Why Teach Sight Words? - Part 1

This video is a reading taken from Geraldine Rodger's book of essays, The Case for the Prosecution (In the Trial of Silent Reading "Comprehension" Tests Charged with the Destruction of America's Schools. I read chapter 2: "Why Would Anyone in His Right Mind Want to Teach Sight Words, Anyway?"
For more information, read Raymond Laurita's "A Basic Sight Vocabulary: A Help or a Hindrance?" and "A Critical Examination of Psychology of the Whole Word Method" on my web site: www.donpotter.net.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• phonics
• sight
• words
• whole
• langauge
• dyslexia
• reading

[hallaelementary]

Phonics is garbage and this guy is a loud idiot.

[DonLPotter]

Would you like to talk to the parents of the hundreds of children that I have cured of their sight-word guessing (artificially induced dyslexia) with phonics. Would you like to visit with the adults and teenagers who have learned to read with me? How do you teach reading?

[DonLPotter]

Dear Glich30, I am not aware of any research that proves that whole-word memorization of sight-words benefit anyone, not even functionally disabled readers. I am aware that memorizing sight-words will provide students with a larger memorized-word-base from which to guess better from the context which gives a boost to silent reading comprehension scores, but at the expense of accuracy and fluency - and higher levels of comprehension. Don Potter

[fringeelements]

It's obvious that you're an educator. You don't need to talk loud on youtube.

[blazemaster234]

@hallaelementary man shut up

the only reason you think this is garbage is beacause u dont know how to read stupid

and if u think its garbage why r u watching this

now go and cry to ur mom

[shari21948]

Thanks Don for your ongoing promotion of reading the right way. I am a product of sight reading. Phonics where taken out of schools when I was learning. I am 62 and taught myself to read using phonics. I am now a college student, Honors and am also promoting Phonics...

[Tiarali]

Thanks Mr. Potter. Your website full of information has helped me to teach my daughter to read. She loves reading and has been tested to read well ahead of her peers. I am looking forward to teaching my other children to read too!

[moonchaserunlimited]

HE IS LOUD VERY LOUD

[liangjz]

I would strongly DIScourage look-say/sight words/whole language approaches for any student with a tested IQ of at least 35. It may be appropriate for a very few students who can be taught to recognize a few important words (like "EXIT," "BUS STOP," etc.) but can never have *any* level of functional reading. But it's not for the vast majority of MR students.

[liangjz]

It's the easiest way for lazy educators who have a very, very low bar for MR students' reading levels. They get the kids to second grade level and declare that they've done all that they can--which is true for MR students because they CAN'T make the see-and-say to phonics jump the way regular students can!