Why are we still teaching reading the wrong way?

[Anonymous]

Decoding is not easy for many students. I’ve had many more students who had difficulty with decoding than comprehension.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Early education is so trend driven. Someone somewhere writes a book or a paper about something, and suddenly there is a “new and better” way of doing something. Young kids learn how to read by being read to. Parents today are too busy to actually spend time with their kids during the day, and are then shocked when their first grader can’t read a chapter book. Kids need more one on one teaching than your daycare (or kindergarten!) can give your kid. Read to your kid (and not just a couple books at bedtime), show them words during the day, talk to them and label things in your house. I’m so sick of ineffective early education majors preaching (and of course simultaneously complaining) their newest jargon. Educated parents of the world, Just ACTUALLY spend time with your kids ages 0-5 and they will be Fine!

I work and sometimes come home very late and my kids are all in AAP and read well. We encourage reading and require our kids to read. There no book that is too girly or manly and we encourage a wide variety of reading. We talk about current issues in the world. And we taught our kids to decode. Sometimes we can't be home to read with our children. They still seem fine. I'm glad you have the time to spend 1 on 1 with your children at all times. Not everyone has the means to do so.

And we what the first poster advocated for and tried to teach DS to decode, and it didn't work. He's starting to get extra reading instruction from a Specialist, which is helping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Decoding is not that hard for most kids. It's a start, not an end for learning to read. I don't understand these arguments at all. Of course other methods are used. Decoding is just a start just like learning what numbers are and what they represent is a start to learning math.

You'd be surprised.

First, they need to have visual discrimination in order to recognize the letters.
Next, they need auditory discrimination.

If you have never taught children who come from homes with no books, you'd be amazed at how many kids entering school do not have these skills.

But then in that case, you'd teach the preschool skills needed first to then teach decoding. You wouldn't just skip teaching decoding right?

[Anonymous]

Also that Letter Factory DVD taught my kids all their letters and sounds in a very short period of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Decoding is not that hard for most kids. It's a start, not an end for learning to read. I don't understand these arguments at all. Of course other methods are used. Decoding is just a start just like learning what numbers are and what they represent is a start to learning math.

You'd be surprised.

First, they need to have visual discrimination in order to recognize the letters.
Next, they need auditory discrimination.

If you have never taught children who come from homes with no books, you'd be amazed at how many kids entering school do not have these skills.

But then in that case, you'd teach the preschool skills needed first to then teach decoding. You wouldn't just skip teaching decoding right?

No. You would not skip it--but, you would do a lot of language development and other activities before you got to it. And, it is likely that the child would need lots of other reading approaches in order to learn to read. Decoding alone would not be helpful. First, the child needs to learn to discriminate between letters and sounds. But, more important language skills must come first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
No. You would not skip it--but, you would do a lot of language development and other activities before you got to it. And, it is likely that the child would need lots of other reading approaches in order to learn to read. Decoding alone would not be helpful. First, the child needs to learn to discriminate between letters and sounds. But, more important language skills must come first.

What does that mean -- a child needs to learn to discriminate between letters and sounds?

If you had a child arrive in your class at age 6, 1st grade -- with no knowledge of literacy of any kind -- what would you do with that child to ensure she learned how to read?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, but if I employ you with my tax dollars, I don't want your anecdotal experience. Teach the way the experts say to teach.

I am the teacher to whom you are responding.

How many subjects do you need in order for the observations to not be "anecdotal?"

I taught over 500 5-7 year olds to read. During the time I taught, I experienced at least three different methods preferred and studied by "experts." My conclusion: no one method is the best for all kids. A balanced approach is best. And, yes, phonics and decoding is included in that balance. But, if you think that method should be exclusively used, I strongly disagree.
I assume that you are the parent of the dyslexic child who has spent lots of money on tutors. I am glad your child is succeeding. I'm sorry his teachers did not include decoding in their instruction, but decoding alone is not the best method. And, I suspect that his tutoring includes instruction one-on-one and/or very small groups. You do understand that you are offering "anecdotal" justification for your preferred method?

I'm not the parent you are responding to. I'd say the sentence I bolded is a straw man argument. If you think people are arguing that "phonics is all that should be taught", then I understand where your disagreement is coming from.

People like me aren't arguing that ALL that should be taught is phonics. And we have to be careful that we understand exactly what is meant by teaching "phonics" -- I use that term to mean teaching the underpinnings of decoding. That starts with being able to segment words into individual phonemes, orally -- and to blend individual phonemes into words. Mostly this is a process that children naturally develop, although if they are slow to develop there are games and activities you can do to encourage the ability to develop. Many children pick this part up so naturally through simple exposure to rhymes and songs and games that there is no need for formal instruction. But if children don't pick it up they do need this to be developed.

After you are sure children can blend and segment phonemes, they need to have a letter sound match. The simple code (one to on correspondence) and then that advanced code (two + letters represent one sound). That's BASIC decoding and should be taught first, although again many children who have strong oral vocabulary and strong segmenting and blending skills can actually pick this up more or less on their own through repeated reading and sight word instruction -- that's why teachers and parents think that the sight word method works for some students. It does work, but only because the students on their own are capable of hearing the word, seeing the word, matching the letters and sounds and doing all the segmenting in their heads. Essentially through teaching sight words you are allowing them to learn how to decode on their own. They aren't skipping the decoding part, they just do it without you teaching it to them.

But kids who don't have the ability to blend and segment well when they are taught to read one syllable words really need to be instructed in how to decode and encode. That might be 30% of your first graders. This is the group I work with and mostly care about -- the group of K and 1st and even 2nd grade students who need direct, systematic, and sequential instruction in decoding skills.

Again NO ONE is saying that reading instruction stops once kids learn to decode! For many kids the decoding instruction is over (or wasn't even needed) by the end of 1st grade! What instruction is still needed can come through spelling lessons. After kids are able to decode two and three syllable words, there's still the vast majority of reading instruction to come -- comprehension, fluency, intonation, character and plot development and so on. Learning how to interpret written symbols and turn them into speech is only the very first step. But if you don't get that first step you will be forever hindered in all the higher order skills.

It is vital to be able to decode first, so that you can do all those other meaningful things involved in reading.

[Anonymous]

It is vital to be able to decode first, so that you can do all those other meaningful things involved in reading.

What is wrong with using all methods? Strongly disagree that decoding must come first. It can be taught along with other approaches. It should not be taught in isolation from other methods of teaching reading to young children.

There was a poster on here who was pushing for that. I'm not sure if it was you or not.