I was looking at a sight word list and I don't understand why there are words on there that can be sound out. such as... " can, make, like, yellow, blue." It makes no sense to me.
I'll get myself a copy of the book - if what is claimed is true and if the rules do not turn out to be tedious for children to learn, then nothing like it...still the language has a long way to go for somebody to just see and read it without having to remember way too many rules...thanks, nevertheless for the pointer.
It is not clear what 98% you talk about, but a big percentage (certainly more than 2 if not 20%) of high usage words are exceptions. See the variations in vowels in these very sentences. You read them because you use whole word reading. Else, you'd be stuck somewhere in the first line like how most children I teach to read would be if they followed the phonic system! What I'm saying is: English has far few vowels and far too many variations for the vowels to be followed phonically.GBShaw'd agree
@yamunaharsha But at the same time, if you didn't have any phonics background at all, you would be completely stuck if you came to a word that you didn't know/hadn't seen before.
English has a highly confusing phonetic system, in fact so confusing that exceptions are more prevalent than the ones following the rules. This is the reason why the concept of sight words came into being: p-u-t has a different 'u' from b-u-t. How much can phonics help the child? Indian languages, are structured so you read as you write and write as you speak. English, sadly isnt that.Always wondered why linguistologists (or whatever they are called) did not come up with a solution for this.
@yamunaharsha Nonsense. English words are 98% phonetic. There are inconsistencies, which is not the same as saying the words aren't phonetic. Shades of blue are still blue. The u's are like shades of blue. English is 400+ years old. It has taken in words from 50+ languages. It is spoken in far-flung regions with different dialects. So inconsistencies accrue. (Much like the irregular verbs that most languages have--you memorize them.)
Please also see "How Dolch Words Cause Illiteracy and Dyslexia." It's fun and covers the subject very well. I watch it and I can't believe anyone is still messing with Sight Words.
this argument is absurd. young children's brains are geared toward memorizing thousands of bits of information with every experience without a problem. adult brains are not. did you just sound out every word in that sentence? you did not. yopu recognized every last one of them. if you are a competent reader, you recognize basically every english word without phonics.
Language is spoken and learned by hearing others speak it out loud - it is fundamentally a phonetic activity. Written language is a very serious abstraction from spoken language and writing is only used to convey the meaning in the absence of the author - who "speaks" through his writing. Young children are excellent at picking up both verbal and written language - but hearing is much more important and powerful than seeing - unless the child is seeing objects named in the real world.Phonetics!
how is written language an abstraction? a word represents an object or idea. my two year old recognizes hundreds of sight words, he knows what the words look like and what they mean, and rarely confuses words because he is aware of context. reading and writing is almost entirely visual after the early stages, not auditory. actually, reading out loud has proven to obstruct comprehension, because reading is an internal, visual process.
Learning a language naturally goes through phases: hearing it, hearing it and beginning to understand it, learning to imitate the sounds or learning what physical objects are represented by sounds - which can be physical objects or -one more step removed- a 2 dimensional representation of a physical object or -one more step removed- a two dimensional representation of a sound. Everyone learns and remembers best when all of the senses and emotions and intellect are engaged as much as possible.
Vilifying sight words misses the point. Left-brained learners can do phonics because it involves symbols, sequences, rules, drill. The issue IS that 2/3 of our children learn best with right brained approaches. Do you know that visual learners cannot learn rules, do not respond to drill? They need visuals to learn (right brain) and when they learn, it is instant. Phonics & stylized sight words used together engage both hemispheres of the brain. Google stylized sight words. See child-1st(dot)com.
You're making money selling Dolch words?? I'll continue to trust Samuel Blumenfeld's analysis that once children start seeing words as shapes rather than sounds, they won't become fluent readers. I've seen arguments that a few sight words can't hurt, but I'd rather err on the side of caution and warn parents against any sight words.
Our students don't see words as shapes. This is vastly different from that. Did you go see? Are you by any chance a teacher of students who struggle? Have you worked specifically with students who are visual learners, dyslexic children? and found solutions for them that worked for the first time in their lives? I have and there is absolutely nothing like it. We teach with the stylized word first and for kids who also learn from whole to part, the approach is vital. THEN we teach phonics.
By the way, I am able to reach this type of learner all over the globe because of the internet, and when I have parents writing me to say that their children are making sense out of reading for the first time in their lives, I am proud and grateful. I have been in the school system with the role of "mopping up" after all the testing, sorting and labeling and have been there with the kids who have no confidence left because of the label they have been given. I am glad to have a solution to offer!
my dyslexic daughter naturally reads whole words - she doesnt seem to memorize but i have a feeling it is some sort of photographic memory. as she gets older (now nine), she encounters more words and so belatedly we have to teach her phonics
i've had many students who learned from whole to part, which is what you are describing. visual learners do learn instantly. SO, when teaching these children, stylized sight words are essential, but also teaching the structural analysis of words (phonics of sorts) is equally essential. Many kids, however, need to understand that they can recognize whole words before the task of learning the components of words makes sense to them.
Your story is the reason many people want to stop teaching sight words! It confuses many. My daughter is a visual learner also. She fought me when I tried to teach her phonics. She thought she already knew how to read, but she wasn't reading. In fact she didn't even look at the book most of the time. She looked in the air while she tried to find the word she had memorized. I tutor reading. The local schools teach sight words. Some kids are able to learn to read and decode without help, but why!?
I don't believe that functional illiteracy is caused by sight words, dolch or the present methodology used just as you have said on your video. There is the socio-economic factor to consider, undiagnosed disability in speech, sight or other disablities that may contribute to it. Whole language approach may be the education system's methodology of helping children learn how to read but it's another thing spending the first 4 years at home where parents play the main role of introducing language.
Well, you are right about one thing, the cause of the trouble is always something beside the school. Parents, TV, video games, drugs, the kid's genes, there are so many alibis...If you let the educators off so easily, they'll feel no pressure to improve.
None of these issues is "the problem." The problem is that we are teaching all children the same and children's minds are as different as snowflakes. Some adults are left-brained and are engineers (etc), while others are arty, creative, and become designers and inventors...just so are children. ONE method for all doesn't work. When teaching phonics, visual elements have to be the vehicle. The method that WILL work for all learners is one that uses left and right brain elements at the same time.
One can imagine the testing bureaucracy that will be required to label all those snowflakes. Meanwhile, Marva Collins uses the same method with all children; and they all read by Christmas of the first year.
I use one method to teach all my students also (but it happens to include elements that reach various parts of the brain at one time), and they reach very high levels of reading success (such as 2-4th grade level in kindergarten), but I do not use phonics alone, which is what I understood you to say? If I misunderstood you, please excuse. I thought our discussion was about how wrong it is to use sight words and how phonics is the only way to teach?
This is a very interesting video coming from someone with no primary teaching experience. While I agree with you that the whole language approach to reading is completely wrong, I completely disagree that sight words are useless. Under a balanced literacy approach, sight words and phonics work together to help children read. Think about it...do you sound out every word you read. No! That's because all these words are a part of your sight word vocabulary.
This sophistry has been around for 100 years. I doubt even fluent readers use sight words; in any case, that would have NO bearing on how to teach small children, no more than what NASCAR drivers do at 200 mph tells us how to teach teens to drive. Sight Words = Illiteracy--that's more the truth. See companion video "How Dolch Words Cause Illiteracy and Dyslexia."
What a terrific way to relate the way beginning readers experience print when taught to memorize sight words in Whole Language methodology. It is exactly the reason why I see wonderfully bright, 'normal' children who are frustrated, confused, and blame themselves or think there is something wrong with them when they don't learn to read. It is not the children, but rather the WRONG methodology used to 'teach' them how to read. Bravo to a fantastic video!!
I would like to add my "Bravo" to this excellent presentation on sight-words. The harm that they have done - and continue to do - to our youth is horrific. Don Potter
I was looking at a sight word list and I don't understand why there are words on there that can be sound out. such as... " can, make, like, yellow, blue." It makes no sense to me.
Ruth5650 6 months ago
I'll get myself a copy of the book - if what is claimed is true and if the rules do not turn out to be tedious for children to learn, then nothing like it...still the language has a long way to go for somebody to just see and read it without having to remember way too many rules...thanks, nevertheless for the pointer.
yamunaharsha 6 months ago
It is not clear what 98% you talk about, but a big percentage (certainly more than 2 if not 20%) of high usage words are exceptions. See the variations in vowels in these very sentences. You read them because you use whole word reading. Else, you'd be stuck somewhere in the first line like how most children I teach to read would be if they followed the phonic system! What I'm saying is: English has far few vowels and far too many variations for the vowels to be followed phonically.GBShaw'd agree
yamunaharsha 6 months ago
@yamunaharsha Please see my review on Amazon of "Uncovering the Logic of English"
by Denise Eide.
BruceDeitrickPrice 6 months ago
@yamunaharsha But at the same time, if you didn't have any phonics background at all, you would be completely stuck if you came to a word that you didn't know/hadn't seen before.
dancinkayley 1 month ago
English has a highly confusing phonetic system, in fact so confusing that exceptions are more prevalent than the ones following the rules. This is the reason why the concept of sight words came into being: p-u-t has a different 'u' from b-u-t. How much can phonics help the child? Indian languages, are structured so you read as you write and write as you speak. English, sadly isnt that.Always wondered why linguistologists (or whatever they are called) did not come up with a solution for this.
yamunaharsha 6 months ago
@yamunaharsha Nonsense. English words are 98% phonetic. There are inconsistencies, which is not the same as saying the words aren't phonetic. Shades of blue are still blue. The u's are like shades of blue. English is 400+ years old. It has taken in words from 50+ languages. It is spoken in far-flung regions with different dialects. So inconsistencies accrue. (Much like the irregular verbs that most languages have--you memorize them.)
BruceDeitrickPrice 6 months ago
The person posting this nonsense probably sells phonics books.
hallaelementary 2 years ago
I have tremendous success using such lists. My pupils use them as "Companion" while they learning to read books etc.
They get great kicks from racing each other to learn to read & spell fast! Mum and dad also help at home!
DON'T BLAME THE TOOL IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE IT RIGHT!
sungl0 2 years ago
Please also see "How Dolch Words Cause Illiteracy and Dyslexia." It's fun and covers the subject very well. I watch it and I can't believe anyone is still messing with Sight Words.
BruceDeitrickPrice 2 years ago
this argument is absurd. young children's brains are geared toward memorizing thousands of bits of information with every experience without a problem. adult brains are not. did you just sound out every word in that sentence? you did not. yopu recognized every last one of them. if you are a competent reader, you recognize basically every english word without phonics.
giantdouche08 3 years ago
Language is spoken and learned by hearing others speak it out loud - it is fundamentally a phonetic activity. Written language is a very serious abstraction from spoken language and writing is only used to convey the meaning in the absence of the author - who "speaks" through his writing. Young children are excellent at picking up both verbal and written language - but hearing is much more important and powerful than seeing - unless the child is seeing objects named in the real world.Phonetics!
JamesHGraff 3 years ago
how is written language an abstraction? a word represents an object or idea. my two year old recognizes hundreds of sight words, he knows what the words look like and what they mean, and rarely confuses words because he is aware of context. reading and writing is almost entirely visual after the early stages, not auditory. actually, reading out loud has proven to obstruct comprehension, because reading is an internal, visual process.
giantdouche08 3 years ago
Learning a language naturally goes through phases: hearing it, hearing it and beginning to understand it, learning to imitate the sounds or learning what physical objects are represented by sounds - which can be physical objects or -one more step removed- a 2 dimensional representation of a physical object or -one more step removed- a two dimensional representation of a sound. Everyone learns and remembers best when all of the senses and emotions and intellect are engaged as much as possible.
JamesHGraff 3 years ago
Say you see the word 'hello'
Do you hear it in your head or go like 'uh... this looks like... ummm... OH, HELLO!
Your username fits you.
StopTheBob 2 years ago
Vilifying sight words misses the point. Left-brained learners can do phonics because it involves symbols, sequences, rules, drill. The issue IS that 2/3 of our children learn best with right brained approaches. Do you know that visual learners cannot learn rules, do not respond to drill? They need visuals to learn (right brain) and when they learn, it is instant. Phonics & stylized sight words used together engage both hemispheres of the brain. Google stylized sight words. See child-1st(dot)com.
sarahkm2 3 years ago
You're making money selling Dolch words?? I'll continue to trust Samuel Blumenfeld's analysis that once children start seeing words as shapes rather than sounds, they won't become fluent readers. I've seen arguments that a few sight words can't hurt, but I'd rather err on the side of caution and warn parents against any sight words.
BruceDeitrickPrice 3 years ago
Our students don't see words as shapes. This is vastly different from that. Did you go see? Are you by any chance a teacher of students who struggle? Have you worked specifically with students who are visual learners, dyslexic children? and found solutions for them that worked for the first time in their lives? I have and there is absolutely nothing like it. We teach with the stylized word first and for kids who also learn from whole to part, the approach is vital. THEN we teach phonics.
sarahkm2 3 years ago
By the way, I am able to reach this type of learner all over the globe because of the internet, and when I have parents writing me to say that their children are making sense out of reading for the first time in their lives, I am proud and grateful. I have been in the school system with the role of "mopping up" after all the testing, sorting and labeling and have been there with the kids who have no confidence left because of the label they have been given. I am glad to have a solution to offer!
sarahkm2 3 years ago
my dyslexic daughter naturally reads whole words - she doesnt seem to memorize but i have a feeling it is some sort of photographic memory. as she gets older (now nine), she encounters more words and so belatedly we have to teach her phonics
suhailiaw 3 years ago
i've had many students who learned from whole to part, which is what you are describing. visual learners do learn instantly. SO, when teaching these children, stylized sight words are essential, but also teaching the structural analysis of words (phonics of sorts) is equally essential. Many kids, however, need to understand that they can recognize whole words before the task of learning the components of words makes sense to them.
sarahkm2 3 years ago
Your story is the reason many people want to stop teaching sight words! It confuses many. My daughter is a visual learner also. She fought me when I tried to teach her phonics. She thought she already knew how to read, but she wasn't reading. In fact she didn't even look at the book most of the time. She looked in the air while she tried to find the word she had memorized. I tutor reading. The local schools teach sight words. Some kids are able to learn to read and decode without help, but why!?
pacrapacma 1 year ago
I don't believe that functional illiteracy is caused by sight words, dolch or the present methodology used just as you have said on your video. There is the socio-economic factor to consider, undiagnosed disability in speech, sight or other disablities that may contribute to it. Whole language approach may be the education system's methodology of helping children learn how to read but it's another thing spending the first 4 years at home where parents play the main role of introducing language.
gorenggorengyan 3 years ago
Well, you are right about one thing, the cause of the trouble is always something beside the school. Parents, TV, video games, drugs, the kid's genes, there are so many alibis...If you let the educators off so easily, they'll feel no pressure to improve.
BruceDeitrickPrice 3 years ago
None of these issues is "the problem." The problem is that we are teaching all children the same and children's minds are as different as snowflakes. Some adults are left-brained and are engineers (etc), while others are arty, creative, and become designers and inventors...just so are children. ONE method for all doesn't work. When teaching phonics, visual elements have to be the vehicle. The method that WILL work for all learners is one that uses left and right brain elements at the same time.
sarahkm2 3 years ago
One can imagine the testing bureaucracy that will be required to label all those snowflakes. Meanwhile, Marva Collins uses the same method with all children; and they all read by Christmas of the first year.
BruceDeitrickPrice 3 years ago
Lucky she is that all her children learn the same way.
sarahkm2 3 years ago
I use one method to teach all my students also (but it happens to include elements that reach various parts of the brain at one time), and they reach very high levels of reading success (such as 2-4th grade level in kindergarten), but I do not use phonics alone, which is what I understood you to say? If I misunderstood you, please excuse. I thought our discussion was about how wrong it is to use sight words and how phonics is the only way to teach?
sarahkm2 3 years ago
This is a very interesting video coming from someone with no primary teaching experience. While I agree with you that the whole language approach to reading is completely wrong, I completely disagree that sight words are useless. Under a balanced literacy approach, sight words and phonics work together to help children read. Think about it...do you sound out every word you read. No! That's because all these words are a part of your sight word vocabulary.
~A 4th grade teacher
lainy2121 3 years ago
This sophistry has been around for 100 years. I doubt even fluent readers use sight words; in any case, that would have NO bearing on how to teach small children, no more than what NASCAR drivers do at 200 mph tells us how to teach teens to drive. Sight Words = Illiteracy--that's more the truth. See companion video "How Dolch Words Cause Illiteracy and Dyslexia."
BruceDeitrickPrice 3 years ago
What a terrific way to relate the way beginning readers experience print when taught to memorize sight words in Whole Language methodology. It is exactly the reason why I see wonderfully bright, 'normal' children who are frustrated, confused, and blame themselves or think there is something wrong with them when they don't learn to read. It is not the children, but rather the WRONG methodology used to 'teach' them how to read. Bravo to a fantastic video!!
exceedingreading 3 years ago
I would like to add my "Bravo" to this excellent presentation on sight-words. The harm that they have done - and continue to do - to our youth is horrific. Don Potter
DonLPotter 3 years ago