... will it be obvious that it will work from the get-go? Not really talking about 'balanced literacy' here, or anything that teaches phonics or 'sound-it-out'. I'm JUST talking about sightword instruction utilizing guessing and picture clues. (actually, sounding out is actively discouraged in the particular situation I'm wondering about) Do students who need remediation nearly from the start suddenly catch on at some point (like phonics students seem to)? Yes, I'm asking you to generalize. Really want to hear your thoughts on this- I know my opinion is unbalanced because of my own kids, so I will hold my tongue.
Perhaps I am bias as well. My ds's kinder year at ps focused on sight words. Epic fail. I had to start him on phonics myself when we brought him home a few weeks into 1st grade. In my opinion, there has to be a balance of phonics for the sake of the majority of words and sight words for those common words that break every rule, kwim? To me, learning only sight words and calling yourself a reader is like hopping on a pony ride and calling yourself an equestrian. You might look good on one or two go rounds, but eventually you'll have to be turned loose.
Sight words ALONE isn't the way to go. The ONLY exception in my mind is for special needs children. Children with hearing impairments can SOMETIMES benefit from a sight-word only program, mostly notably Edmark, keeping in mind they have difficulty with phonics because they can't hear it. I've also used this with SOME physically handicapped children. I also believe that many children are forced into reading before they're ready. Some children are ready at a young age (before Kindergarten), and others not until they are nine or ten. But those "late readers" are put into remediation, and forced to try and do something they simply aren't ready for yet. They struggle and are taught to hate reading, that it's difficult and something they "can't" do. If left alone until they're ready, with in a few years of starting they've caught up with their early-reading peers. JMHO!
My niece is going through this. Her Dad started teaching her phonics at home and she did wonderfully! She was reading well! Then at school she got the whole reading approach and was actively discouraged from using phonics. She was failing reading. They were going to put her in remiedial reading. It was trashing her self confidence. I got the whole story by way of DH and got a chance to talk to my BIL. Finally after explaining what they were doing at school I suggested he drill her on sight words for a few days and see what happens. Suddenly her grades shot up! Surprise surprise. So I explained the two approaches and he understood. He can't homeschool since he's a single parent (though he has mentioned he really wishes he could) so he has to work with the schools system. He's not happy about it, but he does it. He also keeps teaching some phonics at home. I hope she comes out learning to read eventually!
Can you homeschool her? It sounds as if he's supportive and might be open to that.... Any program or teacher that discouragaes phonics is simply WRONG!!!
Thanks guys. You pretty much confirmed what I had felt as well. Both my nephew (K) and my neice (1st) are in remedial reading at ps. Their mother commented that her dd was just not picking up the sight words. She CAN sound stuff out though, unfortunately their ps feels that is not an acceptable method of reading (we went through the identical situation at dd's school- no fluency and comprehension with sounding out blah blah horse poppy). These aren't people who will homeschool (and is a family that probably shouldn't, imho). ediesbeads- I'd like to hear more about that. I have heard of drilling sight words that way, but I wonder if that means it will take you 10x longer because the drilling doesn't end until you reach the end of English words. Have you found that not to be true? I promise I'm not arguing- I really want to know long term how that works? Thanks, Meghan
I used to drill the 100 most frequently used English words. We wrote them on index cards starting with just the top 10. We added a few at at time. It worked well for my kids and took some of the frustration out of sounding out words like "the" and "their" when it would take time for them to get to the phonics of blends and such. You can search "Dolch sight words" for the list, if memory serves. I think I also kept the file on my computer if you'd like me to send it to you.
Yes, there's plenty of places with Dolch lists; there's even some where they're done up like flashcard templates and you can run them off on card stock. They're the ones that it really helps to know right off (sight words).
