Anonymous wrote:When I was in school (a looooong time ago), we were taught strictly phonics in 1st grade. The only comprehension was when our teacher read aloud to us after recess. She would turn the lights off and we had to put our heads on our desks while she read us a chapter book. Every once in a while, she would ask us a question but not too often. If not enough time is spent teaching students the basics of fluent decoding, the comprehension piece with be a moot point. If a student can't decode with accuracy and fluency, they won't be able to comprehend what they are reading anyway.

Gee. That's great that you can remember precisely everything you were taught in first grade. I cannot imagine how boring that must have been. She did nothing but teach decoding when teaching reading? You didn't read any books at all that weren't nonsensical and had no meaning in first grade? No discussion at all of what you were reading--just sounding out words? No picture clues? No story writing? No comprehension questions at all? It's a wonder you ever wished to pick up a book.

I don't remember precisely what I learned in first grade. I do remember sometime around the first of the school year that my teacher had a "thing" about how to pronounce "pretty." She wrote the word on the board and pointed out the "r" after the "p" and said it is "pretty" not "purty." I knew that already, but I guess there were kids in the class who did not. I do remember my second grade teacher drilling sounds with flash cards, and I'm pretty sure I got that in first grade, as well, but, I really don't remember too much about the classroom itself. I remember that when the second grade teacher would leave the room for a minute and we were turning work in, that everyone tried to put their work on the bottom of the pile so she would think our work was the first that was finished. But, day to day instruction, I don't remember so well.

When I was in school (a looooong time ago), we were taught strictly phonics in 1st grade. The only comprehension was when our teacher read aloud to us after recess. She would turn the lights off and we had to put our heads on our desks while she read us a chapter book. Every once in a while, she would ask us a question but not too often. If not enough time is spent teaching students the basics of fluent decoding, the comprehension piece with be a moot point. If a student can't decode with accuracy and fluency, they won't be able to comprehend what they are reading anyway.

Anonymous wrote: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.)

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.

Here's a great summary of all the different ways lack of decoding skills will cause students to make reading accuracy errors:

http://www.righttrackreading.com/errors.html

In my opinion, it is an over-reliance on teaching words by sight that leads to kids not learning to decode. I'd say between 20 and 25% of the students in most schools I've worked lack fully proficient decoding skills. Possibly more... and it will show in their spelling if it isn't immediately apparent in their reading. Smart kids can struggle through a text using "scan and guess" strategies all the way through 5th grade and then might fall apart in middle school, thinking they "aren't good at reading".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do not (as advanced readers) decode every word. We read by sight. The earlier a child can do this the better. Kids can not comprehend well until they are reading by sight. Children (nor adults) do not need to sound out long words. We scan the whole word as well as the words after the word to guess the meaning of that unknown word. We are doing this constantly.

Phonics is fine to get a start.

Spanish and Latin is great for strengthening reading skills later in middle or high school.

It's true that, as proficient readers, we no longer need to decode every word. Just as in math, we no longer have to think about what 5 + 7 is (most of us don't). We have solved that problem often enough to realize it is 12. We have seen the phonogram "igh" together in words so often, we just "know" that they represent the "long I" sound in most words. So we see a word like sigh, or high, or flight, and the word just pops into our brains. We don't have to sound it out.

However, if we are reading, say, a fantasy or science fiction novel and see a nonsense word for example, "Mr. Depsigh", we might need to fall back on our basic decoding skills.

I strongly disagree with the second bolded statement. Poor readers who never properly learned to read phonetically? Yes they need to be constantly scanning ahead to try to guess meaning of words. Because they didn't learn to decode.

If you have learned to decode properly and thoroughly, you seldom need to guess a word from context.

If you have learned to decode syllables efficiently, you do not need to sound out long words. You can quickly look at each syllable and chunk it. The syllables are based on Latin and Green roots, prefixes and suffixes. A key way to improve reading comprehension in grades 4+ is to be sure students can quickly decode these roots and affixes, and know their meaning.

-tion, -ture, aqua- circum - graph, photo, chron-, hypo-

Once you are able to decode the above roots and affixes such as the ones above, you can read almost any word in the English language -- no scanning or guessing based on context necessary. In this manner, you are able to learn by reading. You don't need to ask anyone what a new word is, because you don't need them to read it out loud to you. You have the magic of decoding at your fingertips, and you can read the word to yourself.

If you can decode, you can read "synchronicity", "indeterminate", "hypothyroidism", "aquaculture". No guessing required.

I do not know who this poster is, but he/she knows what he/she is talking about. When testing reading, you have to take away the outliers like "reading comprehension," and look at the subtexts like rapid automatic naming (ran) and nonsense words. These are the true indicators of weak reading, weak phonemic skills, and, most likely, dyslexia.

Signed, Parent Who Has Learned The Hard Way/We're Still In The Trenches, But Finally Making Progress

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.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with students learning sight words phonetically is that they won't get through those lessons (the spellings one of the PPs had in the You Tube link) until the end of first grade or even second grade. Students are expected to be reading on a level D at the end of kindergarten. Look at a level A book. "I see the ________. I see the ________." Etc. If students don't learn long vowels until first grade (ee), they won't be able to read a level A book until then. Unless the expectations change for what reading on grade level means, you really just need to teach many sight words as words you memorize.

I agree this is a problem. The Leveled Reading books schools use to monitor reading progress are based on a sight word method of teaching reading. I wish schools would adopt the Diebels Nonsense Word Fluency Test instead.

We use both and I hate the leveled reading texts we have to use to assess reading levels. NWF gives me a lot more info about a student than their ability to read a leveled text that follows a certain pattern.

Anonymous wrote:The problem with students learning sight words phonetically is that they won't get through those lessons (the spellings one of the PPs had in the You Tube link) until the end of first grade or even second grade. Students are expected to be reading on a level D at the end of kindergarten. Look at a level A book. "I see the ________. I see the ________." Etc. If students don't learn long vowels until first grade (ee), they won't be able to read a level A book until then. Unless the expectations change for what reading on grade level means, you really just need to teach many sight words as words you memorize.

The problem with this is that it doesn't set up kids to be able to read harder words in 3rd and 4th grade. There are simply too many words for them to memorize. The kids in the higher reading groups can decode, but those in the lower ones usually can't unless it is explicitly taught (and it probably wont be, as long as teachers know they need to really push the sight words to move the kids to the next reading level.) .
'
So you end up where we are in many schools... with a group of persistently low reading kids permanently stuck in the below grade level reading group. If they don't learn to decode by second grade they are probably sunk... unless their parents get them a tutor.

Anonymous wrote:The problem with students learning sight words phonetically is that they won't get through those lessons (the spellings one of the PPs had in the You Tube link) until the end of first grade or even second grade. Students are expected to be reading on a level D at the end of kindergarten. Look at a level A book. "I see the ________. I see the ________." Etc. If students don't learn long vowels until first grade (ee), they won't be able to read a level A book until then. Unless the expectations change for what reading on grade level means, you really just need to teach many sight words as words you memorize.

I agree this is a problem. The Leveled Reading books schools use to monitor reading progress are based on a sight word method of teaching reading. I wish schools would adopt the Diebels Nonsense Word Fluency Test instead.

Anonymous wrote:We do not (as advanced readers) decode every word. We read by sight. The earlier a child can do this the better. Kids can not comprehend well until they are reading by sight. Children (nor adults) do not need to sound out long words. We scan the whole word as well as the words after the word to guess the meaning of that unknown word. We are doing this constantly.

Phonics is fine to get a start.

Spanish and Latin is great for strengthening reading skills later in middle or high school.

It's true that, as proficient readers, we no longer need to decode every word. Just as in math, we no longer have to think about what 5 + 7 is (most of us don't). We have solved that problem often enough to realize it is 12. We have seen the phonogram "igh" together in words so often, we just "know" that they represent the "long I" sound in most words. So we see a word like sigh, or high, or flight, and the word just pops into our brains. We don't have to sound it out.

However, if we are reading, say, a fantasy or science fiction novel and see a nonsense word for example, "Mr. Depsigh", we might need to fall back on our basic decoding skills.

I strongly disagree with the second bolded statement. Poor readers who never properly learned to read phonetically? Yes they need to be constantly scanning ahead to try to guess meaning of words. Because they didn't learn to decode.

If you have learned to decode properly and thoroughly, you seldom need to guess a word from context.

If you have learned to decode syllables efficiently, you do not need to sound out long words. You can quickly look at each syllable and chunk it. The syllables are based on Latin and Green roots, prefixes and suffixes. A key way to improve reading comprehension in grades 4+ is to be sure students can quickly decode these roots and affixes, and know their meaning.

-tion, -ture, aqua- circum - graph, photo, chron-, hypo-

Once you are able to decode the above roots and affixes such as the ones above, you can read almost any word in the English language -- no scanning or guessing based on context necessary. In this manner, you are able to learn by reading. You don't need to ask anyone what a new word is, because you don't need them to read it out loud to you. You have the magic of decoding at your fingertips, and you can read the word to yourself.

If you can decode, you can read "synchronicity", "indeterminate", "hypothyroidism", "aquaculture". No guessing required.

Phonics should be taught.
Sight words should be taught.
Other tools should be taught, as well.

There is no benefit to teaching one approach only. Use all of the above.

The problem with students learning sight words phonetically is that they won't get through those lessons (the spellings one of the PPs had in the You Tube link) until the end of first grade or even second grade. Students are expected to be reading on a level D at the end of kindergarten. Look at a level A book. "I see the ________. I see the ________." Etc. If students don't learn long vowels until first grade (ee), they won't be able to read a level A book until then. Unless the expectations change for what reading on grade level means, you really just need to teach many sight words as words you memorize.

We do not (as advanced readers) decode every word. We read by sight. The earlier a child can do this the better. Kids can not comprehend well until they are reading by sight. Children (nor adults) do not need to sound out long words. We scan the whole word as well as the words after the word to guess the meaning of that unknown word. We are doing this constantly.

Phonics is fine to get a start.

Spanish and Latin is great for strengthening reading skills later in middle or high school.

Anonymous wrote:

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

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.

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?"

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...."

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Phonics is valuable and essential in teaching kids to read. But, if that is the only tool a teacher uses it would be like an art teacher who doesn't let the kids use anything but crayons and drawing paper.

It can be done--but it is limiting on results.

Learning to decode with automaticity is a fundamental basic of reading. Is is not meant to be the end result!

It is like a violin teacher who makes sure her students know how to play the notes correctly and easily, before attempting to play a sonata.

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

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?"

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.