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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Sure.  And, you can get someone who quickly loses interest because playing chords without a melody is not satisfying to most children.[/quote]

What??   You don't play chords on a violin.   And if you don't teach kids how to play each note on a violin, you won't get a melody, you will get screetching.

[quote]You cannot read by relying exclusively on decoding.  You are limiting the language in very early books to "hop" and "pop."  How are you going to teach the kid to decode "one, two?"  Are you going to start with "three?"[/quote]

When I teach decoding, I start with the most usually way to spell each consonant sound and the 5 short vowels.  I make sure kids can easily segment and blend CVC words.  I move as quickly as I can to words with consonant blends (CCVC, CVCC, and even some CCVCC syllables.) . We deal with the consonant digraphs next and quickly -- th, ch, sh, wh, ck, and ng.

I then very quickly move into "Vowel teams" ordered by sound:   first the vowel teams used to show the "long o" sound:  (oa, o-e, ow, ough, o).  We then do /ou/ . (ou and ow) and deal with the fact that "ow" can represent two sounds -- /oe/ as in grow, /ou/ as in cow.  The only way you can know which sound "ow" represents is to decode the word and try it both ways, then figure out which sound it has through context.   (for example, you have "crow" but "crown") .  That establishes the principle that decoding is useful, but you need to be flexible with it because there isn't an exact match between symbol and sound.

After we have learned 15 sounds represented by ample vowel teams (some sounds are represented by 7 or 8 different vowel teams) students are excellent at decoding one and two syllable words and can also spell everything in a phonetically plausible way.  About 80% of sight words are phonetically decodable so at this point they can read a lot of the K-2nd grade sight words.  Along the way I teach the non decodable sight words, of course.   The words  "a" "said" "where" "of" "was" "what" and "one" and "once" and do need to be taught by sight, although many of them have consonant sounds that make them partially decodable.

Word like "two" I teach when we learn ways to spell the "oo" sound, under "o":  two, to, who, do

In fact once students have mastered the basic and advanced code and know how to decode two syllable words they can read almost all the words people think have to be mastered by sight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXZ1fFEaYeE

Not only that they are able to spell the words in a phonetically plausible way (at least) and do really well on spelling tests.  And they are able to quickly move into decoding unfamiliar multisyllable words with Latin roots.  These words are highly decodable, and since the students have accuracy and efficiency in decoding they can decipher these words quickly and spell them without dropping any sounds.

So I am not relying exclusively on decoding.  I am teaching decoding efficiently, in an organized, systematic way, and making sure students have mastered the basics.  Decoding starts with "hop on pop", moves quickly to "the quick brown fox leapt over the fence and through the window" and ends up helping students decode "When in the course of human events, in becomes necessary for one nation...."

[quote]There are lots of words that cannot be sounded out properly.  And, yes, I do believe in teaching kids to decode with phonics.  But, it cannot be used as the only tool.[/quote]

I disagree with you there.  Out of all the words in the English language, most can be entirely decoded (once you know the basic AND advanced code) or partially decoded, and then yes, you do need to try it both ways and use a little context to help you figure out the word.  For example, "crown" -- could be /crone/ so you need to use context to figure out which way we pronounce the "ow".

It isn't the only tool, but it should be taught well and taught first.   Save memorizing words by sight for those few where it is really needed.[/quote]

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