My oldest will be turning 5 in November, and by all guidelines that I can find is ready to try the whole reading thing (at his own pace, of course) From what I can tell, there are a few different 'schools of thought' when it comes to teaching reading. I'm having a hard time figuring out what exactly the different theories are and what they entail (and how/if they overlap). From what I can tell there is Phonics, and there's the Sight Word/Word Family/Rhyme. Do these overlap? Can anyone give me examples of each? I'm guessing as with everything, the "best" route depends on the child & teacher-but what's your experience(s)? We have Bob Books, The Reading Lesson and I've also purchased the first set of Ready2Read from The Moffatt Girls (can't link I'm too new ) If I had to guess, the first 2 are Phonics programs, right?
They can overlap in even the same curriculums, but there are also many that are strictly one rule of thought or the other. Personally, I tried a couple programs before finding the FREE www.starfall.com resources. As a result, all three of my children learned to read using the free resources there and are now avid readers and read well above grade level. It does not work for everyone, but it is certainly worth a look. It does emphasize phonics, but there are certain words that they consider "sight" words and will just give them the word. It's very entertaining, and the worksheets and such can also be free - go to the "parent download" center. Good luck!
I can only speak to what worked for my kid -- I realize there are many ways to teach reading. I used a phonics curriculum for K and 1st grade. Sight words were introduced via flash cards (approx. 2-4 new words each week) for words that didn't follow typical phonetic rules. But the primary emphasis was on phonics. The phonics approach has really helped with DD with spelling as well. Good luck finding what works for you!
All the above! They need to know certain words on sight, but they also need to be able to "sound out" words. Phonics is important, but so are contextual clues. For example, most people will say READ with a long E sound when they see the word in isolation. But it could also be pronounced the same as RED. It depends on the context whether it is future or past tense. So ALL of this is important in reading. And there is a real readiness for reading; some kids are there at age three, and others not until eight or nine. But that doesn't mean the early readers are any more intelligent or anything. Those that "start late" usually catch up very quickly. But regardless, the best thing you can do to teach a child to read is to read to them ALL THE TIME. Poetry, fiction, classics, picture books, non-fiction..... Just make their life full of language, and they'll let you know when they're ready!
We usually teach the phonics (letter sounds) from about age 3, and letter names. In K I start working more with word families and learning to segment words. But it seems, for us at least, there's this magic moment when the kids are able to take a word they have sounded out by segmenting, and turn it into a word. For some reason there's a period of time when they have come so far that they can make all the sounds of the word, but they just can't put it together. At that point I relax completely and just keep doing reading together. I read and stop occasionally to get them to sound out a word. One day they just seem to get it. Right now my DD age 4 is able to name her letters, and remember most of the sounds. For her, even naming the sounds has been more difficult. So, it's interesting to see how each child's path is different. I also use starfall to reinforce our teaching, and let them play with the letters.
I used to be a hands down phonetic teacher as far as reading. My oldest son learned phonetically through starfall's website. But my second son just wasn't getting it phonetically. I went to a sight word approach with him and he picked it up quickly after that. He's still a beginning reader but he is doing well. So now I'm a fan of whatever works for each child.
I can only say what worked for my boy: www.starfall.com, and reading Dick and Jane books! Yup! Easy peas! However, my autie son is learning through sight words. It really depends on the kid!
I think the big thing with sight words is not to go crazy with it. I knew one family that had 1000 sight word flash cards, but her boy still hadn't made the jump to sounding out.... hmm... problem?? At that point, I'd say it's time to make a change. But the same goes for phonics. If your kid knows all the letters and sounds, but it's just not turning into words, a few sight words could just help give them enough confidence to make the jump to real reading.
My favorite quote about reading is that it takes about 3 reading programs before the Mom learns how to teach reading. Really that is what it took for me to figure out what was going on with my little ones. I agree that it is very dependent on the child and parent. My oldest picked up phonics quickly and the sight words were just a bonus to help him read faster. My DD on the other hand took extensive phonics instruction for her to get it, and sight words were horribly hard for her to memorize. My youngest is doing starfall while the oldest two work on their math to keep him busy, and he can sound out 3 letter words after only a couple of weeks of doing that.
Granted it has been about 16 yrs since my teaching of reading class and about 4 since I took a continuing ed course on it, but research up until those points demonstrated that a combo of both Whole Words and Phonics is ideal for most children. I found that a combo helped my kiddos as well...my son's K teacher in school would label each work table (for their academic center time) with a different sight word and would change them each week - it was a simple way to give them that memory of seeing those Dolch words. However, Phonics was a strong part of her program, and when it came time for DH and I to teach our 2nd kiddo, we followed suit - giving her enough sight words to be proficient with them, yet focusing a lot of time and energy on phonics. She had reading challenges (dyslexia) and continues to have some challenges, but giving her the foundation of both has done the trick it seems!
I like whole language (not sight words) combined with phonics. I have used very few sight words with my kids. Here is a good description of whole language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_language Phonics is parts to whole and whole language is whole to parts. Using both has been effective for my kids. I did take one college class back in the 90s on how to teach kids to read and it focused on the whole language method. I've been doing phonics parts-to-whole reading instruction for my youngest. I'm at a spot with my materials that I'll be switching to more of a whole language approach. I'm continuing with phonics, but it is at a lower level than the reading instruction.
Whole language is just what it says WHOLE LANGUAGE. You cannot "combine" whole language with phonics because phonics is PART OF whole language. It is NOT POSSIBLE (or at least extremely difficult) to teach reading without phonics. But to be taught entirely by phonics is just as difficult. So much of English does not follow phonic rules. Whole language teaches a child to use phonic clues, contextual clues, sight words, syntax, etc. to read a passage. Example: Did you read that book? I just read a story. I bet you translated the first READ with a "long e" sound, and the second with a "short e" sound without even thinking about it. How did you know to do that? If you had been taught only phonics, you would have pronounced them both the same way, with a "long e". Why? "When two vowels go a walking, the first one does the talking", as I learned. Or, as my kids learned watching "Between the Lions": Two vowels walking side by side, The first one says its name with pride!" My point being that the CONTEXT of the sentence tells you the correct way to pronounce the word.
I combine approaches. I mainly use the bottom-up (phonics-focused) approach to get started but also incorporate a little whole language. Then I primarily use a top-down (whole-language) approach. For example, with my youngest I used Explode the Code with readers that went along with the book while doing lots of read alouds with things like rhyming words, patterns, and pointing out some of the phonics in unfamiliar words. Now, I'm using real books that contain words beyond what Explode the Code teaches and we are encountering phonics by looking at how to sound out the new words that we read in our book. I am still using Explode the Code, but at a lower level than the real books. So my daughter is reading a word like "green" and learning words with "sh" in the context of real books when she hasn't encountered it in her step-by-step phonics instruction. I hope that made sense.
Perfectly good sense! People ask me how I taught my kids to read, and I tell them that I didn't. I gave Rachael some short vowel worksheets when she was four, and she taught herself. I made a lot of Word Family "books" with Phillip (sounds like PHONICS, lol!), but that was it. All my kids were mostly self-taught, but I read to them all the time and they were motivated to learn. (Except Phillip now doesn't like to read!)
I am still starting out, but so far am enjoying starfall with my boys. Both (age 3 & 5) play for fun and are now reading simple words.
