Reply to Why are we still teaching reading the wrong way?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

This is just an example of a sorry teacher.  I taught K and First.  I cannot imagine not knowing if a child I was evaluating did not know his letters and sounds.  I am a teacher who believes in using "all of the above" methods when teaching reading.  Children do not all learn in the same way and some need tools besides phonics to learn to read.  I believe that phonics is essential--but not the only tool to be used in teaching kids to read.
And, reading comprehension is the purpose of reading and needs to be developed along with phonics and sight words.  I cannot imagine relying on phonics alone to teach reading.[/quote]

So many K and 1st grade teachers I come into contact with (I'm an ESOL teacher who moves from school to school) truly do not test for letter sound knowledge, that I have to believe it is by curriculum design and not just because they are crummy teachers.  They test for letter NAME (both upper and lowercase) but not for letter sound, which of course as a former K teacher yourself, you know is a completely different thing.

I have come across several children who through the letter W should be used to show the sound /d/ because of only learning letter names!

In my opinion, children who have strong phonetic blending and segmenting skills AND letter-sound knowledge already in place at the time that sight words (and word families) are being taught can manage to essentially teach themselves how to decode.  So to say they all don't learn the same way is correct -- some kids do not need explicit phonics.  That's why the sight word method in use in our school, with a smattering of "word study" thrown in, plus probably a good bit of parental tutoring at home, works for maybe 70% of the students in my schools.

But explicit teaching of phonics ... NOT boring phonics workbooks, NOT ridiculous phonics "rules" -- but simply teaching the basic code, the advanced code, blending and segmenting, and then decoding polysyllabic words -- WILL work for all students (excepting those with severe memory or other deficits).  Some students can whip through the lessons in just  a few hours or weeks and probably would do fine without them at all, if they are able to pick it up on their own; although the lessons do help with spelling correctly.

Saying all students learn differently is like saying there are many ways to stay healthy.  True, but the ability to handle words phonetically is the basis of all reading ability, just as sanitation is the basis to good health.[/quote]

Have you ever taught reading in a classroom situation?  How do you teach phonics?  What are your methods of "simply teaching the basic code, the advanced code, blending and segmenting, and then decoding polysyllabic words ?"

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