What sort of promise is that?
Even all that is not the full indictment. Trying to memorize many graphic designs – and that’s what learning to read with sight-words entails – is virtually impossible. The brain becomes cluttered with hundreds of partly memorized designs, all of which look quite similar.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Because tolerance.
A fair percentage of those appear to be “professors” in our lib arts departments.
But they be old skool - we noo skool
Most in the NFL and NBA?...
An Illiterate People are a Controllable People.?
Ask the liberals...
How many illegals are here? 20 million Plus? There’s half the problem
Well, we don’t have to worry about them being offended by this article. They’ll never know.
Dolche Sight Words and because 15% of our population is foreign born.
. . . in that order.
And, yeah, I was reading simple books by second grade and fairly complex books by grade four. As were most American kids who were lucky enough to complete elementary school in the 1960s.
RE: How many illegals are here? 20 million Plus? There’s half the problem
We have to ask the author if illegals are counted in the mix. If not, then the problem is even more dire.
Illegal immigrants only increase this dismal statistic.
There are 10.4 million students from immigrant households in public schools, accounting for one in five public school students. Of these students, 78 percent speak a language other than English at home. Overall, one in four public school students now speaks a language other than English at home.
Irony = See prior thread title.
As do legal immigrants even if they are supposed to speak English.
Imported third worlders . . . in that order.
Publik skoolz AND the teecherz youyuns
No AND involved.
So how is it that Chinese kids learn to read?
Just throw’in bombs. All my kids learned phonics because they were home schooled.
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