Reading Strategies?...Bah humbug!

There's only one reading strategy that matters. Find out what the best teachers do. So that children learn to read by age 7. (Improve-Education.org, Bruce Deitrick Price)

http://www.Improve-Education.org

Category:

Education

Tags:

• leveling
• Rudolph
• Flesch
• reading
• comprehension
• strategies
• k-12
• children
• literacy
• teaching
• Marva
• Collins
• meaning
• phonics

[sternim77]

(Darn the limited space),cont'd: My point: I am mystified by the occasional accusation that the ed. system is relying almost exclusively on a "look-say" method for the entirety of its reading instruction. It's preposterous to think anyone would expect a child to memorize thousands of words as a mental picture rather than a perfectly "decodable" code system. I take umbrage at the accusation, dear sir! :)

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

@sternim77 Frank Smith was a reading god in this country and around the world; and he expected children to do EXACTLY what you claim is preposterous. He said kids could learn 50,000 sight-words. (See "Reading Without Nonsense.") The Education Establishment is now hiding behind the shifting blends called Balanced Literacy; but it's good to face the sad truth of the past.

Also see "42: Reading Resources" on Improve-EducationDOTorg for a quick course on reading history.

[sternim77]

Cont'd. And of course, even "sight words" are dependent upon their component letters...most teachers I know work on those simply because they show up so often in print, thus it is wise to give frequent exposure to them. They should be more aptly called "high-frequency words", since no word is a "picture", but a series of sound representations. Since reading quickly is the goal, frequent practice on those words,as well as the more reliable generalizations (CVC, CVVC, etc.) is critical.

[sternim77]

I've been teaching for 36 years in three school districts and have NEVER encountered a reliance on the "look-say" method of teaching, excepting for a small list of basic sight words with inconsistent coding. It's a wonderment to me that phonics-first crusaders (and yes, phonics is desperately important) continue to make that claim. Kids need phonics, but it is also true that some can evolve into impressive word-callers with limited comprehension of what they've read.

[MargoK]

Fantastic job of explaining what is going on in the U.S. and probably other parts of the world as well. If only more educators and administrators realized the truth in it.

[terencematthew]

we had the best education system in the world!! who took it away.the BNP will bring it back VOTE BNP