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Well not entirely, anyways. A while back I was tutoring English on Saturdays to a group of kids. These kids were not having problems in school. Their parents just thought that the extra attention would accelerate their children’s learning. My class had 7 kids and they got plenty of individual attention.
One of the older children was very choppy when he read. It turns out that he was taught to read with a phonics program. We were reading Charlotte’s Web and we would read out loud in class. He didn’t like to read out loud because he was so choppy and other kids that were younger were more fluid. It was embarrassing. One day, after he had read out loud, I stopped the reading and asked him what he had read. He had no idea. Turns out all his attention was focused on sounding out the words and not understanding what he read.
This confused me to know end. Phonics had been said to be the end all, be all. Hooked on Phonics worked for the kid in the commercial. I looked at how I taught my own kids to read and yes, I taught them by sounding out words, but I also used the Dick and Jane primers that I used when I was a child. Looking at Dick and Jane, they are all about repetition and work recognition. Sure you sound out spot a couple of times, but for the next 100 instances it is simply recognizing that S-P-O-T spells spot. At that point they no longer read with phonics. I can remember the first time I realized this as a child. The word was boot. I remember that.
Look at the way that you as an adult read. The only time you sound out a word is when you are unfamiliar with it. And when you do this while reading out loud, it comes out choppy just like the kid that I tutored. Word memorization is the key. Phonics are great to learn how to pronounce unfamiliar words but should not be used when reading.
A great way to teach kids reading is with flash cards. The Dolch Sight Word list is perfect for doing these flash cards. You start with five words and you just add five more words every week. The great thing about this method is that it teaches the child to sight read. After a time the child just starts to learn to read by recognizing the word. It is awesome how quickly the child’s reading would grow with this method.
In conclusion, phonics is a great method for breaking down unfamiliar words, but should not be used as the primary learning method. I didn’t try it with my kids but the Baby Can Read program proves that you don’t need to be able to decode with phonics at all to learn to read.
