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[quote=Anonymous]So just this afternoon I sat in a staff meeting where were were supposed to look at data on kids who were struggling in reading or math, and brainstorm ways to help them.

The first grade teacher in my group brought up a boy who was still reading at a DRA level of 1.  She said he just couldn't remember any sight words and wasn't making any progress.   (Kids are supposed to be at least a level 4 at the start of grade 1 in our district and by December should be about level 10 I think).

I asked her whether he knew all his letter sounds.  She said probably not, but she didn't know for sure.  He knew about half of his letter names (she tests foe letter names) but she didn't actually know which letter sounds he knew!!

I don't understand this.  Even if you are going to teach kids to memorize words just by sight, why wouldn't you at LEAST make sure that they know all their consonant sounds, to give them something to hang each word on?   Take the word "see".  At least make sure they know that s makes the /s/ sound.

Even though the method I use is methodical, it isn't necessarily slow. Some students progress through quite rapidly.  And for kids who are behind as this boy is, I GUARANTEE the systematic phonics instruction I use would be much faster than the sight word method for him, with no systematic phonics (if she was also using systematic phonics, she'd be well aware of which letter sounds he knew or didn't know.)
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