How Dolch Words Cause Illiteracy and Dyslexia

Dolch = Dyslexia. Why Sight Words do not work. Why we have 50,000,000 functional illiterates. (The intense sound track suggests what it must be like to be made illiterate by your own school.) (Bruce Deitrick Price / Improve-Education.org)
look-say phonics Rudolph Flesch sight words Dolch Words balanced literacy John Dewey functional illiteracy, Frank smith, kindergarten, pre-k, k-12, reading,

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• kindergarten
• pre-k
• k-12
• reading

[hilltopperchick]

Gosh, I wish someone had told me in first grade not to memorize words because it would cause me to have a learning challenge. How did I ever get through college? And what kind of idiotic teacher only uses one approach to teach reading or anything else. The key is using different strategies to reach all learners. Good grief!

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

@hilltopperchick What seems to happen for most people (e..g, you and me) is that they see the phonics inside the sight-words, and are thus spared the damage. But there seem to be lots of kids with low verbal skills, and they try their best to do what they are told, and in a few years their brains are hopelessly overwhelmed by hundreds of graphic designs, with the new ones suppressing the first ones. The US has 50,000,000 functional illiterates. That's why.

[jasongillespie2]

My child's public school teaches some phonics for spelling tests, slowly. But then reading is a completely different subject, in which they employ Dolch words and sight reading. He has been diagnosed with ADHD, although I'm not sure I totally agree with this. He does fine with the phonics that he has been taught, but on most of the sight words he glazes over. I can see him being overwhelmed and quitting with the sight words. He remembers the phonics rules and can sound words out without issues.

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

@jasongillespie2 Please Google my "There Are Two Americas and One Of Them Can't Read"--good general article.

Here's an idea. As fast as they introduce a sight-word, teach him how to sound it out. Don't let him memorize the shape.

[jenni9046]

The whole word approach works for a very few children - phonics works for everyone.  but I don't think Dolch words are meant to be taught only by the whole word approach. They basically point out that these high frequency words do not totally fit the phonics model. It doesn't mean that the phonics in these words are ignored when teaching. The fact that Dolch words are listed does not mean that all words need to be taught by sight, in fact it is meant to be the opposite.

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

@jenni9046

Well, in Balanced Literacy the last 10 years, the so-called experts are always twisting and turning to make their sophistries seem sensible. But I do believe that, historically, Dolch Words, like Fry's Instant Words, were just variations on a theme; and that theme is Sight-Words.

[2001morrisfamily]

Children who live in homes with highly educated parents who read books and read to them learn to read well regardless of the approach. They have larger vocabularies and perform better on tests. Yes, there are exceptions, but this is generally the rule.

[reelphresh]

I think it's easier the young a child is to learn from sight. My 2 and a half year old reads close captioning.

[hilltopperchick]

@BruceDeitrickPrice I am a true believer in phonics. I knew words from memorization from my family reading to me before I learned phonics. I love, love, love, teaching phonics but some children/people just can't comprehend phonics. I just don't think a teacher should concentrate on one strategy for anything. If you just use phonics and disregard sight words you are not reaching all learners.

[cornwallgeezer]

I teach in Taiwan and the dolch books are bollocks, to make matters worse is that not only having to recognize the words they need to then put them into gap fill sentences. And remember English is obviously not even their first language and one of the only ways to prepare them for gap fill tests is to give them easier examples of how these words can be used in different context, usually confusing them further. Phonics with reading is the way to go, if this is an American curriculum? A joke!