why is teaching "Word Families" not good???

[1GirlTwinBoys]

I read because it's not teaching them to read from left to right. But don't they have to look to the right first to recognize silent /e/ or when two vowels are together anyway? I am so confused on all of this. :001_huh:

Edited March 9, 2009 by 1GirlTwinBoys

[Ida]

I used word families when I first started reading lessons with my eldest. We started with the "at" word family. He could read his -at book fine and dandy.Then when we tried to add on the next group (I think it was -ed?) it all fell to pieces. He was so used to looking at the first letter, making its sound and adding -at to the end, that he had a hard time when it wasn't just -at anymore. Thankfully we quickly switched to a method that emphasized blending the first two sounds together and building the sounds left to right.

 

That child is now 12 and has been a phenomenal reader for many years, but has always been an atrocious speller, as are my younger two (as is their mother-I'm pretty sure it's genetic) and I've wondered if word families for spelling once kids are reading well would work, but for beginning phonics I definitly think blending from the beginning to end is best.

[Lori D.]

No expert on spelling here. I just know that we used word families one year for son with "stealth dyslexia", and while I don't know if it helped his *spelling*, I do think that it helped him recognize vowel patterns. We didn't use word families alone for spelling, but phonics, mnemonic techniques, syllabication, and others -- so I wouldn't suggest using word families alone is teaching spelling. Just my 2 cents worth! Warmly, Lori D.

[Tabrett]

You want the brain and eye to develops the habit of looking at the word from left to right. By the time a child gets to silent e words, they have been reading from left to right, not starting in the middle and jumping back to the front like with word families.

My oldest dd just rhymed the list when we did word families. I would help her get started and she would remember the ending and fly through the word list. When we put the words in a sentence, she was lost because the words didn't rhyme and a quessing game began. j

[usetoschool]

Another thing we have found is that it develops a habit of looking at a word as a picture so to speak and memorizing the parts as in sight reading. I think a better way to learn vowel patterns etc. is to write words on cards and have them sort them by rules, 2 or 3 different rules at a time. That way they are seeing and learning the patterns as they sound out and sort the words but not memorizing anything.

[ElizabethB]

Eye movement studies suggest that you're still looking from left to right in general for a silent e word, but you read the letters from left to right in large chunks.

[razorbackmama]

Agreeing with the others. We used word families for years. Like 4-5??? It effectively taught my kids to sight read.:001_huh: Now at ages 11, 10, and 8, I'm REteaching them how to read and spell with Spalding. I think it will go faster than if they had been taught TRUE sight reading, but they definitely learned "phonics lite."

[PeterPan]

If you want the truth, it's going to vary with the dc. Some kids are not going to do well with it, and some kids are going to learn to read and spell well irrespective of the curriculum. Word families are not quite as horrible as the opponents make them sound, but not quite as harmless as the proponents claim either.

 

In the end, you need to just pick a phonics approach and do it. They all work for some kids, which is why they're still around. :)

 

BTW, I started SWR with my dd years ago, taught her to read with it, and she still is not an intuitive speller. Some kids are just bent that way. I'm glad I didn't teach her with word families, because I think it would have aggravated her propensity to that weakness.

Edited March 9, 2009 by OhElizabeth

[kdeno]

I personally like to mainly use phonics but word families have their place too :001_smile:

[ElizabethB]

Word families work fine for most children, but not so good for some that start guessing instead of sounding them out when they see the pattern.

 

Word families are useful for teaching spelling!

 

I used Alpha phonics and Phonics Pathways with many of my young students, I had a few that had troubles because of the word families in Alpha Phonics, I never had any problems with PP. (Although, many young children prefer white board over any book, but that's the only trouble I've had with PP--and, it's a book issue, not a PP issue.)

 

You can safely use Alpha Phonics if you read across instead of down!

[ElizabethB]

At the risk of sounding like a dope, what exactly are "word families"?

 

It's not inherently obvious, don't worry!

 

It's Monique and her cousin Unique:

 

http://users.nac.net/dominica/wordfam.html#-ab