Bluegoat Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 I'd also point out that using sight words was not some new thing that came out in the 60's. CM methods used both phonics and sight words, taught in the context of actual poems and stories, in the Victorian and early 20th century. Her kids were not failing as readers - or spellers for that matter, in the way that kids in modern programs sometimes have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petepie2 Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 I use OPGTR to teaching reading. We use Bob Books as soon as possible, and then move into Sonlight's Grade 1 readers. Even in early Bob Books, words (was, saw, said, etc.) come up that we haven't covered in phonics. I just tell them the word. Sometimes I mention the phonics rule. So, I guess they learn some words by sight, even words that they may later learn phonetically. But I'm not purposely teaching them to memorize a list of sight words. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leeannpal Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 I think it's ideal to use both. The idea that they need to be done in a "pure" way in either case is a mistake, IMO. I think that a combination works well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NASDAQ Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Yes, sight words are very bad. There are very few words that must be memorised. "was" is entirely regular. a generally takes its third sound after w or before l. s can be read as /z/ and often is at the end of a word, which is why words ending with /s/ generally have a doubled s (hiss, pass, mass). "give" is regular. English words cannot end in v. "the" has the second sound of th and a schwa. "brought" is indeed difficult because ough has so many sounds (I think Spalding teaches six), but it is not irregular. If it's any comfort, OP, I find my spelling getting better as I teach phonics. I was taught reading via the whole word method, and frequently encounter phonetic rules for the first time as I prepare to teach them to my daughter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Why oh why oh why did I click on this thread :-( So it'll cost me over $800.00 to hear all the rule tunes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mandymom Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 (edited) Why oh why oh why did I click on this thread :-( So it'll cost me over $800.00 to hear all the rule tunes? Heehee...there's so much more to Phonics Road than just the rule tunes, however I do believe that the majority of them are found in Level 1. I could be wrong as I won't be buying level 2 for a few more weeks, but I believe Level 1 would get you a lot of them. ETA: I was wrong...just looked at the website, and there are more rule tunes in the other levels as well :) Plus, grammar tunes are added in Level 2! Edited March 18, 2012 by mandymom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Heehee...there's so much more to Phonics Road than just the rule tunes, however I do believe that the majority of them are found in Level 1. I could be wrong as I won't be buying level 2 for a few more weeks, but I believe Level 1 would get you a lot of them. ETA: I was wrong...just looked at the website, and there are more rule tunes in the other levels as well :) Plus, grammar tunes are added in Level 2! Sigh! And it also leads into Latin Road. Just this morning I was asking about moving from Spalding into Latin. Sigh! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mandymom Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Sigh! And it also leads into Latin Road. Just this morning I was asking about moving from Spalding into Latin. Sigh! FWIW....my older kids use Latin Road (they didn't work through PR though) and we love it too. It's my plan to take my youngest from PR on into LR. I know it's a bit expensive, but I've been able to buy LR used (but not really used....everything was intact) for the first 2 levels. I can't seem to find PR used when I need it, but every once in a while I see it pop up here in the sale section. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 That is what I was wondering. If I could go from WRTR into Latin Road. As I'm watching the PR online videos, I see things I would need to skip. Some of my tutoring students have cat phobias, and one of the level 3 books is about a cat. This wildlife in general, and cats in particular thing here in my city baffles me, coming myself from the suburbs :-0 I do love the rule tunes though. And I'm doing quite well with Spalding handwriting, but I see that PR uses the exact same font, and I'd like to see the videos and to have teacher pages as examples. I see why the program is $200.00 a level, with the DVDs, but...it's a LOT for ME. I'd need levels 1 and 2 right away as I already started my primary student with cursive. The website says I could just purchase the DVDs and teacher materials for an older student for $299.00, but ...just...wow! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 I have no opinions or comments. I'm just posting this link to Don Potter youtube videos about sight words. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanikit Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Yes, sight words are very bad. There are very few words that must be memorised. "was" is entirely regular. a generally takes its third sound after w or before l. s can be read as /z/ and often is at the end of a word, which is why words ending with /s/ generally have a doubled s (hiss, pass, mass). "give" is regular. English words cannot end in v. "the" has the second sound of th and a schwa. "brought" is indeed difficult because ough has so many sounds (I think Spalding teaches six), but it is not irregular. If it's any comfort, OP, I find my spelling getting better as I teach phonics. I was taught reading via the whole word method, and frequently encounter phonetic rules for the first time as I prepare to teach them to my daughter. Yes most words follow some phonics rule and I can teach my child all those rules but my point is: Why? Isn't it more effort to learn so many rules just for those four words - it would be far quicker and simpler to just learn what those words look like than have to figure them out based on trying out multiple rules - especially when the rule applies to so few other words. My question is: does the rule apply to enough words in the English language to bother learning the rule when learning the word or words may be quicker. And that is why I use both phonics and sight words. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cagirlintexas Posted March 18, 2012 Author Share Posted March 18, 2012 People have very strong opinions on learning to read methods. I think probably not all systems are excellent for all children...though children for whom reading comes easily will probably do fine with any of several methods.. I am realizing this now. Sounds like the combined approach is the most popular and has been effective for most people. I can totally see the issue with guessing with the addition of sight words. By now he is doing really good sounding stuff out so I am not to worried about that but I will watch for that. I am not actually teaching sight words but he seems to be picking them up. There are some apps he plays on the ipod that seem to be teaching them to him. Look I spelled Sight Words Correctly! :D although in all honestly I had to go back and correct and it looks wrong to me. In my head I keep thinking it should be spelled site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Look I spelled Sight Words Correctly! :D although in all honestly I had to go back and correct and it looks wrong to me. In my head I keep thinking it should be spelled site. You're probably getting the homonyms confused. ;) "Site" is a location or place... a "website" or the "site" where a building will be. "Sight" is something you see. So "site" would also look correct to you, especially since you might use the word "website" a lot. :) In this instance, it's "sight" because you are memorizing words by looking at them, so memorizing them by "sight". ETA: Both "site" and "sight" are clearly phonetic for reading! :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mandymom Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 (edited) Yes most words follow some phonics rule and I can teach my child all those rules but my point is: Why? Isn't it more effort to learn so many rules just for those four words - it would be far quicker and simpler to just learn what those words look like than have to figure them out based on trying out multiple rules - especially when the rule applies to so few other words. My question is: does the rule apply to enough words in the English language to bother learning the rule when learning the word or words may be quicker. And that is why I use both phonics and sight words. The rules (collective) apply to just about all English words, not just 4. I think that was some posters' point. There aren't that many true sight words. If kids learn the rules, they don't need to memorize a list of a bunch of sight words...they can determine most any word with the rules they learn and learning the sounds of each letter. I'm not a phonics purist I guess, but after going through Phonics Road with ds, I can totally see where I don't have a need to teach him sight words. He's reading on a 2nd/3rd grade level after 24 weeks of Phonics Road at age 5, and I never taught him a "sight word". Edited March 18, 2012 by mandymom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommymilkies Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Actually you gave me a good laugh. Didn't have a clue I was miss spelling those things. I rely heavily on spell check. I am the world worst speller. Going to have to watch those words more closely. This is probably an indication that studying phonics would help not only your children, but you as well. My iTouch makes me spell everything wrong. :lol: Dyslexia has been shown to be helped greatly by phonics. There are several books on the subject. If reading them is a problem, I would look for audiobooks on the subject. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 This is probably an indication that studying phonics would help not only your children, but you as well. My iTouch makes me spell everything wrong. :lol: Dyslexia has been shown to be helped greatly by phonics. There are several books on the subject. If reading them is a problem, I would look for audiobooks on the subject. My iPad and it's funky glitchy broken spellcheck is what started me on realizing I needed to remediate my spelling. It would tell me when I made a mistake, but not how to fix it. It drove me NUTS! I no longer have the iPad, but still am hooked on learning and teaching phonics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted March 19, 2012 Share Posted March 19, 2012 (edited) Yes, unfortunately, it can be that bad for some students. About 30 - 40% of students in schools that use sight words have some degree of problem reading based on hundreds of reading grade level tests I've given out. And, the guessing problems they cause can be quite difficult to eliminate, it can take months or years of work with words in isolation and nonsense words to break the guessing habit. But, it only take a few extra minutes to teach the words phonetically--for example, for s as z, just teach "these words have s as its consonant pair sound, z" and then teach "is, has, us." Someone linked to my sight word page earlier, it teaches how to sound out all but 2 of the most commonly taught sight words phonetically. Learning these rules can also help your spelling! My spelling has improved since learning the rules and reasons behind the sound/spelling patterns of English. Edited March 19, 2012 by ElizabethB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted March 19, 2012 Share Posted March 19, 2012 I've been reading this, it's a fascinating read for me. This morning, I came across this: "English words like *come* were once spelled with a U, but . . . The way Frenchmen said the /u/ sound in some stressed syllables sounded more like /o/. While French leaders controlled education, the spelling changed to O, but native Englishmen continued to say /u/." (p. 82) Interesting, I read another explanation for this, from Hanna, Paul R, Richard E. Hodges, and Jean S. Hanna, "Spelling: Structure and Strategies," 1971. p.44: During the Middle English period, a certain type of angular writing was in vogue which resulted in some ambiguity for the reader when u was followed by an m, n, or u (sometimes written v or w.) Consequently, scribes replaced the u with o, and that spelling is retained in some words used today, e.g. come, monk, love, tongue, some, honey, son. I'm not sure which is the correct version of the change, but with the above example, I have a fun exercise to help my students remember this: I tell them that I'm going to do something that teachers don't usually do--have them write messy on purpose. I tell them to write a messy "cume" and "luve" and see why the vowel would have to be changed to o to tell what the consonant is supposed to be. (Then, they can write a messy "come" and "love" and see the difference.) The students generally giggle and look around at each other as they write messily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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