[twigs]

Eva, I agree with your remarks about reading. When my daughter started in Christian kindergarten, I heard some parents discussing how the public school children were learning to read faster while their children were losing interest. It always seemed to me that a combination of the two methods was the way to go. Certain words need to be memorized anyway. I also agree with you that there is no "one" ideal way to teach reading; actually to teach anything.

[Eva]

In my opinion, phonics works best when started in pre-school, where the child is thrilled to be able to figure out one word at a time. By first grade, alot of kids will be bored by this method and be in a hurry to read more than a word at a time. Phonics also slows down the comprehension.

It seems though, that for alot of children, drawing boxes around words and using flash cards doesn't seem to work. It's hard for me to understand because all my family, myself included, are visual learners. I even have a bit of a photographic memory. I can remember times when I didn't know the answer to a test question and I could close my eyes and read it on the page of the text.