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Phonics vs. Sight-Words
If you go to YouTube you will see that the Reading Wars rage on. To my surprise, there are a lot of videos that present sight-words (or Dolch words) as a good and necessary thing.
I would've thought that "Why Johnny Can't Read" disproved that a long time ago.
Be that as it may, if you are looking for arguments against sight-words and for phonics, I have a dozen videos on YouTube that explore these issues. (These are short graphic videos for the most part.)
The newest one is called "Why Sight Words Prevent Reading and Cause Dyslexia." Basically, English has far too many words and far too many typefaces for anyone to learn to read with sight-words. Automaticity might be achieved for a few hundred designs, but not for thousands, especially when the designs are constantly changing due to our uppercase, lowercase, etc. It's astonishing that the experts pushing Dolch words pretended for decades that automaticity can be routinely achieved; and they did this without ever once suggesting how students are supposed to cope with our fairly astonishing range of fonts. For one tiny example, if a child memorized this configuration, far, would the child recognize this configuration: FAR? How could he? The two designs have little in common. They are much further apart than, say, S and $.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkPHrr5VGSU
BY THE WAY
Sorry about the double posting and the typo in the first try. The site just did what it wanted. You know how computers can be.
I agree that phonics is
I agree that phonics is absolutely essential. However, don't you think with the way our English language has so many rule breaking sounds that many of our words are indeed "sight words"? I teach a strong phonics based curriculum, but we also teach 20 new sight words every 2 weeks.
Words Their Way
I teach in Delta, British Columbia grades 1/2. We use Words Their Way - a phonics and sight word based program. Excellent to balance both methods and teach kids the patterns of the English language.
Words Their Way is phonics -
Words Their Way is phonics - It uses the onset - rime and word family approach. You are sorting words based on word families. Sight word reading takes me back to - Dick Jane Sally and Spot. I was taught to recognize words that didn't relate to one another; the flash card approach. Some children will learn to read regardless which approach you use, but without phonics, they will struggle with English spelling. The children I teach are special education English language learners. The sequence of instruction is, concepts about print - phonemic awareness and phonics. Sight words are taught for those words that aren't phonetic.
phonics and sight words
I agree that some English words must be taught by sight. Most students also respond well to phonics instruction, especially when it is embedded in a rich literary environment. I have worked with a few kids who really did not "get" phonics at all and learned to read by memorizing word shapes. Some of these kids are very good readers as upper el students, so it must have worked for them. But it can be a real struggle for them to get started as readers.
One of the most precarious dangers in this realm is the assumption that there is one way to teach reading. There are many strategies to learn which will help people to decode words. We all depend on these strategies to different degrees. We ought to be thinking about diversifying reading instruction to reach multiple modalities and presenting information through a variety of activities.
There is always more than one way to learn something because there are always so many different approaches to learning. Keep in mind that learning involves students making a change in their brains. The quickest route is to relate new information to old stuff already in storage. That means that the curriculum we present is only half the story of any learning situation. The other half comes from the student, occurs in endless variety, and constitutes a substantial portion of the challenge of our profession.
One size is never gonna fit all when every brain is so unique!
MK
Three Caveats
Marva Collins and all the other phonics experts say they can teach 99% of children to read in the first grade. So that's the gold standard.
Also, these experts maintain that memorizing word-designs creates a holistic reflex that sabotages the critical phonetic reflex; and this is why so many children have trouble reading.
Question is, when a child's eyes move toward the next word, what happens?? If the word is processed left to right as sounds, that's reading. If the eyes search back and forth over the whole shape (that's how we look at a face), trying to recall its name, that's the road to functional illiteracy.
When phonics doesn't work
I work in a phonics based system, and we teach sight words when simple phonic words are being read with confidence. Our students typically begin to read well before first grade.
But there are some students who do not seem to internalize the process of blending sounds into words. They do learn to read, but they are doing it differently, and phonics doesn't seem to help them much.
Because we have great ratios and individualized currlculum, we do get more than our share of atypical learners. I have found that having more than one approach allows me to work with a wider range of learners.
Have you never had experience with a student who didn't respond to phonics instruction?
MK
PS
I have no experience in the classroom. I've read the main 20 books and 100 articles and worked my way through what all the experts on both sides are claiming. I think now I understand it. Part of the process is deciding whom you can trust. Here is a wonderfully stark summation by someone I think you can trust, phonics guru (and school teacher) Don Potter:
“The situation across the nation is dramatically worse that anyone can possibly imagine. When I ask the teachers why they teach sight-words, they inevitably tell me because their students are going to be assessed on them. They are totally unaware that sight-words are positively harmful. They consider sight-words part of a good reading program that includes some phonics, not realizing that sight-words create a reflex that interferes with phonics instruction. Sight-words are an obstacle to reading, not an aid.”
Denise Eide has a new book called "Uncovering the Logic of English." (My Amazon review is called "Memo To Teachers: Come Back To Real Reading." This book and my review touch all these issues.)
Sight Words vs Phonics
Thank you so much for this information. I have a student with a learning disability in reading and I've tried everything I know to teach him to read. He is the only student I've had that I was not able to help. Your information was very helpful. I thank you and my student thanks you.