Thanks for this link. (I’ll probably try to edit the thing.)
That’s the latest jargon. The essential point is that a word is treated as a diagram or graphic design, like a currency symbol or &. It has no phonetic content. You have to memorize it or you don’t.
From 1932 to 2000, reading was taught through the use of sight-words. Not the alphabet or the sounds. Children memorized every word as a sight-word. So we have massive functional illiteracy.... and dyslexia.
From 1932 to 2000, reading was taught through the use of sight-words. Not the alphabet or the sounds. Children memorized every word as a sight-word. So we have massive functional illiteracy.... and dyslexia.
Sight reading may have dominated during that period, but phonics was alive and well during my childhood. My parents, probably without even realizing it, helped me learn to read at the ripe old age of three by sounding out the letters of words.
By the way, there's nothing unusual about three-year-old children learning to read. Children who are read to tend to learn to read without instruction or apparent effort: simple, innate curiosity leads them along.
Learning to read by phonics was the standard method at the grade schools I attended. My mother, who later went back to school to become a teacher, taugt sight reading some while as a volunteer, only to realize phonics got the job done both quicker and with less effort.
I have to wonder what kids do in South Korea, Japan, China, and other countries with ideographic rather than phonetic alphabets. I have a hunch it could be worthwhile for someone who knows to draw some comparisons.
It is the whole “See Spot Run Run Spot Run” thing! Teaching PHONICS does not sell many TEXTBOOKS or FUND very many TEACHER’S “Universities” or have much GRANT MONEY for WORTHLESS “Educational” MA “Thesis’” or “DR” “Dessertations”.
“Follow the Money”!
No, my children learned with phonics, as did I. My mother also insisted that I learn to SPELL all the words I was learning, starting in first grade.
1932? I was taught phonics in the mid-70’s. So was my hubby.
We were introduced to the sight-word teaching method in the mid-90’s with our kids and were very upset.