I had a hard time folowing this, to many big werds.
Are we going back to the age of hieroglyphics?
The ‘progressives’ have brought us full circle it seems.
So True!
Back in the mid 1940s I learned phonics by drill. I can still remember reciting in class the sounds of:
a a a a a a apple
b b b b b b ball
c c c c c c cat etc
Six years, my brother was taught “word recognition”. I can remember him confusing the words invitation and invention. also, when he asked my mother how to spell a word and she would tell him to sound it out, he couldn’t.
I was trying to show my kindergarten grandson how to sound out a and t, and then how you could sound out letters to make hat, cat, rat, bat, mat. He looked at the words and said, “those aren’t any of my sight words”.
My two munchkins (girls) both learned to read at 4 years old. They both learned phonics and sight words. My 10 year old 6th grader (skipped 2nd grade) and reads on a 12th grade level. My 7 year old is also a great reader. She is reading Harry Potter.
I totally disagree with the article. As a Father of 5 I taught all my children to read before first grade. And I did not use phonics. It does not work for early readers. Phonics comes in around second or third grade after you know how to read at a Dr. Seuss level.
The reality is that most words you need to learn when you start reading are not phonetic. Sat Rat Cat are. But you learn with Is and Who and You and They. You just have to memorize them and learn to pick them up in context as you read.
If you want to teach most children to read at age four then first teach them their letters at age three. Make sure they know the small letters very well. Those are the common ones. But they need to know both the big letters and the small ones. And they should know the sounds. Or at least some words that start with the letter.
Then read to them books like Dr. Seuss and other like books. Take 3 of their favorite books and put the words individually on 3 by 5 cards. One word for each card. Also add a card with their name on it. And add Mom and Dad and any brothers or sisters. Add Good and Bad too. And add some colors too. And you can add some words to form small sentences if you are missing them.
Then try to teach your child 5 words everyday. Make sure you are giving them some words to form a sentence. Billy is good. Father is silly. Make sure you quiz your child on the five new words and all the past words.
You will find some words are really hard to learn. I have found that Then, That and Than are tough to differentiate. Notice there is a difference in the sound of Thin and That. The TH sound is not the same.
After you get about 20 words you should be able to make several sentences. You can make some sentences after 5 words. But your child should be able to make them after 20 words. Let your child make several sentences. After 60 words you can read a whole book, like One fish, two fish.
Know after you have developed a little confidence. You can start adding some phonetics into the process for the larger words. But phonetics does not always work. Two, Too and To can’t be helped with phonetics. And there is no way to know using phonetics that Good rhymes with Could but not Soon.
Keep feeding your kid appropriate books for their reading level and make sure they have time without a computer or TV. Computers do help with reading but they can crowd out book time. And with video, today’s computers are the same as the TVs we grew up with.
So much for your assertions. A dedicated parent can do what lackluster teachers can't...or won't. Let parents do what they want, as you suggest, without inference of one system over another. Institutional learning/teaching isn't for everybody.
Your bias is noted. Don't bother replying back.
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When our granddaughter was in daycare, we bought a set of “Hooked on Phonics” and gifted it to the daycare. The granddaughter graduated college last spring as a BSN, and is now a newly minted RN, happily employed delivering babies in Labor and Birthing.
How are you going to stop children learning sight words? Impossible. I’ve raised four. My youngest can’t read yet but she knows several words by sight, like Target. Two of my children cracked the code of reading before they reached the age where they are taught phonics. They read as well as the one child who did learn phonics and learned to read in school.
Brains are more complicated that you give them credit for.
Literacy spread much faster when alphabets came into use having symbols that represent sounds. Learning to read hieroglyphics is much to time consuming for people who have to produce to survive. Converting English to Hieroglyphics, which is what “sight “ teaching does illiteralizes the general population and restricts them from receiving true information, history, for instance. It makes the population easier to control by a master caste.
I have no memory of learning to read, my mom says she taught me before kindergarten. I assume she taught me to read phonetically. My husband learned sight words and while he loves to read, he struggles with pronunciation on occasion. Spelling is harder for him as well. Our two oldest had formal reading instruction in school, some sight words some phonics.
We homeschooled our younger kids from the beginning and I taught them letter sounds before teaching the name of the letter. Instead of singing the alphabet song, “a-b-c...x-y-z, now I know my abc’s...”, we sing “a-a-apple, b-b-butterfly...z-z-zebra, all are in my Father’s world.” Same tune so it takes forever, but they learn short vowel and consonant sounds right away. Learned the song from My Father’s world kindergarten curriculum.
I tried starting kindergarten with our now six year old son when he was five. Gave up because he absolutely wasn’t ready. He was too goofy and immature. We read books to the little kids every night, sang the song with the flash cards a couple of times a month and he figured out how to sound out words by himself before we officially started homeschool this fall. We began this year using first grade materials and he is zipping through it despite no formal kindergarten.
I’m surprised people defend the sight word method. Phonics unlock the code and make reading so much easier-especially when attempting literature that is well beyond your current level. My daughter was reading unabridged Jane Austen novels when she was eight. She would laugh and tell me the funny parts so I knew she was comprehending the book.
Having an alphabet is obviously unfair to the ChiComs. So, let's pretend we don't.
It's time to cut America down to size — the essence of the Obama foreign policy.