Teachers??

[planet]

What do you think of sight reading (rote memorization of words)?

When a child is first starts learning to read, that's how a child begins-- rereading familiar texts that they have memorized. If a child can read some words and is in the early reading levels, he will read a book several times and can easily memorize it. This rereading of books will help with fluency and expression.

[madeintaiwan]

Re: Teachers??

What do you think of sight reading (rote memorization of words)?

I prefer a mixture of rote memorization and phonics. I think they both have a great benefits and that both should be used. Last year J had about 25 sight words that they had to learn simply from just rereading the word. But his teacher also emphasized learning letter sounds and sounding words out. I learned strictly on phonics and H learned from site and I am a way better speller than he is but he is a faster reader than I am.

J is a pretty awesome reader, he was in the highest reading group for his class. Our friend's (really MIL best friends but they are more our age than hers and we hang with them) kid's school focused strictly on site reading and his level of reading is no where near J's. He can't read at all. As in he knows some words but he can't read sentences in a book. Their school also scores considerly lower in their state and national exams than the schools that my brothers attend despite having the same demographics. My brother's school uses a mixture of both. When I was in the classroom I adminstered the reading assements for the kids and the kids who could sound out words got through more passages. Their fluency wasn't as great but they read at a higher level. I think fluency is something you can improve over time where how you first learn to read sticks with you for your life.

Anyhow, I think site learning is good and useful for those words that appear in the English language frequently (the, and, they, he, she ect) but I think it can be a disservice to a kid learning to read to not teach them letter sounds and syllables as well.

[PrincessFiona]

I've seen both styles used and I'm all for phonics now...though I understand it is totally not the "in" learning style.

I say this because my older two did the memorize word thing (with phonics mixed in once they had fluency at "reading" certain words/books) and my middle child did phonics at Montessori with memorization coming later after he mastered the sound-it-out rule.

Thought it's true that most of the words that we read are memorized sight words to us and it seems natural then to "memorize" words....most of us learned these words through phonics years ago....and they became memorized words in our minds.

My older two children read a lot..but when they come across a word that is unfamiliar to them they often mispronounce it...it is kind of funny but it bothers me. When we are working on german, they have a much reduced ability to read because the words all look so unfamiliar to them and they don't automatically rely on sounding it out.

My 8 year old, on the other hand, does not mispronounce words he doesn't know...he actively sounds them out and is usually dead on...and the same holds true for german reading.....

my .02

If I could go back in time, I would have sent my older kids to the Montessori school too.....

kris

[planet]

So... I was a bit of a purist and ds has been learning just phonics. But so many rules are broken and it just got to be absurd. I felt like I was cheating somehow by starting sight words, but he's taken off with his reading now that he has down some words that were more like stumbling blocks before. I am reassured though if sight reading is widely used that I won't ruin his progress.

I was afraid of hearing some scathing things about sight reading. What do I know. :huh:

[PrincessFiona]

See Janet...that is a HUGE issue. Maybe a mixture of both is best...the questions is just how to find that balance.....


kris

[planet]

Kris,

I did not know this was a huge issue. Not having kids in the school system I miss out on a lot of the current discussions and politics I think. Sometimes it is a loss...sometimes, maybe not so much. I'm sure to make many more mistakes along the way....

[Rapunzel]

Combination of phonics and memorization of mostly the Dolch sight words .

I have found teaching the older three (and, now the fourth who is well into a first grade reading curriculum) that they need to have simple rules to follow. Structure is important to small children and they need things to "make sense". However, there are certain words that they need to know in order to read meaningful text that just cannot be taught at the most basic reading level of phonics. Good examples of these sight words are "the" and "her". Phonics generally doesn't cover the "th" noise nor "r" controlled vowels until well after the basic alphabet has been tackled.

Thus, I use both a good, solid phonics curriculum AND we memorize a few of the repeated, prominant words that cannot be worked out with beginning phonetics. It's worked beautifully with the older kids, and the five year old (who would be entering kindergarten this fall) has managed to go from completely illiterate to a first grade reading level in the last few weeks using this method.

[PrincessFiona]

What are the dolch sight words?

I think what miffed me about this is that Alex entered 1st grade able to read basic words/books: The cat sat on the mat etc. He had learned how to sound out words like mat, hat, cat, sat, sit etc...but...he didn't know words like purple, orange, Monday, Friday etc. Those were "memorize" words for kindergarten.

The kindergarteners here memorize a bunch of words...this continues into first grade and then eventually....they switch over to phonics.

Alex was placed in special ed for 6 weeks because of his "problem"...and I honestly thought it was THE most retarded thing ever. He was out of it within 6 weeks, but he actually was officially enrolledin special ed over the fact that he had not yet been exposed to the memorization of color words, days of the week words, etc. Clearly, he had no learning problem/disability or anything else...

It's just stupid.

I wish I wasn't such a putz..I'd homeschool if I could...I just don't have the personality for it. Just remembering that gets my feathers ruffled.

Why make a big deal out of something that was so obviously not a big deal. Once they told me the words that he needed to memorize, he had them all done within 10 days..... It was so dumb.

Oh...I'm going to need drugs in a few weeks....so...will the teachers, I'm sure. :>


kris

[Urowife]

What are the dolch sight words?

Through Google, I found this site: http://www.createdbyteachers.com/sightfreemain.html

I think it's basically just a list of words that are very common and are not *necessarily* easily sounded out.

I'm pretty sure I learned with site words, and my older brother learned with phonics (although, to be honest, it could very well have been the opposite). My mom was a reading recovery teacher for many years, so I'm curious to know her opinions on this. I'll post again if she has anything interesting to add from her experiences.

By the way, Kris, I think it's ridiculous that your son was put in special ed because he couldn't read certain words in the first grade. They have to realize that kids coming from different schools are going to have different backgrounds and levels, but there's no reason he should be separated from the group.

[kaseymarie]

I agree with the combination of sight words (Dolch) and phonics. I am a special education teacher so maybe this won't work well with all children, but it works with my students

[PrincessFiona]

Urowife,

I didn't argue with the teacher about it. She said that their curriculum was to have the kids coming in to first grade knowing certain words that he didn't know. She also is not a friend of Montessori.

It's funny too, because the requirements for incoming first graders had changed so much since my older two came in just a couple of years before Alex. Andrew is only 5 years older, but his grade had no reading requirements for entering first grade other than knowing the alphabet and the letter sounds. Amanda is 16 months younger than Andrew and there were also no reading requirements...though they had introduced some sight words for the kids to start learning....These were not required or tested. A few years later the kids had to memorize so many words to even start first grade.

The teacher told us that it was the Montessori school's fault for not knowing this and when she found out recently that Aidan is starting Montessori in the Fall, she said "Didn't you learn your lesson the first time?".

In all fairness, Alex only did 1 year of the 3 year Montessori cycle. All of the kids that had completed the 3 year cycle were reading easily and doing pretty good math problems....

I guess everyone has an opinion.

I teach first grade. We use the Fry List of sight words. First graders are required to know the first 25 by the end of 1st quarter, then 1-50 by the end of the 2nd quarter, 1-75 by the end of 3rd quarter, and finally 1-100 by the end of the year. Here's a link to the one that is on my school website: http://rbeaudoin333.homestead.com/sightvocab_1.html

We use a combination of teaching sight words and teaching phonics.
If a first grader comes in and is discrepant from his peers, he would get a reading intervention which consists of 30 minutes of daily instruction in a small group setting with one of our reading teachers. The focus is a sequential phonics program. This is addition to reading instruction within the classroom. This is NOT special education, merely an intervention. To qualify for Special Education here, a child would go through a variety of interventions and testing BEFORE he would begin receiving special ed. services.

I don't know a lot about Montessori schools. I've had students who went to them for kindergarten, some were behind when they started first grade and some were ahead.

Which school system are you in Julie?

[PrincessFiona]

Thanks for the info, Julie.

I trust this teacher and have known her for years...but I was a bit taken aback by how that situation was handled. I actually had to sign a Title I form for Alex after the first week of school. I was so surprised because he had never actually had trouble learning what was expected of him. The way that you do things at your school sounds really great! Alex just hadn't been exposed to those words before...and it didn't take him any time to catch on. Because of how he was treated about it initially though, he really struggled with his reading self-esteem. He used to say "I stink at reading" a lot...even after he had it down pat.

Maybe here it is a problem of resources?

I'm definitely going to hold on to the sightvocab link for Aidan. Thanks again!