I started grade school in 1955 and we were taught reading using phonics, not sight words. Same with my son and daughter in the early ‘90s. When did sight words in school become common place?
I learned to read with sight words, but then I live in a very “progressive” state.
I started about the same time. We had a good school system, no crap. Only thing weird we ever had was a trial run of new math in 6th grade. After a week or two of that our teacher said “enough” and that was the end of new math.
Read an editorial in The Washington Times in the early 90’s where California discovered their sight reading initiative left them with a HUGE functional illiteracy rate.
I think it was over 80% and it took the OVER 20 YEARS to figure out the problem.
My mom was a grade school reading teacher, and no way in hell would she teach sight. Lady was hard core phonics.
Home schooled my kids in reading via phonics, Kumon math, Hands on Algebra in 3rd grade (That was a hoot! They understood the concepts!), and US History.
That’s a parent’s job.
Dick and Jane were sight books.
To: Inyo-Mono,
It’s a huge country with lots of differences area to area, and year to year. Look-say was crowned king circa 1931. Communities fought back and often won. That’s what we need now: communities fighting back and winning.
Here’s quick history of last 100 years:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/05/k12_history_of_the_conspiracy_against_reading.html
That’s it! Reading is simply decoding. Learn to decipher the code and you can read anything. It does not require eight years of lessons and scores of textbooks to learn the reading code.